Professor Abiya, director and founder of the Photonics and Smart Materials Center in Zewail City, is one of the most prominent photonics scientists over the past thirty years (Al Jazeera)
The largest professional organization in the world that seeks to develop technology for the benefit of humanity, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in America, chose Egyptian Professor Salah Obaiya, among the world’s most prominent scientists over the past thirty years in the field of computational photonics, in a recent article it published entitled “Globalization in Research Photonics development.
This choice of Professor Obayya - who is the director and founder of the Photonics and Smart Materials Center in Zewail City and the general president of the city's research institutes - was only a link in a series of awards and honors that he receives periodically, to represent the harvest of a long journey of struggle, during which he succeeded in overcoming dozens of obstacles that... We were surprised during the interview that one of them was at an early age when his body obesity caused bullying by his peers, and the class teacher fueled this situation by being extremely cruel in her treatment of him physically and verbally.
Obaiya - who was chosen by the late Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail to be the first president of the city that bears his name - remembers that very difficult stage in his career, which he succeeded in overcoming with family support, and with the confidence of another teacher who came to replace the first who traveled with her husband to work abroad, and picked up the new teacher. Signs of early genius that were almost buried by a teacher do not improve dealing with children at this critical early age.
Obaiya tells how this new teacher sparked the start of a journey of success that he embarked on between Egypt and Britain. In the end, he chose to settle in Zewail City, sharing with the late Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail the dream of building a generation of Egyptian youth capable of building modern Egypt with science.
During the dialogue, Obaiya stops at each station of this long journey, trying to extract from his experience lessons learned that are suitable for developing basic and university education, not only in Egypt, but in all parts of the Arab world. The following is the text of the dialogue.
Al Jazeera correspondent interviews Professor Salah Obayya, director and founder of the Photonics and Smart Materials Center in Zewail City, in his office (Al Jazeera)
Behind every success story is a road that, of course, was not paved. What are the most prominent obstacles that Dr. Obayya succeeded in overcoming?
The first and most dangerous obstacles occurred at an early age, and they almost ended my story before it began. In my first years of attending school, I was subjected to bullying by my fellow students because of my obesity. Then the class teacher came to make matters worse, as she treated me extremely harshly, to the point that she continued to hit me with a piece of wood. The cone she was carrying, until she became tired and exhausted.
Why was she doing that?
I was a child who lacked confidence because of the bullying of my peers, and that made me unable to respond to her questions. Instead of containing me and handling the matter wisely, she increased the causes of bullying for another reason, which was that I was an obese child and was not distinguished academically.
How did you overcome that obstacle?
I got over it with the support of that woman who was speaking to me on the phone. She is my older sister, who was upset by my receiving a low grade on my academic certificates. She would come from the marital home to help me study my lessons, and she would submit a report to my parents that my academic level was contrary to what appeared on the academic certificates, and she advised my father. By bringing in a private teacher at home to verify the truth of what she had arrived at, and indeed the private teacher brought by my father supported what my older sister went for, and this of course gave me some self-confidence.
Professor Salah Obayya said that his real wealth is in the 150 students he supervised in the master’s and doctoral degrees (Al-Jazeera)
Why did you use the word "some"?
Because complete self-confidence came from another teacher, and allow me to mention her name to honor her;
Her name was “Eman,” and that teacher came to replace the other harsh one who got married and traveled with her husband to work outside Egypt. The appearance of that teacher coincided with my father’s use of the private teacher to evaluate me, and because she had a cheerful and comfortable face, she succeeded in containing me, and my situation with her changed completely, so that I could transform into From a failed student to the No. 1 student in the school, this gave me complete self-confidence, and I became the source that my former bullied peers turned to to clarify some difficult points in the lessons, and thus I overcame that obstacle that almost destroyed my story before it began.
As if you had returned to your childhood years, your facial features varied between extreme distress as you talked about the harsh teacher, and joy and relief as you talked about the teacher with the smiling face.
