LINK Development announces new educational and community initiatives to promote talent building within Egypt

The initiatives will work to cultivate local IT talent and to promote a mindset of ongoing training, skill development and certification in line with international standards.

This programme comes in line with the Egyptian government's strategy to build a strong IT skills base in order to serve the IT requirements of the country, and to position Egypt as an important player in the global IT outsourcing industry.

"Education and talent development is an area that we feel particularly passionate about and hopefully have set an example in our commitment to creating a highly capable and skilled developer community in Egypt," explains Hanan Abdel Meguid. "As a member of ITIDA, the Egyptian Government's IT Industry Development Authority, we have long been working to help drive e-government and e-business in the country and to boost its IT exports".

A particular objective of LINK Development's training and skill development programme is to work closely with universities to help bridge the gap between the business world and academia.

Recently, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Faculty of Fine Arts of Helwan University to help align student education in the areas of web technologies and usability with industry requirements and to facilitate employment after graduation.

The company will provide students with free web design training, internships and employment opportunities.

This initiative builds on the company's previous work on the academic front, where it regularly sponsors graduation projects in various universities.

LINK Development's CEO is also a long-time member of the advisory board that develops the academic curriculum for the Computer Science department of the American University in Cairo, with the aim of aligning it with industry requirements.

In addition to education, the company has also been working with other IT companies to introduce initiatives for the benefit of the software developer community in Egypt.

Due to its strong focus on online user experience and usability of the web, LINK Development recently partnered with Adobe to create a User Experience community called 'UX Gurus'.

This association facilitates collaboration among developers on the user experience aspect of software development and organises events that help share information on tools, technologies, trends and best practices.

The company also supports Microsoft in its annual Developer Conference, which took place recently and drew over a 1500 developers.

CEO Hanan Abdel Meguid participated in the keynote session and senior members of the LINK Development team also held a number of interactive sessions to transfer knowledge and expertise in software development.

The company's objective to sustain and grow the talent of software developers has led in the past to its establishment of www.barmagy.com, a community which helps to build individual developers' expertise through the exchange of knowledge and experience.

As the largest and fastest growing software development companies in Egypt, with the unique combination of creative web design and software development skills, Abdel Meguid believes that talent development is an important aspect of the company's role in the community.

"We are using the breadth of our skills and the sheer size of our development team to the benefit of the community by engaging in various initiatives that promote individual excellence and advancement within the developer community."