Nagla Rizk

From A2K Wiki

Nagla Rizk, Associate Professor, Economics Department, American University in Cairo. Panel: Mobilizing Industry.

Nagla Rizk is Associate Professor of Economics at the American University in Cairo. She lectures and conducts research on the knowledge economy, its relation to economic theory and to human development, with special emphasis on the realities of developing countries, implications, potential and challenges involved. Of particular interest is the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a driver for economic development. She has done extensive work on the assessment of e-readiness of small and medium enterprises in Egypt and the potential of ICTs for empowering and raising the productivity of firms in the digital economy. She is presently working on issues related to the economics of Access to knowledge (A2K), intellectual property and economic development. Her current research projects focus on Egypt’s open source software and on copyright in the Arab music industry. She is also working on a macroeconomic study of Information Technology and Economic Growth in Egypt and the Middle East. She has served as Chair of the Economics Department of the American University in Cairo, research advisor on Egypt’s E-readiness at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, and is currently the Leader of Egypt’s research team within the Research in Africa Network working on ICT for Development, affiliated with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC of Canada). She received her PhD from McMaster University and has taught at the University of Toronto.