Because that stage is still stuck with its small details in my mind, because it is the most important stage of life, and through it you can build a strong personality capable of expressing your thoughts freely, or destroy the personality completely and become a worthless monster.
(He breaks into a fit of laughter before saying)... Imagine;
Because the details of that stage did not leave my mind, I discovered the son of that cruel teacher - who was one of my students at the Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University - by the color of his eyes.
how?
(Continuing to laugh) In my first lecture as a lecturer at the College of Engineering, there was a student sitting in the front seats, and ever since I laid eyes on him, I found that the color of his eyes was different and similar to the color of the eyes of that harsh school... Imagine if I had not forgotten the color of her eyes!
So I asked him about the profession of his parents, and I learned that his mother was this cruel teacher. This was one of the strange ironies, but I treated him very well, and I did not tell him the details of what his mother did to me.
Circumstances may have served you well by being in a family that sought to solve your problem and good luck removing that harsh teacher from your path, but what if those circumstances were not available to others?
For this reason, I always emphasize the importance of this early stage. The teacher must be qualified to deal with children and discover their problems, and by qualification here I do not mean obtaining master’s and doctorate degrees, as there are many who hold those degrees and are not good at dealing with children, but what I mean by qualification is training. Permanent, which helps the teacher, for example, discover that his student suffers from a problem called “dyslexia.”
What is dyslexia?
"Dyslexia" is not a disability, as the person who suffers from it does not have a problem with academic achievement, but the one who suffers from it has a problem with late expression of his thoughts. If a normal person needs, for example, five minutes to answer a question, the one who suffers from "dyslexia" will need 10 minutes, and thus It would be unjust to give a dyslexic patient the same exam time as you give to a normal student. This problem, for example, can only be discovered by a teacher who has been trained. However, if he is not trained, he will mistreat the student who suffers from this condition, and may deal with him harshly and completely destroy his personality. Just like the cruel teacher used to do to me.
Professor Salah Obayya with his students after one of the experiments in the Photonics and Smart Materials Laboratory in Zewail City (Al Jazeera)
Of course, the start that the smiling-faced teacher gave you continued with you after that.
It continued, thank God, as God honored me during the years of middle school with esteemed professors, and allow me to mention the name of one of them, which is the mathematics teacher, Mr. Adel Al-Sawah, who always told me that I must join either the College of Engineering or the College of Science, Mathematics Department, and I mention that This teacher, because he was so impressed by my abilities, used to prepare mathematical problems for me from old books and ask me to solve them.
The same thing happened in secondary school, which I passed with great distinction, as I was first in the Sherbin area in the Dakahlia Governorate in Egypt, and the choice was between joining the College of Science, Mathematics Department, or the College of Engineering, but the choice fell on engineering after a visit I made to the college before writing down my desires to join the colleges. During it, I found that the curricula are compatible with what I love and adore, especially in the electronics and communications department in which I specialized.
And what happened to me in the middle and high school years due to the teachers’ interest, happened to me in college, where God honored me with the care of my teachers, Drs. Hamdi Al-Mikati, Abdel Fattah Ibrahim, and Rashid Al-Awadi. What distinguished these people was that they were keen not only to give the students what knowledge they possessed, but they gave it more. Of what they have.
I still remember my teacher Hamdi Al-Mikati, may God extend his life, and he personally photographed some scientific articles from international magazines and asked me to read them and discuss them with him. This matter was completely outside the curriculum, but he wanted my awareness to be open to what was happening in the world.
Why did he choose you from among the students to give you this advantage?
One of the nobility of this university professor was that he was keen to give the applied exercises for the lecture himself, a task that is usually assigned to teaching assistants. In one of the lectures, he wrote an exercise and did not complete it, asking us to complete it, so that he could see what we did in the next lecture. All I had to do was solve it first. Different from the one he started, and since that day it has enjoyed his care and attention.
As a result of this sponsorship, I completed my graduate studies with him after passing my bachelor’s degree with distinction, as he was my supervisor in the master’s degree.
