ITI Grads

ITI, the Information Technology Institute in Egypt, started long before FCIS (Faculties of Information and Computer Sciences) were established in Egypt. The ITI gained a good reputation that some software companies in Egypt started explicitly mentioning in their job ads they wanted ITI grads. That's quite a testimony of the quality of ITI grads. Though not all ITI grads are excellent, yet many of them are rally good. To get the 9-month IT related training at ITI you do not have to be a graduate of Engineering (except for a specific branch at the ITI) nor FCIS, you can be a graduate of any faculty in Egypt provided you pass the tests and interviews for selection at the ITI.

Establishing the ITI was a strong step by the Egyptian government towards establishing a base of software developers in Egypt. Establishing FCIS faculties was another strong step towards achieving that same goal. The third step was providing condensed IT training to Egyptian university grads through scholarships. This ambitious program aimed at training five thousand Egyptian university graduates on software development and other IT technologies. Although such a program was not a tremendous success, yet it did produce many excellent software developers from among the large numbers that have graduated from it.

Being good in software development depends on your personal liking of programming. It also depends a lot on the level of your English language proficiency. There are many excellent developers who are graduates (or even students) of non-technical faculties, the Faculty of Commerce for instance, and have not even attended any of the training programs I just mentioned. Programming is a talent and depends on ones efforts end experience. Yet, from what I have witnessed, those who have strong academic background in software development usually win over those who do not have it. Exceptions do exist but in my opinion they are exceptions and not the norm.