Egypt is a mausoleum of dead pharoahs and aborted visions.  Without going into detail, let it be said that the assumption of failure is so great that locals, driving by Smart Village's bejewelled pyramid on the Cairo-Alexandira Road, simply shrug when you ask what it's all about.  They've become a bit stingy with hope.

But take another look folks.  Smart Village, a business park dedicated to the blossoming of technology in Egypt, seems to be realizing its intelligently conceived and well-excuted purpose.

Smart Village, on Cairo's desert edge, offers a green technological home port for multinations like Microsoft. Xceed, Intel, HP, Oracle, Mobinil, Vodafone, etc.  The stark white buildings with their signature blue-glazed windows overlook 100,000 trees planted as a downpayment on global climatic health.

But it's the concept that really dazzles.  The entire campus is designed with the idea of nurturing Egypt's nascent technology sector.

The idea was to get the tech talent out of downtown where they were suffocating from lack of space and generally inadequate infrastructure, then cluster them in a park-like setting, which would invite cross-fertilization.

Small incubator companies set up next to the granddaddies so the new have access to the experience of the more mature and the older can dip into the innovative energy of the young.  A Micro Innovation Center stirs up more creative juice.  Furthermore, the Village, in partnership with the government subsidizes learning and training programs, many of them specifically designed for the needs of the businesses located in the park.

But the idea was not just to create any old competenet tech park.  Smart Village is dedicated to the Egyptian community: to foster local talent, build the local knowledge base, fire up research and wholly enrich the lives of those who work there.

Happily, reports  its CEO, Amr Aboualam, Eng., when they began contracting for the development of the park, "we realized we had all the talent we needed right here in Egypt.  "Our architects, engineers, landscape desiogners, contractors, builders - all from Egypt."  Egyptians continue to fully manage the enterprise.

On-site nursery school

Community Building
Smart Village drawn on the best practices of community building: restaurants, cafes, patios and gardens invite conversation and networking: health clubs, sports facilities invite families in.  There are schools for the kids and special events pepper the weekends. A community newsletter goes out monthly, filled with pictures of charitable groups, visits from international events and campus news.

Employees, the majority of whom live in new, nearby housing communities, can easily pop over for activities - without having to engage Cairo's famously coagulated traffic.

They call them "ninjas."

Green
While the green theme hasn't yet caught on in Egypt, Smart Village's got it.  The cacro environmental benefit is the siting of the park.  It's placed off scarce agricultural land.  It is rumour that the management even risisted laying down a golf course, a de rigeur high status symbol. 

The buildings themselves must be as environemntally harmless as possible.  Each one is carefully sited and uses reflective glass and shades to control  for light and heat,as well as natural gas for air-conditing and recycled water.  The new Oracle Building is aiming for LEED's certification.

The Village has its own plant nursery and orange grove.

Fundamentals
Ahmed Nazif, now Egypt's prime minister, is credited for getting the Smart Village idea going and, by 1999, putting together the public/private partnership that allowed it to take off.  In 2003, it opened its first buildings, many of them government ministries but including Microsoft, on 1000 feddans (1000 acres/4004 hectares) of land. The park now covers 20,000 feddans and continues to grow: Oracle came in 2007, Mobinil in 2008 and Vodafone in 2009

The buildings are owned and maintained by Smart Village.

With this record of success, it's hardly surprising that the company is pumping the idea of Smart Village in other cities in Egypt - Damietta, Alexandria and Assyut, not to mention in Sub-Saharn Africa and the Middle East.

CEO Aboualam says that the Village shows and profit and that, while the recession has influenced the rate of new recruits, there have been few layoffs.

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