Quarterly Report FY20 Q1: Center of Excellence for Water

The project aims to create a Center of Excellence for Water at Alexandria University, with a total allocated budget of $30 Million USD. The project is managed by The American University in Cairo (AUC) and has multiple partnerships and stakeholders, including universities, public institutions, and industries. During the reporting period from October 1st to December 31st 2019 (FY20Q1), several activities were carried out by the project team. The project team participated in the Cairo Water Week, the largest Water event in Egypt, organized by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. A full revision of the project activities was held with the participation of Alexandria University, and the second "all Egyptian Partners Meeting" and "All US Partners Meeting" were held. The project is divided into five components: Governance of CoE, Instructional Innovation and Curriculum Development, High Quality Applied Research, Exchanges, Training and Scholarship, and Sustainability. During the reporting period, the following activities were carried out in each component. Component I: Governance of CoE involved holding a one-day and a half sessions to revise the activities of the governance pillar, drafting of the MoUs, and finalization of the call for "Governance workshop". The project team also developed basic reporting templates for the center in Alexandria, guided by experiences from WSU. Component II: Instructional Innovation and Curriculum Development involved a revision of the pillar's activities and timeline, needs assessment, and learning management system workshop. The draft report of the "Needs Assessment" campaign was produced and distributed to all partners for feedback. Component III: High Quality Applied Research involved coordination meetings among the members of the RPC, revision of the pillar's activities and timeline, analysis and review of data collected in the research needs and capacity survey, and preparation for the March Research Roadmap workshop. Component IV: Exchanges, Training and Scholarship involved a revision of the pillar's activities and timeline, analysis and review of data collected in needs assessment, selection procedure for the LMS workshop, and announcement for the Governance workshop. Component V: Sustainability involved participation of the Center of Excellence for Water in the Cairo Water Week 2019 and planning for the second Public Private Partnership (PPP) workshop to be held at Ain Shams University. The project team continues to develop the basic reporting templates for the center in Alexandria, and the team of Alexandria University started the development of the "financial bylaws" of the Center in Alexandria. The "White papers" on Water Centers in USA and Egypt is still under development.