Open A.I.R. Comes to A2K4D Workshop at AUC

By Mirit Agaiby, Seif Issa, Wadie Zakhary and Yasmin Ashmawy

Cairo, Egypt - Law and business faculty members in the annual Access 2 Knowledge 4 Development Workshop discussed intellectual property and innovation to enhance development in Africa, on Monday, June 16, 2014, at the American University in Cairo.

Members of the Open African Innovation Research Network (Open A.I.R.) who joined the session as panelists were: Nagham El Houssamy, as chair, and Nagla Rizk, an economics professor from AUC’s School of Business. Faculty of Law members at the University of Ottawa, Canada, Jeremy de Beer and Chidi Oguamanam, were also present. The other panelists included Research Fellow Douglas Gichuki from Center for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law at Strathmore University, Kenya, and Dick Kawooya, assistant professor at University of South Carolina, United States.

Open A.I.R. aspires to better the economies of African countries through emphasizing the evolution of knowledge governance, innovation and intellectual property, starting now until the year 2035.

The workshop’s focus was to discuss the two books that the panelists either co-authored or edited: “Innovation & Intellectual Property: Collaborative Dynamics in Africa,” and “Knowledge & Innovation in Africa: Scenarios for the Future.”

The presenters displayed two short movies, explaining their developmental works in Africa, and summarized the findings of both books.

The first book, “Innovation & Intellectual Property: Collaborative Dynamics in Africa,” tackles case studies on the complex relationships between innovation and intellectual property from nine countries in Africa.

During the discussion of this book, Kawooya stressed on dividing “the Collabrative Intellectual Property into formal and informal interactions.”

“Knowledge & Innovation in Africa: Scenarios for the Future,” discussed three possible scenarios for Africa’s future; “wireless engagement,” “informal is the new formal,” and “sincerely, Africa.” Both books are available for free download.

Shirin Elahi, Open A.I.R Scenarios consultant, illustrated that everyone creates future scenarios in their own heads.

“If I do this, this might happen. Whilst if I do this decision, the route is more likely to be that,” Elahi explained in the video. 

Open A.I.R. spent three years researching scenarios in Africa to better predict the population’s future. Its first draft of the report on these scenarios was revealed at a conference in Cape Town in 2012. 

“We hope that this research would be very useful in practice. We did not do this research so that it could sit on libraries’ shelves,” related de Beer, during an interview.

Open A.I.R. will also participate in next year's A2K4D Workshop at AUC, which will be held in June 2015, to summarize their latest findings and research. 

Below is a slideshow with all the tweets that were live tweeted during the session.

A Musical History of the Muwashah

By: Mireille Aziz, Yomna Dalam and Nora Elbadawy

CAIRO, Egypt- On Sunday April 6^th, The Department of Arabic and Islamic Civilization in The American University in Cairo, AUC, hosted the lecture “A Musical History of the Muwashah” by Dr. Dwight Reynolds, professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The lecture took place in the Mohamed Shafik Gabr Hall.

The lecture was brief, straight to the point and provided a great insight about a genre of music which many people are not familiar with. Reynolds started by defining Muwashah as a form of poetry which arose from medieval Muslim Spain, Andalusia, originating from the 10^th-11^th century. Reynolds further explained, "Muwashah is a form and genre of poetry; however, Muwashah has always been mainly a form of music and song." Reynolds added to that by emphasizing on the point that Muwashah cannot be separated from its musical aspect since it is not only a type of poetry; it is also a type of song. The two main instruments used in Muwashah music are the Arabic loot, which is known as the Oud, and the Rebab.

Preceding the period of the Muwashah, there was the period of the Sawt; it was the period which transformed poems to songs. Reynolds further explained the difference between the period which transformed poems to songs and the Muwashah by referring to several examples from Kitab al-Aghani – The Book of Songs. Furthermore, Reynolds added that there are two different techniques in Muwashahs: logocentric and melocentric. Logocentric is when the Muwashah focuses on the text and lyrics while melocentric is when the Muwashah focuses on the music.

Reynolds stated that regardless of the two techniques that can be used in a Muwashah, it can always be identified from its basic formal characteristics which include two halves and a break in the middle. It also has a kafya (rhyme) which is the same throughout the whole Muwashah. In addition to that, Muwashah patterns with multiple rhymes, alternating groups of long and short lines. The texts were usually long - between 20-25 verses. Contrary to several old views in the past, Muwashahs are not composed as poems and then transformed to songs; they were originally composed as songs. However, there is a technique called contrafactum by which poets, who were not composers and wished to create Muwashahs, would write their own poems and put their words to other people’s melodies and form a Muwashah. Reynolds ended the lecture by explaining that Muwashahs have the same form; however, they have different social meanings and different statuses in each region.

Katiana Talib, a translator, found the lecture extremely interesting; she was fascinated by the examples Reynolds provided during his discourse. She also told us that she listens to a lot of music and has heard Muwashahs before but she has never studied about them. Dr. Adam Talib, the organizer of the event and a classical Arabic literature professor at AUC, told us "I chose to have a lecture about Muwashah music particularly because students do not know anything about Arabic music and I want to encourage them to learn more about it."

Can E- Governance Reduce Corruption?

By: Haidy Abdrabou, Nouri Hassabalh and Mohamed Soliman.  
 Cairo, Egypt--On Sunday April 2nd , 2014, at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Dr.  Shahjahan Bhuiyan, professor at School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in AUC talked about E-governance, how it functions and how successful it is in many developing countries like Kazakhstan and others.

