The very beginning, birth in a house overlooking the small college of Heliopolis: “The 14 years spent at the Jesuit Fathers in Cairo were very formative both culturally and personally. Thanks to Father Ahadoberry I take an early taste for art classes. The film club founded by Father Paul Warren has exposed us to the visual language of cinema and its classics. With Father Robert Clement as we discover the great works of thought and French literature. On a personal level, the sense of effort, commitment to excellence, sense of responsibility and social commitment that are constantly put forward by our teachers. ”
“I will not forget Father Robert Clement, who, despite his attack of sciatica, we gathered around his bed in the clinic school, to give us his lecture on French literature.”
“The ceremony of awarding annually celebrated in grand style with the presence of the ambassador of France, the leading men and Egyptian parents was a great event in the life of the school, rewarding excellence and strengthening incentives.
Baccalauréat Franco-Egyptian (2nd promotion) and tray Egypt (7th promotion) is the hands of President Nasser received his diploma and a commemorative plaque during the Festival of Science.
“That memory is etched in my memory as young. He had symbolic value of the assessment made by the state in the personality of its greatest exponent, knowledge and excellence. ”
At the university, from 1960 is a more open world, the image of Egypt he discovers. Social engagement is transformed into political engagement. Is also the discovery of Europe through an industrial internship in Germany. He obtained his engineering degree in electronics and telecommunication in 1965 and was appointed assistant. Teaching and research in an Egypt became industrialized, have quickly gained the upper hand in its concerns.
In 1967, while preparing to leave in North America to pursue his doctoral degree is the defeat of June 1967.
“This event was a shock. He left a bitter taste in my mouth. An occupied Egypt, it was unimaginable and unacceptable. The awakening to reality was hard.
Is also a general mobilization. 3 years as an instructor at the Armor School, he helped rebuild the Egyptian army during the war of attrition. This episode may explain its character go-getter!
Taking advantage of a scholarship in France, he went to study interrupted for four years and it is pouring rain and fast subway strike happens in Paris October 13, 1971.
“France is a booming political and cultural, still under the effect of events in May 1968, I discovered. Coming from a country where the political scene was dominated by the single party, I am dazzled by the diversity and intensity of political debate.
“The cultural scene was even more dazzling and I did not lose: the daily reading of the World, the Avignon Festival, the Festival Aix-en-Provence, the Festival de Cannes. It was also the disturbing discovery of the consumer society and its wealth of goods.
“This first trip to France was of great intensity and a very rich research, culture, politics, everything was there. I even taught a lecture to control EEA, assured of attendances at the School of Physics, IUT de Marseille and the Promotion superior work. ”
Returning to Egypt in 1977, he resumed his teaching and research positions and operates two teams: the first at the Faculty of Engineering, the second at the Center for Telecommunications.
“Teaching brings this invigorating contact with young people, full of idealism and enthusiasm, a contact without any hierarchical relationship. It is a work of motivation and learning of critical thinking, wonder and creativity. ”
In research, his concern was always to put his knowledge to the economic development of Egypt.
In 1984 he was appointed, along with his university duties, deputy director of the National Research Institute of Telecommunications (INT) which he co-founder. In 1986, his research is rewarded by the State Prize for Research awarded by the Academy of Sciences.
“Upon my return, I contributed greatly to the development of scientific cooperation between France and Egypt as advisor CEDUST and through the numerous agreements signed between the University of Cairo and INT on the one hand and universities and French schools, on the other.
It is also mounting major training courses in collaboration with CNET, Sup Telecom Paris and major French companies, bringing in advanced telecommunications.
In 1994 he was appointed cultural advisor and head of the Egyptian academic mission in Paris. “For me it was a complete surprise especially since I never tried to position myself for this position. But it was also a great joy and great fear for this new challenge. ”
While in Paris, he worked the assembly of major cultural events like “The Forgotten Cairo at the Musée d’Orsay,” The burning of Nantes, with the participation of over 300 artists, musicians, scholars, intellectuals and actors of all kinds, “Les Belles outsider” where a dozen prominent writers and poets ply Egyptian France to great length to present and discuss their works, etc..
“More than twenty years after my first visit to France, I launched headlong into this new adventure. Demonstrations, in collaboration with leading French cultural institutions, has added original programming Egyptian Cultural Center on Boulevard Saint-Michel and the computerization of the academic mission. ”
In 1995, he became the CEO of the National Telecommunications. Another new challenge at a time when pierced major technological changes and regulators in this emerging field.
Despite a rather short stay in these positions, he undertook a very intensive activity technology modernization, administrative restructuring and deregulation. It introduces new services: VSAT, ISDN, Internet and especially the mobile (GSM). It contributes to the further digitalisation of the telephone network and increasing the number of lines installed each year (mega) and the widespread deployment of optical fibers in the transmission network.
Is also with him that began the first steps towards deregulation and the introduction of the first private operators (VSAT, telephone booths, Internet operator Geganet).
“It was a very intense period that gave rise to very important achievements and opened the way for the corporation and the privatization of Telecom Egypt and I am proud to have been the actor of metamorphosis technological, administrative and structural.
Returning to college after a resignation hit the headlines at this time, he directs the Center for Research Development and Technology Planning, whose mission is to develop relations between universities and industry.
“The cash resulting in annual contracts between Cairo University and the Ministry of Industry has grown 20 times in the space of three years. Of out sourcing contracts with U.S. companies, Canadian, Chinese and French in the advanced fields of embedded software and micro-electronics have led to the first start-up industrial Cairo University. Simultaneously, he became, from 2001, the Board of Directors of the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Chairman of Research in Information Technologies and Communication of the Academy of Sciences.
In addition, Dr Osman has been from the first hours, a member of the preparatory committee of the French University in Egypt (UFE) and chaired the academic committee responsible for preparing the draft academic and teaching model of the LEU, presented to the Minister of Higher Education.
“Our main objective was the creation of a quality university education that would bring to Egypt frameworks necessary for its economic and sociocultural development and would be a main vehicle for transferring knowledge and expertise in French and Egypt a driving force in Egyptian-French partnership. ” This objective is achieved since the UFE in 2008 received the Grand Prize Cultural Foundation Louis D presented under the dome of the Institute.
“We propose not only to train excellent professionals but also to offer our students an environment conducive to the development of their personalities and to make young women and young men of dialogue and openness recognize that the universality of human values is not inconsistent with their cultural specificity. Young women and young men who have weapons cultural allow them to fight against impoverishment and uniformity mindless unanimity and citizens aware of the political, socioeconomic and cultural issues in Egypt and human community.
These are students who have received for the second consecutive time the price SIFE teams at 18 public and private universities and represent Egypt in the international competition in Berlin in October. For his work, Dr. Osman received the 1996 Order of Merit (1st Class) President of the Republic. For thirty years of cooperation with France, in various capacities, he received in 2007 the insignia of Officer of the Order of Academic Palms.
