In this Keynote Speech, Dr. Kamel reviews the vision of Egypt as a next generation destination for offshore activities in the area of Telecommunications and Information Technology, the strategic initiatives by the MCIT of Egypt to turn this vision into reality and the factors that he believes will put Egypt at the forefront of this new wave of highly desirable destinations for this fast expanding trend in the industry.

Dr. Kamel uses the recent decision by SQS Group to establish a significant part of its international offshore activities in Egypt as a case study of recent success in attracting reputable international companies to Egypt. This success is highly significant from the MCIT perspective as quality management of software systems and products is a key component of a successful IT industry and developing a culture of quality is therefore a key objective for the growing IT industry in Egypt. Such cooperation between international companies in Europe and Egypt is an important step, not only in helping these companies address their customer needs in terms of available skills at affordable cost, but also in building a successful CIT industry in the host country, in this case Egypt. It is also a very important contributor to building bridges between the cultures, it deepens the traditional friendship between the countries and helps move towards a more peaceful and prosperous world.

The excitement has calmed down and everyday life has returned: IT offshoring has led to a new division of work in software production. So now is a good time to take stock:

• Will the pendulum swing back and offshoring increasingly turn into homeshoring?
• Does the relocation of work to overseas create new jobs here - and if so, what kind of jobs and how many?
• What does Europe as a business location have to do for offshoring to remain a challenge instead of turning into a threat?

CIOs and IT managers have to understand the direction of IT in order to help their businesses to get ongoing value from IT. The arising key questions are: What are the trends in the IT industry? What are the disruptive technologies? What are the new service delivery models build upon? What is the IT challenge coming? This keynote highlights selected key technologies and services, which will be the future basis for IT solutions. They will impact significantly how IT is built, used and managed.

For a long time, the main concern of the security community were traditional computer networks. The next generation of "computer" networks will look different: your clothes might talk to your car, while your handheld talks to the refrigerator. DRM in mobile devices or IP protection in game consoles are other important security applications. Many embedded applications will have security solutions which are different from, say, building firewalls for a corporate network.

In contrast to classical IT security, providing security for embedded devices is heavily dependent on the target's hardware and software. For instance, perfor-ming a digital signature can be a major challenge for an RFID bar code label. We will give an overview about this emerging area. As case studies, we will discuss extremely lightweight security for component identification (e.g., for printer cartridges), and "network" security for automotive adhoc networks.

Application outsourcing sometimes is seen as a short-term opportunity to get rid of actual problems; but experience showed that this will only lead to more problems. Outsourcing need to be planned as something strategic; it can never be done successfully ad hoc.

From a quality point of view it is necessary to define and plan SLAs as well as measure how to use currently won experiences for improvements. It is not possible to define all things in advance; the outsourcing parties need to be ready for learning from experiences. This requires contracts which are to some extend flexible for adjustments.

Meanwhile Zürich has four years experience in application outsourcing with a large system integrator. This presentation will give some insights into recent experiences.

Key Messages:

1. Sourcing generally need to be seen as a strategic development, it is not something that could be done ad hoc.
2. Outsourcing requires a severe maturity level; transparency about maturity is very important and please don't try to outsource a problem.
3. Outsourcing demands a change process within the organisation.
4. Quality, Productivity and Flexibility needs to be planned, controlled and improved.

The Formula One industry thrives on technological innovation, which creates a paradox; teams demand the very latest in leading edge automotive, aerospace, electronics and materials technologies, but require them to be reliable in the most extreme conditions possible.

Quality is an imperative, in terms of concept, design, manufacture and operation. With a complex F1 design produced by each team, each season, to meet new regulations, early error detection is. Deadlines are immoveable – 18 events between March and November making this a relentless race against time. Progress is measured at every stage, with KPIs governing every aspect of car development and performance, and not only with the teams as they rely on the close support of suppliers of key technologies ranging from motors to tyres.