What on Earth is Gordon doing in Egypt? Part I

By this point you might be thinking 'Great, Gordon is in Egypt, but what is he doing most of the time?'. Well, I'm not hanging out in ancient temples or cruising around on a camel (well, not yet).

Just a quick recap on what I study at UCT (feel free to skip this paragraph if you already know, or are bored): Electrical and Computer Engineering. This means that I basically do a BSc in Computer Science. I study everything that relates to Computers - Architecture(how it physically works), software engineering(how you systematically produce cool stuff to run on computers), data structures(how you organise your information), databases(how you structure your data structures), you get the picture. Then there is the electrical engineering part, which is light current focused. This means I mostly deal with electronics, especially digital electronics (which are used to build computers). You might be noticing a pattern by now.

I really enjoy it, considering that we study a huge range of technology that is extremely important. One particular area that I am really interested in is telecommunications, which in my not so humble opinion drive the modern world. On the downside, the degree makes us the nerds' nerds. I mean really, other engineering students get us to pick their computers. The Cairo street cats in the above photo have absolutely nothing to do with my degree, which is nowhere as cute.

Now back to the subject matter, what is occupying my time. As you might recall, Ismail runs a telecommunictations company, Systel. They provide and operate Motorola technology in Egypt. Not necessarily phones, although they do have quite a few classy phone shops. Mainly they work with the GSM (standard cellphone) infrastructure for the major providers (Vodaphone, Mobinil, something else), and provide a TETRA (similiar to GSM, but with walkie-talkie functions) network for the government's emergency services. The photo above is from their Zamalek offices(an island in Nile, near the centre of Cairo), where I worked today, on some hardware stuff. Ahmed, Ismail's younger son, who has a degree in Electronics and Communications, and has been working with the equipment for the last few months, and was giving me the grand tour today.

Systel also has quite an impressive building out in an area of Cairo called 6th October (apparently an important date). It is in an IT industrial park called the Smart Village, with all the big names in Egyptian (and World) IT. This photo is from the big highway that heads out that way from the city. It is surrounded by, in parts: a forest of palm trees, extensive agriculture and, rather worryingly, a new huge shopping mall. At the Smart Village Office, Systel develops software for telecommunication applications. Omar, Ismail's older son, who is doing a Masters in Software Engineering is one of their lead developers. Yesterday he was giving me a run down of the software they have been developing for the TETRA network, which is pretty cool.


For the last fews days I have been reading up the documentation on the some of the Motorola systems that Systel works with, and hopefully on Sunday I can get down to something useful.Yes, that is right, Sunday. Because the weekend is Friday and Saturday! That is going to have to take a little getting used to (luckily I am starting with a shorter week, rather than a longer one). Another thing that is going to have to take a little getting used to is the early sunset. Of course it is winter here, but still 5:30pm is a bit early. But I can't change these things, so it is safe to moan about them (a matter of personal preference).

Anyways, we are going out soon, considering it is a Thursday night (aka Friday night back home). So onwards, upwards and outwards!

Coming Soon: Cairo at night - "normal" vs Egyptian cafes!