Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025
Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025 details :
The late Khaled Bichara’s family has established a scholarship to commemorate Khaled’s lasting legacy. Khaled Bichara was an Egyptian businessman and entrepreneur whose career encompassed leadership roles at link.net, Accelero Capital, Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT), VimpelCom Ltd, Global Telecom Holding, and Orascom Development Holding. Bichara played a pivotal role in the merger of VEON and Wind Telecom to create the world’s sixth-largest telecommunications carrier.
This scholarship is dedicated to funding the undergraduate education of Egyptian students. The selected students will have the unique opportunity to pursue a degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Entrepreneurship, or Data Science at The American University in Cairo. The Khaled Bichara Undergraduate Scholarship represents the family’s unwavering commitment to empowering talented individuals, ensuring that Khaled’s impact and spirit continue to inspire and uplift future generations.
Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025 Eligibility Criteria
- Egyptian student that is currently enrolled in the last year of Thanaweya Amma or in STEM schools in the academic year 2024-2025.
- Students must reside and attend school in Upper Egypt including the following governorates: Assuit, Sohag, Luxor, Aswan, Qena, Beni Suef, Minia, Fayoum, Red Sea and New Valley.
- Have an outstanding secondary school academic record
- Students must pass either the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) with a minimum band score of 6 and a writing score of 6 or the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) with a minimum total score of 76 and a writing score of 20 or the DUOLINGO test with a minimum score of 125. Tests must be completed no more than two years before the first day of the term for which applicants are applying.
- To learn more about TOEFL exams, visit www.ets.org.
To learn more about IELTS exams, visit www.ielts.org.
To learn more about Duolingo exams, visit www.englishtest.duolingo.com - Students must be willing to study one of the following majors Entrepreneurship, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Data Science.
Required Documents
- A recent photograph of the applicant.
- A scanned copy of the applicant’s national ID.
- A scanned copy of the parent or legal guardian’s ID.
- A scanned copy of a certificate from the applicant’s secondary school, demonstrating that the applicant has completed two years of high school in the institution and is currently in the process of completing the third year of Thanaweya Amma. The scholarship accepts either one certificate for each year or one certificate for the three years combined.
- A transcript indicating the student’s grades in Secondary One and Secondary Two.
- Financial statement(s) for the past six months for the parent’s bank/post saving accounts, loans, and such if any.
- TOEFL/IELTS/Duo Lingo certificate
- Scanned copies of certificates of achievement, completion, appreciation, or any other relevant academic recognition.
Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025
Application Completion Instructions- Applicants should use a computer or a laptop to complete the application. It is not preferable to use a mobile phone.
- The applicant should complete the application in English.
- All required, applicable fields should be completed in the application.
- All uploaded documents should be renamed by the student’s name and type of document; for example, Tamer Kamal Fathy Amin/National ID.
- All documents should be clearly scanned and uploaded to the application.
- Applications with incomplete documents will be disregarded.
- All uploaded files should be in PDF format, and all photos should be in jpg format.
- The applicant can access the application multiple times for modifications until the deadline, as long as the applicant saves the application link.
- All uploaded documents should be in PDF format, and all photos should be in jpg format.
- Applicants should make sure that they have an active email account. Email is an essential means of communication with applicants.
- Originals of all documents should be ready to be submitted in case requested.
- Application should be completed by the applicant him/herself. Applicants should not seek help with their applications. In case there is a need to seek the support of someone, the applicant should mention the reason and details in the application.
- Applicants cannot complete more than one application. Duplication of applications will lead to the rejection of the application. The online application is the way to submit the application and any supporting documents.
- Applications submitted via any other approach will be disregarded.
- Application deadline is March 1, 2025.
N.B.: All information provided by the applicants is dealt with confidentiality and released to concerned stakeholders under extreme necessities following program rules and regulations.
breakdown of the Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025 details:
Overview:
- The scholarship commemorates the legacy of Khaled Bichara, a prominent Egyptian businessman and entrepreneur.
- It aims to fund the undergraduate education of talented Egyptian students at The American University in Cairo (AUC).
- The scholarship focuses on students from Upper Egypt.
Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025
Key Eligibility Criteria:
- Applicants must be Egyptian students.
- They must be currently enrolled in the final year of Thanaweya Amma or in STEM schools during the 2023-2024 academic year.
