3 November 2026
Ahead of the THE Arab Awards on 4 November, Hugh Martin has been speaking with those shortlisted for the AQ-sponsored Leadership and Management Team of the Year Award, hearing the stories behind their submissions and learning more about the people, ideas and achievements making a real difference across higher education. It’s been a great opportunity to hear directly about their work and share the impact they’re having across the sector.
In this interview, Hugh spoke to Professor Essam ElKordi, President of Alamein International University (AIU), about their shortlisted submission.
They spoke about the challenges of establishing a new university from scratch in Egypt’s emerging city of New Alamein. In just six years, AIU has grown from an institution with 450 students and two programmes to a university of around 12,000 students, with eight faculties and more than 26 programmes. Its development has been shaped by an ambitious approach to international collaboration, student experience and its role in the wider community.
Building a university with a clear sense of purpose
When Professor Essam took up the role in September 2020, AIU was preparing to welcome its first students – the buildings were in place, but almost everything else had to be established, from classrooms and laboratories to the academic programmes and teams needed to bring the university to life. On top of all this, they had the additional challenge of the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and delays to the formal approvals required to begin operations.
From the outset, Essam recognised that a new university could not simply try to replicate the established institutions in Egypt – it needed to identify a distinctive position and build its strategy around areas where it could offer something different. With his experience and existing international relationships, he placed international engagement at the heart of the university’s development. This meant looking beyond traditional arrangements for student exchange and dual degrees, and exploring different ways for academics and students to work together.
The ambition was to create a university with strong international connections, while remaining closely linked to the needs of its local community and the emerging city around it.
Making international collaboration part of the student experience
AIU has developed partnerships with universities in the United States, Canada and Europe, creating opportunities for joint programmes, student and faculty exchange, and collaborative teaching.
One of its partnerships is with the University of Louisville, through which students can study across both institutions and gain degrees from each. Initially established as a 2+2 arrangement in selected subjects, including computer science, computer engineering and bioengineering, the partnership has since developed into a 3+1 model.
The university has also explored more collaborative approaches to teaching. Through its work with Virginia Tech, students from both institutions take part in joint, project-based courses, working together throughout the semester under the guidance of academics from each university. The collaboration has already achieved success, with one joint student project taking first place in a Virginia Tech competition involving more than 26 entries.
For Essam, successful partnerships depend on more than formal agreements, they need commitment and trust on both sides, with individuals in each institution willing to champion the relationship and make it work. This international outlook is also reflected in AIU’s approach to quality and accreditation. He made it clear from the beginning that its programmes should seek accreditation as soon as the first students graduated. The university has secured ABET accreditation for computer science and accreditation for its School of Business, with further applications and reviews under way.
Preparing students to keep learning
Alongside the development of its academic programmes, AIU has placed considerable emphasis on giving students opportunities to develop skills and interests beyond the formal curriculum. The university has introduced an extracurricular transcript, recognising students’ wider achievements and activities alongside their academic results. These activities can also contribute additional credit towards their overall grades, giving students the opportunity to demonstrate abilities that may not be captured through examinations and coursework alone.
AIU has also become a Coursera Campus partner, making a wide range of online courses available to students free of charge. The university has worked to match these courses with its own curriculum, helping students explore subjects in greater depth and develop the confidence to learn independently. For Essam, this ability to keep learning is increasingly important; knowledge in almost every discipline is changing rapidly, and universities need to prepare graduates not simply to retain information, but to find, understand, interpret and apply it.
That thinking also informs the university’s approach to AI; AIU has developed policies and procedures to guide its use, with Essam describing AI as an assistant to support learning and academic work, rather than a replacement for students’ own thinking. The university also monitors how students engage with online learning, including checking their understanding of course outcomes before awarding credit.
A university connected to its community
AIU’s location in New Alamein is central to its wider purpose, as the city is part of Egypt’s development of new communities, with universities and other public services intended to attract residents, support local development and create new opportunities.
Essam believes the university has already made a tangible difference to the area, with around a third of its students come from Alexandria, with many travelling to New Alamein or choosing to live there rather than make the journey every day. The university also provides access to academic programmes and services that would otherwise require local people to travel to larger cities.
Community engagement is built into its activities, with the university organising medical convoys each semester, visiting schools and communities in the surrounding area, and has established dental clinics and other health services, which now serve more than 1,500 patients each month.
The university has also taken steps to widen access for local students. While places are highly competitive, with around 15,000 applicants each year for approximately 3,000 places, students from the surrounding governorate can be admitted on the basis of the minimum entry requirements set by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Universities.
Its wider commitment to health and wellbeing has also been recognised through its designation as a WHO Health Promoting University, which he described as an important distinction for the institution.
Looking ahead: research, industry and continued development
Having established its undergraduate provision, AIU is now entering a new phase of development. This academic year, it introduced its first two postgraduate programmes, at master’s level, in computer science and computer engineering, including quantum computing. The longer-term ambition is to develop doctoral provision and strengthen the university’s research activity.
The university has begun providing funding for senior undergraduate students and early-career academics to undertake research, while encouraging them to compete for external funding and publish in leading journals. It has also appointed a Dean of Postgraduate Studies and is developing its research and innovation infrastructure.
Links with industry will be important to this next stage. Each programme has an industrial board, bringing together representatives from business and industry, as well as academics from outside Egypt. These boards help the university understand changing skills requirements, review its curriculum and ensure programmes remain relevant to the needs of employers and the wider economy.
For Essam, this is an essential part of building a university that can continue to develop. Its strategy is not fixed: it must evolve as the institution grows, as the needs of students and employers change, and as new opportunities emerge.
His advice to other young universities is to be innovative and identify areas where they can make a distinctive contribution, rather than trying to compete directly with institutions that have been established for generations. AIU’s experience demonstrates what can be achieved through a clear vision, the right people and a willingness to explore new approaches to international collaboration, teaching and community engagement.
As the university looks towards its next phase, its challenge will be to build on the foundations established in its first six years, developing its research and postgraduate offer while maintaining the ambition and sense of purpose that have shaped its growth so far.
