Sowing more seeds in Cairo, Egypt

Posted by Serge Jespers on Apr 23, 2008 in Events | 2 comments

Last week, I had the chance to visit Egypt by invitation from our new “Adobe User Experience User Group” there. I have to be honest… there could not have been a greater contrast between Dubai and Cairo. Especially traffic in Cairo is well… euhm… very interesting. It’s extremely chaotic. Imagine a 2 lane road. In Cairo, there would be 5 cars next to each other on those 2 lanes. It’s insane! You do not want to drive here as a tourist. Even crossing the street is a challenge.

I had never been to Cairo so I had no idea what to expect. There is a big difference between being there as a tourist and being there for business. Let me explain. As a tourist, you are really treated as such. Prepare to pay a premium for just about everything. A taxi-ride that would normally cost €5 will cost you up to three times as much! On the other side, when being there for business, the people you work with treat you like royalty. Egypt is a country of contrasts.

But like I said, the people you work with really treat you like royalty and so I really need to thank Mohamed Moussa for putting together this event and for inviting me and also everyone at Link.Development for supporting it. This new usergroup has a massive potential and I would be more than happy to go back and speak for them.

Sadly, because of a massive headache the last night I was there, I could not meet with our other usergroup manager in Egypt, Rafiq Elmansy (Sorry again Rafiq). But I’m sure that I will get the chance some day.