Dr. Ashraf Aboshosha

″This mobility enables me to finalize all my duties wherever I am.″

Community member Dr. Ashraf Aboshosha from Cairo/Egypt is a mobile professional in more than one respect: he is the Editor in Chief of the International Congress for Global Science and Technology, ICGST, and works as Computer Lecturer at the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority (EAEA). The Germany Alumni depicts how important modern technology is in order to assure a better life of all people.

Dr. Aboshosha, in which regard do you deal with tools and methodologies of mobile technology in your daily work environment?
Dr. Aboshosha: Mobile computing and mobile communications are essential tools for me as a computer researcher. This mobility enables me to finalize all my duties wherever I am. Simply, it gives me the freedom.

What does your working environment look like? Please depict how you apply mobile technologies, IT-tools and software.
My working environment is a computer laboratory with stationary and mobile unites. For me it is a hobby and a job at the same time. I enjoy working in the field of IT as anyone who enjoys his hobbies. The mobility in IT became a base for future developments.

How did you get involved with the technology?
By chance, my dream was being a civil engineer but the governmental rules forced me to join the faculty of electronic engineering. I decided to love this field as I became an electronic engineer. After that, my dream was getting a Ph.D. degree from the USA but then I joined German academic institutions. I learned German as far as I could and the German culture became a part of me. It is a complete five years of my life. So, it is not too important to get all what you like but it is great to like what you get.

What do you consider the biggest challenge regarding the use of modern technology in your homecountry and what are the biggest benefits and advantages?
The biggest challenge of using modern technology in Egypt is to develop the infrastructure of the country to suite these technologies. The most important benefit is to employ this technology to create more jobs, to fight illiteracy, to disseminate human rights and democracy. The most important advantages of using modern technology in Egypt is to assure the dignity, freedom and justice for all people and to make a better life for the nation.

What is your opinion of its future perspectives?
It is important to join the IT era as a developer and partner not as a consumer. Also, to compete in a global market on equal foots with the others.

Has the study programme in Germany helped you to improve the exchange of Know how with your colleagues?
My study in Germany taught me to consider the open source development and the constructive development with the others.
The most important thing that I learned was how to be a positive donor of know-how without fearing to lose your superiority.
We, I and my students, are a team and I try to help them to overcome the problems as far as I can. I teach them how to exchange the know-how without discrimination among them. We are together, this is our feeling.

Are you member of a network, which works as a platform for knowledge transfer/a Community of Practice? If yes, on what topic and how can you measure the 'outcome'?
I am a member of DAAD Alumni and I established ICGST community for my journal. The results are many seminars, conferences, courses and hundreds of open access academic articles.

What are the main challenges to implement new forms (mobile, IT) Technology in your professional field?
It is the preservation of the quality measures of all aspects.

Which means do you use for your personal life? (Do you have a pocket book, a smart phone? Or do you use special computer programmes?
Laptops and smart phones are a part of my personal and family life. My children enjoy these mobile solutions as well and they are more professional than me in using these technologies.

From 1997 to 1998 Ashraf Aboshosha was guest researcher at the central laboratory for electronics (ZEL), research centre Jülich (FZJ), Germany. From 2000 to 2004, he was a doctoral student (DAAD-scholarship) at Wilhelm Schickard Institute for informatics (WSI), Eberhard-Karls-University, Tübingen. The subject of his doctor thesis was "adaptive navigation and motion planning for autonomous mobile robots". He is the organizer and co-organizer of several international conferences on computer science and engineering.


Interview: Sabine Müller, April 2011

Related links

ICGST