When I started looking for a doctoral proposal to complete my graduate studies with him, I was surprised by him who flatly refused and said: “You will continue to learn all your life from Hamdi Al-Muqiyati only. You must travel to obtain a doctorate from abroad, and he kept striving himself so that I would have the opportunity to travel.” The man was like someone opening the door of a large palace for me, while I wanted him to open the door of a small room for me.
Professor Saleh Obeya (left) receives a certificate of appreciation from the British Council in Cairo on the occasion of his inclusion on the shortlist as one of three finalists for the Graduate Awards to Study in the United Kingdom in 2020 (Al Jazeera)
Why did you describe traveling abroad as “like opening the door of a large palace for you”?
The value of travel was not in obtaining a doctorate, as it represents only 5% of the importance, but the largest percentage - which is 95% - is related to the great benefits that you obtain, starting with my English language, which has improved greatly, and passing through getting closer to advanced teaching methods, and ending with The most important lesson is how to create a link between scientific research and industry. I have seen how the relationship between them is formed, which allows scientific research to work on industry problems, and to obtain new ideas for developing research production in a way that serves industry, and thus the researcher then feels that his work has value and returns.
All of this was caused by Dr. Hamdi Al-Mikati, who was seeking me to travel, so that I could return and contribute to developing the climate of scientific research in Egypt. These professors were practicing patriotism with their actions, not with empty words.
Throughout your talk about your professor Hamdi Al-Mikati, I feel the amount of love and appreciation you have for him, and I wonder: Why do we no longer have such professors?
Within any human being there is a struggle between true value and price, and unfortunately, because price has become victorious over true value, we no longer have venerable professors like Hamdi Al-Mikati.
Unfortunately, many people get angry with me when I try to implement the values I believe in. I sometimes refuse to discuss master’s theses when I see that they do not qualify as a scientific thesis, and I refuse any invitations to lunch or dinner from the researchers I discuss. This angers many people, because the price has become the same. The controller, not the value.
My real wealth is not money in banks, but it is the value represented in the 150 students I supervised in master’s and doctoral degrees, and they are spread out in Egypt, Pakistan, Canada, America and Africa.
Why does price dominate value?
A mixture of economic crises and social problems made it more important to obtain a degree than to benefit your society from the knowledge you have learned. Changing that requires a revolution in ideas and behavior, and this takes a long time.
Professor Salah Obaiya receives from the former President of the Academy of Scientific Research Mahmoud Saqr (left) and the former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel Ghaffar (center) the Medal of Sciences and Arts, First Class (Al Jazeera)
You raised an important point when you talked about the lessons learned from the travel trip, which is learning about the mechanisms of communication between scientific research and industry. Is it possible to transfer this experience to the Arab world?
Let us first talk about the origin of the problem, which is that there is a defect in the university’s performance of its role. The university is a place for producing and transferring knowledge, and what is meant by production is research and studies. As for transferring knowledge, only one element can be achieved, which is transferring it to students, but no transfer from the university to the university occurs. Society, and here I mean the society specific to the field of specialization. Engineering transmits knowledge to the industrial society, agriculture to the agricultural society, trade transmits it to the commercial society, and so on.
We have no solution to this problem other than transferring the Western experience, which is based on the existence of what is known as the “Valley of Knowledge Transfer” or the “Valley of Technology” for the university, and there is a cluster of companies in the vicinity of the university or near it known as the “Valley of Industrial Companies,” which is They are representative offices of companies.
Just as the relationship between a young man and a girl begins with acquaintance, then engagement and marriage, this happens between these two components, as workshops are organized from time to time between researchers and the valley of industrial companies, in which the researchers learn about the problems of the industry, and the industry knows what the researchers are doing, and then the relationship develops, so the companies companies located in the Valley of Companies open offices within the university, which facilitates the process of communication between the two sides. Then the relationship develops more and more. Companies participate in developing study programs through the presence of their representatives on college councils. This makes these programs lean more towards the requirements of the labor market, and takes The relationship takes a more developed form when, for example, in the third year, students get the opportunity to spend a semester in factories, and this would achieve several advantages, the first of which is that the student receives financial compensation and returns to the university armed with industrial thought, and can capture an idea that can be implemented in the graduation project. Most importantly, it guarantees a job opportunity, and thus the university fulfills its role in the advancement of society by providing a graduate who obtains a job opportunity and benefits society and does not represent a burden on it.
