| Title | The Dream of Developing a Knowledge Bank for All |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Interview with Majed M. Al Sadek |
| Contributor | Linda Herrera (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0489.20 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0489/chapters/10.11647/obp.0489.20 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Linda Herrera |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2025-11-17 |
| Long abstract | Majed Al Sadek, Head of the Egyptian National Scientific and Technical Information Network (ENSTINET), used to think that the idea of a knowledge bank that would be freely available to the entire country was an impossible dream. The establishment of the Egyptian knowledge Bank (EKB) in 2016 was possible through a unique set of collaborations and commitments from different government ministries, agencies and centers, publishers, technology platforms and companies, schools, and end users. Experts working on the platform are vigilant about data security and are constantly looking for ways to redress digital inequality and financing of the project. Al Sadek asserts that the EKB has forever changed education in Egypt with far reaching implications for the region and beyond. |
| Page range | pp. 341–360 |
| Print length | 20 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
Linda Herrera is Professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership in the Global Studies in Education program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was director of the Education 2.0 Research and Documentation Project in Egypt and served as an international education advisor. A social anthropologist with expertise in the Middle East and North Africa, her research and teaching cover a range of areas including education and power, youth studies, citizenship education and critical democracy, technology and society, and international education development. Her books include, Educating Egypt: Civic Values and Ideological Struggles (American University in Cairo Press, 2022), Global Middle East: Into the Twenty-First Century (with A. Bayat, University of California Press, 2021), Revolution in the Age of Social Media (Verso, 2014), Wired Citizenship: Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East (Routledge, 2014), Being Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North (with A. Bayat, Oxford University Press, 2010), and Cultures of Arab Schooling: Critical Ethnographies from Egypt (with C. A. Torres, State University of New York Press, 2006).