The Industrial Modernisation Centre Deputy Director for Innovation Hisham Mohamed Basha tells Packaging MEA
Editor Ben Daniel about its groundbreaking design awards concept and application to the real world of work.
If any economy, and indeed any country, is to grow and thrive, its business environment must invest not only in supporting its existing enterprises but also in nurturing its next generation.
Accordingly, Egypt’s Industrial Modernisation Centre (IMC) works to provide business development support to the country’s industrial enterprises so they can be reinstated competitively in global markets. The knock-on effect of this would be to enhance job creation and secure prosperity for all, says Hisham Mohamed Basha, Deputy Director of IMC.
Focusing on companies with more than 10 employees or industrial clusters, IMC addresses the needs of more than 14,000 enterprises in Egypt, concentrating resources and coordinating with programmes that contribute to sustainable economic development.
HIsham says: “Egypt’s economic development critically hinges upon the competitiveness and growth of the industrial sector.
“By occupying an integral part in the economic structure, the Egyptian industry is considered to be the engine of economic growth, exports expansion and job creation. According to the Industrial Development Strategy (IDS), Egypt is projected to be a leading industrial country in the MENA region in terms of industrial performance as well as the main export hub for medium-technology manufactured products by 2025.
“Within this framework, IMC was established by a presidential decree in December 2000 to give impetus to a sustainable, modern, vibrant and competitive Egyptian industry. The aim is to support the industrial sector, in coordination with the Ministry of Industry, Trade and SMEs.
From art to enterprise
Egypt is historically renowned for its fine arts culture, so it may come as a surprise to hear that the country does not currently have a strong design industry, despite having 14 academic art faculties nationwide.
Hisham says IMC aims to address this shortcoming. “Not having (a strong design sector) is harming our competitiveness at global and local levels,” he says.
“IMC focuses on processing and design activities; predictive services, quality services and even marketing. But a year ago, when benchmarking best practices and industrial policies and development initiatives, we found that we need to couple process upgrading with product upgrading.”
“We needed to come up with an initiative that would create a link between the industrial sector and the 14 art faculties.”
Involving industry
The most obvious way to do this, IMC identified, was by involving the country’s art and design students. Given the lack of an existing design culture in Egypt, IMC took its cues from a regional neighbour and encouraged Egyptian students to participate in the Arab Student StarPack awards, arranged by LibanPack in Lebanon in partnership with Unido (the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation).
“One successful initiative we came across was the StarPack Awards,” says Hisham. “This competition was focused on visual packaging and was arranged by LibanPack but later grew into an Arabic competition which included students affiliated with art faculties around our nation as well.”
Hisham explains that the awards approach, while in itself a worthy lure for the participation of young people, was only the beginning. It provided inspiration for a business model that could be applied to existing and future businesses, too.
“We localised this approach in Egypt, and as we are talking about sustainability, we decided not to limit our efforts to an award,” he said.
“We started the competition by inviting industrial enterprises to participate with their products. We had six companies working with us from the beginning, including Carrefour, Venus tissue paper and Magic Pops candy. The idea was to boost the profile of these companies’ products.”