- Assuit
- Sohag
- Luxor
- Aswan
- Qena
- Beni Suef
- Minya
Students must reside and attend school in Upper Egypt, specifically in these governorates
- Applicants need to demonstrate an outstanding secondary school academic record.
- English proficiency is required, demonstrated through:
- IELTS (minimum 5.5 overall, 5.5 in writing)
- TOEFL (minimum 62 total, 17 in writing)
- Duolingo (minimum score of 115-120)
- Students must be willing to pursue a degree in one of the following majors:
- Entrepreneurship
- Computer Science
- Computer Engineering
- Data Science
Scholarship Coverage:
- The scholarship covers full tuition and living expenses.
Important Notes:
- Applicants must apply to and be accepted by AUC independently of the scholarship application.
- Being shortlisted for the scholarship does not guarantee admission to AUC.
- It is very important to check the offical AUC web pages for the most up to date information regarding the scholarship.
- There are online information sessions being held, such as one on February 19, 2025.
To find the most accurate and up-to-date information, I recommend checking these resources:
- The American University in Cairo (AUC) official website.
- Resources such as those provided by Newton Education Services.
Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025
‘Take the Next Challenge’ Business Alum Khaled Bichara on Finding Success
Khaled Bichara ’96 may be a well-known business mogul now, but in the late 1990s, the bank had so little faith in his startup’s venture that he had to take a loan for the business out against his house.
Luckily, the venture he was risking his house for was the internet. Bichara co-founded LinkDOTnet, the first internet service provider in Egypt.
“Starting a business around the internet, people weren’t sure if it would be something,” Bichara said. “It took us a whole year and a half as a company to do our first transaction.”
His risk paid off. Bichara is now the CEO Of Accelero Capital — a company he also founded, but his résumé weaves through various companies. Previously, he was the president and COO of VimpelCom Ltd., executive chairman of Orascom Telecom Holding and chairman of Wind Telecommunication in Italy, a company he revitalized in just three years.
The telecommunications and information technology expert has been sharing his wealth of knowledge with Egypt’s burgeoning entrepreneurial and tech scene. In a Ted Talk given in Rome in 2015, Bichara warned against the comfort of stability. This was the case even when he was graduating from AUC in 1996 and decided to try and make LINKDotCom work instead of taking a stable job at his family’s business.
Now, after another career shift of his own, he echoes that advice. “Throughout my career, I’ve always tried to take the next challenge,” Bichara said, and right now, he says, is the best time for young people in the country to do the same.
Currently, roughly 50 percent of Egyptians are under the age of 30. The vast number of young people, combined with a high unemployment rate and the increasing accessibility of technology make Egypt rife for a startup boom. Young Egyptians are developing problem-solving apps for the country’s 103 million cell phone users while taking advantage of the rising internet penetration rate, currently at 40 percent and rising.
There were 13 Egyptian companies on the Forbes Top 100 Startups in the Arab World list this year, including one in the top five. AUC alumni have developed apps including Swvl, the bus-ride share system, and E3rafli, a Vodafone app for people with visual impairments.
That’s good news for college graduates, but an unfamiliar scene for Bichara, who said there wasn’t a culture for startups when he was starting out. Still, he cautions that too much support, without any follow through, could also be a downfall.
“I see a lot of entrepreneurs who are just focused on fundraising. They see entrepreneurship as a joke. You make a business and then you become an entrepreneur,” he said. “There has to always be a quantifiable measure that your business is growing, not necessarily by money.”
Facebook, for example, didn’t make any money at first. But the company was able to track its progress by monitoring users: how many there were, how often they logged in and how long they stayed on the site.
Bichara has other pieces of advice for young entrepreneurs. In particular, he refers to his “secret sauce” for success. First: find something you love and are good at. “I like football, but I’m not that good,” the Roma fan said. ”I was an OK programmer, but not a great one. So I moved more into the business side.”
Second part of his recipe: Find the right people. Bichara said studying at AUC is the perfect opportunity to find potential colleagues whose skills complement yours. Lastly, he said, students should learn how to present their ideas and go through the process of getting rejection and critiques.
“Sometimes you get pushback. It doesn’t mean you have to follow it. It just means you have to think again and analyze [your idea].”
Bichara also reminded AUCians to savor their time at the University.
“The best asset you have is your education,” Bichara said. “AUC was really one of the best times. … This is a great time to go enjoy, but also to find an internship, find colleagues. It’s an incubator, really.”
Khaled Bichara AUC Scholarship 2025
