8 million sign up for ‘Egyptian Bank of Knowledge’ website

Eight million Egyptians signed up for the newly launched “Egyptian Bank of Knowledge” on its first day of operation Saturday, an Egyptian official told Al-Ahram Arabic news website Sunday.

The project, which was launched by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Saturday, aims to gather international encyclopaedias, online publications, research papers, theses, books and articles in one website which will be accessible to any user with an Egyptian IP address.

The publications available via the Knowledge Bank include Nature, National Geographic and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The website was soft-launched on Saturday, ahead of a full launch on 23 January.

Huda Abu Shady, a member of the Egyptian Specialized Council for Education and Scientific Research, told Al-Ahram Arabic that the website will be more developed and more visualised data will be added before 23 January.

Several projects targeting young people were also announced by the president on Saturday, such as loans from the Central Bank of Egypt available to allow young people start their own businesses.

In a speech marking National Youth Day, the president said that such loans could benefit up to 350,000 youth-run companies, which would provide jobs to over four million employees.

source:Ahram Online