Unfortunately, university graduates have become a burden on society, and the Egyptian President had asked in one of his speeches about the addition that graduates of humanitarian and social colleges provide to society.
I listened to this speech, and what the president meant was that these colleges should be more closely linked in their curricula to the needs of society.
What can the study of philosophy, for example, offer except that it qualifies a graduate to become a teacher of philosophy, so most of them do not work, or do work that is not related to their field of study?
It is good that you pointed out this example. The problem is not in studying philosophy, but in what we teach students. The curricula only qualify students to become philosophy teachers, but if philosophy were dealt with more broadly, graduates of this specialty could participate in developing the philosophy of institutions and become leaders within those institutions.
There is another example of one of the humanities, which is sociology. Abroad, when applying for any research project, the extent of its impact on society must be mentioned. As a researcher in engineering, I will not be able to do that without the support of a specialist in sociology. Therefore, the problem is in what we teach students and not in the specialty itself. .
As we walk with you through the stations of your life, we stop at the Zewail City station.. How did you move to that station?
After obtaining my doctorate in 1999 from Britain, I returned to Egypt, and I only stayed for three months, as the atmosphere was not encouraging. Suffice it to tell you that the college was unable to provide a computer to help me work due to the lack of a budget, while when it learned that an official... My senior is going to visit the college. The safes were opened and the money went out. This made me frustrated. This coincided with a letter I received via email from my doctoral supervisor asking me to return for three months to participate in a research project that intersects with research I carried out during my doctorate. I said to myself that this was a good opportunity to get out of the state of frustration. And indeed, I traveled, but that journey lasted 15 years, and ended when Dr. Ahmed Zewail asked me in 2012 to work with him, where I founded the Center for Photonics and Smart Materials, which I have headed until now. Dr. Zewail also later appointed me in September 2012 as head of the research institutes. Three months later, he became President of Zewail City and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors.
It is certain that you became very close to Dr. Zewail during that period. Can you summarize the most important aspects of his personality?
My story with Dr. Zewail turned from a working relationship into a friendship, and I can confirm that, contrary to what some may seem to be a condescending person, he was a very simple person, but he turns into a different person in some situations.
For example, we were eating dinner in a restaurant, and a man came to him in an uncivilized manner, asking about a problem that existed between Zewail City and Nile University. Dr. Zewail had no choice but to embarrass him, saying that “it is not the appropriate place to discuss this matter.” But another time, Dr. Zewail picked up He was adept at reading faces. One of the workers wanted to take a picture with him, so he summoned him and asked him: Do you want to take a picture with me? When the man replied that he wanted to, but he was embarrassed to approach him, Dr. Zewail asked me to take the picture that brought him together with this simple worker.
At the work level, he paid attention to the smallest details, and I remember that he once called me complaining about the level of weakness in the Arabic language of a student who sent him a letter in Arabic. The discussion led us to the idea that teaching the subject of the history of science in Arabic to students might be a solution to the problem.
Professor Salah Obayya (left): My story with Dr. Zewail turned from a working relationship to friendship (Al Jazeera)
After the death of Dr. Zewail, will his project follow the same line that he drew in terms of creating a link between scientific research and industry?
In Zewail City, we have one of the components located abroad that I told you about, which is the Science and Technology Valley component, which aims to cooperate and partner with industry, but its activation is related to problems that the industry is currently suffering from due to the crisis of providing hard currency that has affected the inability of factories to provide manufacturing components, and it seeks Most of them do not want to expand, because their main concern is to remain in the market, even if with a small profit margin, and of course these conditions are not conducive to investing in new ideas.
