800 students participated representing 13 universities: Dr. Amr Salama distributes the graduation certificates of the third run of electronic universities "Microsoft .Net University program"

Cairo- December 7th 2004 Dr. Amr Salama, Minister of Higher Education distributes the graduation certificates of the third run of electronic universities "Microsoft .Net University program" today. It is worth noting that 800 students from different universities participated in the program and the competition. The program is in collaboration with the private sector and aims at empowering young students through introducing them to the latest international technological tools thus improving their skills to be globally competitive.

"The Microsoft .Net university program, conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education, Supreme Council for Universities, and Microsoft Egypt is an annual event supporting students' graduation projects and acts as a catalyst to create a generation of skilful software developers that is acquired through practical and theoretical practices offered to students based on the latest effective development technologies", stated Dr. Abdallah Barakat, Head of Supreme Council for Universities. "Such practices acquired at early stages of education is truly one of the main contributors to building a strong infrastructure for a knowledge based society", added Dr. Barakat.

"Microsoft Egypt has worked on developing the framework of this year's program by including a competition between participating universities to develop their capabilities and ideas and adding the Egyptian flair to Microsoft Windows software through "Windows Theme Competition", declared Karim Ramadan, General Manager, Microsoft Egypt. "Five Egyptian Students were winner of this competition and will receive their awards alongside the graduates of the Microsoft.Net University program during the event", he added.

This year's run will feature a meeting between the presidents of the Egyptian universities, officials in charge of university education and specialists from Microsoft to discuss the role that the company can play to support higher educational institutions to develop education in Egypt.