Dr. Bhuiyan talked about e-governance, he mentioned that it is one of the "ambitious projects" in the developing countries. He talked about it in a way of the vending machine theory, which is providing services for the people. The need of e-governance in order to provide the customer, it works by customer focused effect, easy to use services for citizens and businesses. One of many pros of e-governance were it would reduce financial crises, as it would save a lot of money for governments to take care of other problems.

One prominent problem was corruption, e-governance reduces corruption. E-governance is all about the technology and internet connections, it reduces human contact, so as a result it would reduce many forms of corruptions for instance bribes, blackmailing and other problems. Corruption kills the capacities for governments to work and function.  E- Governance would make everything easier for the citizens; it has been applied in many countries like, India and Kazakhstan.

Most people have access to all of the information; this means people would be aware of what their governments are doing, throughout the lecture Dr. Bhuiyan showed many statistics about how successful e-governance in India since 2008, till 2013, and it showed a huge decrease in the index of minimizing the corruption phenomena.

During the interview, Dr. Bhuiyan mentioned that e-governance in Egypt was working, before the January 25th revolution, adding it to the list of countries that, he discussed in the lecture, which were India, Kazakhstan and Pakistan. It was working well, but people could not feel it from the amounts of corruption that was existing during that time. As people of Egypt didn't have the access to all of the information and that most of it were falsified, in a way, they were not reflecting the truth.
Lastly, Dr. Bhuiyan added that, e-governance won’t work out unless, the society demands it, as it has to be the people's wish to have a system like this, “civil society have to be empowered to make such system accountable.” One of the attendees, Dr. Khaled Abdelhalim, assistant professor of Urban policy, PPAD. He added in his interview that e-governance would only be efficient, when there is "public awareness and societal will."

"Al-Mutanabbi In His Own Words" Lecture

By Yara Al Kaweesh, Yasmine Tawfik, Yara El Said

CAIRO, Egypt-  Dr. Adam Talib, assistant professor of Classical Arabic Literature in

the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations (ARIC), gave a lecture called "Al-

Mutanabbi In His Own Words," on Monday in the Rare Books and Special

Collections Library of the American University in Cairo.

 Talib started his lecture by introducing Al-Mutanabbi himself. He quoted

that he is "the most famous poet of Arabic literature in about 1400 years, he's much

more impressive than Shakespeare, so he's a big deal." He expressed that the reason

why he chose to talk about him is because how he is to many Iraqis a national and a

pan-Arab figure. 

Further in the lecture, Talib mentions the strong relationship between Al-

Mutanabbi and Saif Al Dawla. Al-Mutanabbi had a powerful dual rule during the

ruling of Saif Al Dawla, and was the official representative of that kingdom.

Talib also mentioned that Al-Mutanabbi received a lot of criticism for his

writings. People criticized his tendency of being paid for his poems. People also felt

that he did not write enough poems about love and praising the Prophet, yet focused

on praising the ruler. Therefore,Talib claims that people misunderstand the role

of poets in the society.

When Talib concluded his lecture, he received a great round of applause.

Some people started asking questions. Their main interest was why he chose to talk

about Al-Mutanabbi. Talib explained that it was because he is a pan-Arab figure

and that there is a larger exhibition called "Al Mutannabi Street Starts Here" where

he was responsible to talk about the person behind the street's name. This lecture

was part of "Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here" exhibition, which is part of an

international tour by a San Francisco-based project. The Rare Books and Special

Collections Library, AUC, is hosting this exhibition. The exhibition began on 5

March 2014 and will end on 30 August 2014, from Sundays to Thursdays at 10 a.m.

to 3:30 p.m.

Nadine Awadalla, an AUC student, who attended the lecture said "it was

really informative, the professor gave us a couple of examples of Al-Mutanabbi's

poetry and he talked about his influences." So the lecture seemed a success.

How Did the Arab Spring Shift from a Series of Uprisings to Polarization?

By Karima Ragab, Nushka Gatwary and Youmna El Sherbiny

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CAIRO, Egypt- The Middle East Studies Center welcomed journalist and political analyst Issandr El Amrani to discuss the shift of the Arab Spring from the contagion of revolution to the contagion of polarization specifically in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. 

        The lecture was hosted in The American University in Cairo last Wednesday in the Alsaud Hall. Sherene Seikaly, director of the Middle East Studies Center, assistant professor Adam Talib as well as other students, staff and faculty members attended the lecture.

        El Amrani started off his lecture by explaining how his personal experiences and insights enabled him to cover the succession of events taking place in the Middle East clarifying his preference in using the term “Arab Uprisings” instead of “Arab Spring.” “What happened in Tunisia didn’t stay in Tunisia and what happened in Egypt didn’t stay in Egypt," said El Amrani confirming that all countries are indirectly affected by one another.

        Although there was a contagion of revolution that was initiated by Tunisia in 2011, there were many preconditions that led to these waves of protests not only regionally, but domestically. For example, the issue of “tawreeth” which, in Egypt’s case, meant the succession of Gamal Mubarak as president following the footsteps of Hosny Mubarak.

       The main polarization in the three countries lies between the Islamists, liberals and members of the former regime. There are many differences between those who are called secularists and Islamists; for instance, the dilemma of the judicial system, the role of women and the interference of religion with the public life. Accordingly, in Egypt’s case, the issue of having an Islamic or non- Islamic regime is highly questioned, as Egypt is known for having a big non-Islamists minority.

       However, “Far from being an ideological battle. It is also a battle of control of resources," El Amrani said. The three countries’ major concern is shifting to corporatism. For example, Libya’s resource of oil which, clarifies why the Arab world perceives Libya as a powerful country.