But the positive thing is that this trend that Dr. Zewail established across the city has had indirect effects. Some universities began to establish entities similar to the Valley of Science and Technology, and some university professors began to think differently. Professors at Cairo University - as far as I know - launched a software company that succeeded. In selling a software to Intel, the Innovation Incentives Law was also approved, and is awaiting its activation with the issuance of the executive regulations. This law will regulate the establishment of universities for companies.
At the level of the Center for Photonics and Smart Materials, which you have headed since the founding of the city, what are the most notable achievements that you are proud of?
First, it is necessary to clarify the difference between the field of electronics and photonics. The former is a very mature field since the 1960s, and this makes the cost of manufacturing lower, while the field of photonics is only 30 years old and still needs to be understood. Therefore, our work begins with the first study of how light interacts with matter. Theoretical, all the way to applications.
At the Photonics Center in Zewail City, we are one of the few centers working on producing the “software” for the experiments that will be conducted in the laboratory, meaning that if I wanted, for example, to work on a system that divides wavelengths into several channels in order to create a multi-channel system for communication, I should I would implement this on a computer before setting off for the laboratory. We are developing software programs for this and other research, and this would increase the success rates when moving the experiments to the laboratory scale, and we have become famous worldwide for this activity.
On the applied side, we have achieved multiple successes in wide-range optical communications applications, and encryption in fire using photon bonding. We have also worked on developing solar cells and optical sensors with medical and environmental applications, including a sensor that measures glucose levels, and a sensor that predicts pollution in river water.
Researchers at the center and its president received 35 local, regional and international awards, the last of which was my name being mentioned in an article by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in America as one of the most prominent photonics scientists in the world.
Despite these achievements and awards, it doesn't seem to me that you are happy?
The researcher always hopes for the best and the best, because if he reaches the stage of complete satisfaction, he will stop working. The researcher always has questions without answers, and as long as his mind is occupied with them, you will get this feeling.
Although I know that this answer is diplomatic, let me conclude my dialogue with you with a question that I hope you will answer frankly, which is: Do you regret responding to Dr. Zewail’s invitation to return to work in Egypt?
The answer, quite frankly, is “what is best is what God has chosen.”
Let me ask the question in another way. Suppose Oxford or Cambridge University contacted you and asked you to work with them, would you leave Zewail City?
I will not leave the city for three reasons:
First:
Traveling is not far from me if I want to. I have been an honorary professor for seven years at the University of Nottingham in Britain, which is one of the top ten universities in Britain, and if I ask them to travel to work there, they will very much welcome it.
Second:
With the utmost humility, my research production from inside Egypt, in quantity and quality, I do not want to say is better, but it is no less than the production of the leaders of research groups in the field of photonics in those important universities.
I don't want to tell you it's better, in the same class as the leaders of the research groups.
Third:
I received all the awards and honors while working in Egypt, including being editor-in-chief of a periodical specializing in quantum photonics published by the famous Springer Nature publishing house, and this is a great honor.
The bottom line is that goodness will come to you in the place you are in, provided that you work hard, diligently, and sincerely in that place.
Don't the pressures of life make you think materially, so you seek opportunities that may be more financially beneficial?
At the beginning of our conversation, I told you about the conflict between value and price that erupts within every human being. I resolved the conflict internally in favor of value, and I do not claim heroism. Perhaps it helped me in that that my financial obligations are limited, as God did not bless me with children, and I have no responsibilities other than spending on my wife.
Let go of materialism, life in the West might be easier in other matters?
Life in the West is not ideal. The goal that everyone seeks is to have great wealth, but there is a law that regulates relationships. You have the right to seek wealth, but in a way that does not violate the law, and this is the big difference between us and them.
I will go back to what I said at the beginning: I mean, for example, there are academic norms in the West that are respected, and in their presence it is not possible to pass some of the behaviors that occur in us, such as a university professor accepting an invitation to dinner from a student who will discuss his master’s thesis.
Source: Al Jazeera