“It was my dream to join the AUC School of Business,” said Kholoud Wael, accounting and finance junior student. “I was inspired by its global ranking, and since then, I’ve always wanted to join it.” Wael is a recipient of the HSBC Bank Egypt Endowed Public School Scholarship awarded to one student enrolled in a finance-related major. 

Wael has always been a fan of Egyptian talk show host Mona El Shazly ’96, perceiving her as a well-rounded individual who she took on as a role model. “Ever since I found out that she’s an AUC graduate, I immediately started exploring the University’s majors and learned more about the campus life,” she recounted.

While her passion growing up was equally distributed among business and journalism, she found herself leaning toward business when it was time to choose. Currently, she studies both finance and accounting because she believes they complement one another and are an integral part of our daily lives.

On aspirations, Wael wants to become a successful entrepreneur and is especially interested in FinTech.

“I’m sure that AUC will have a very great impact on my skills and enable me to achieve this goal. Not to mention, there are a lot of helpful resources at AUC, primarily the professors,” she emphasized. “They’re always there for us if we need any help and are always available to support us even outside the classroom.”

Among her favorite courses so far have been entrepreneurship and innovation with Associate Professor Randa El Bedawy, business finance with Associate Professor and Head of Finance Islam Azzam, and corporate finance with Adjunct Faculty Hany Genena. She also found a couple of core courses especially interesting, including education 1099 led by Assistant Professor Mustafa Toprak, the Arabic novel by Assistant Professor Dina Heshmat and scientific thinking by Assistant Professor Ahmed Abdellatif.

“Moreover, I’m benefiting a lot from the experience I am getting at AUC in different disciplines by joining the clubs and the other activities held by the University,” she added. Although campus presence is currently affected by COVID-19, she looks forward to participating in many more different activities that will add value to her and enable her to make more connections.  

On the note of the pandemic, Wael finds her experience with online learning quite challenging, mainly because of how much she misses the New Cairo campus and campus life.

“I miss going to face-to-face classes and interacting with professors. I also miss my friends and the university events,” she reflected. “Yet, there are always good sides to everything – and I think that this ‘online mode’ gave me a chance to spend more time with my family and to experience a new learning mode that taught me a lot. I managed to face this challenge and even landed an internship in addition to working at a startup part-time.”

The 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded in recognition of Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, for their experimental approach efforts to alleviating global poverty.

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer, who have devoted more than 20 years of economic research to develop new ways to study and help the world’s poor, are the winners of this year’s the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The prize is an award for outstanding contributions in the field of economics and generally regarded as the most prestigious award in that field. Funded by Sveriges Riskabank in memory of Alfred Nobel and annually awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the award is meant for researchers in the field of economic sciences.

Banerjee and Duflo are co-founders of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), founded in 2003 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission of reducing poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Kremer is a longtime affiliate of J-PAL.  “J-PAL has and always will represent a shared bond between our affiliated researchers, more than 400 dedicated staff worldwide, and hundreds of funding and implementation partners. Without their incredible commitment, creativity, and hard work, this journey would not have been possible. I am so grateful to all of them”, Banerjee commented on the prize.

It is worth mentioning that Duflo is the youngest person and second woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. In appreciation of the award, she reflected: “This recognition signifies the critical importance and urgency of our work. We have seen the great potential of experimental research and policy engagement to make change on a global scale. I look forward to taking this work forward with J-PAL’s incredible affiliated researchers, staff, funders, and implementers to reach hundreds of millions more around the world.”

Since its founding, J-PAL has expanded to become a global research center around the world in Africa, Europe, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, anchored by a network of 181 affiliated professors at universities around the world.

The J-PAL Initiative at AUC, established in September 2018, under the auspices of the School of Business, conducts randomized evaluations, builds partnerships for evidence-informed policymaking and helps partners scale up effective programs. The initiative also creates opportunities for faculty members from AUC, Egypt and the MENA region to collaborate with J-PAL affiliates on research projects. Banerjee and Duflo are also the co-founders of the MITs MicroMasters Program. AUC is the first University in the region to offer a blended degree, pairing with MIT to grant MITx MicroMasters online learners credits that would count toward the completion of a full master’s degree at AUC, offering a possible pathway to earning a full master’s degree from AUC in economics in international development. 

As a School, we cannot take more pride to be contributing to such an inspiring initiative. Dean Sherif Kamel comments on the announcement: “This Nobel Prize-winning approach has enormous potential in terms of generating evidence and addressing important policy priorities in Egypt and the MENA region. The School of Business prides itself on being a knowledge hub that produces research on critical issues in the region such as inclusive development. We are delighted that our faculty and staff are working with our JPAL colleagues on this initiative. JPAL’s approach to innovation, testing, and scaling in Egypt is crucial to our mission, which includes producing new and relevant research, in addition to building strong links between policymakers and partners in Egypt, and AUC faculty and students.”

To know more about J-PAL’s efforts at AUC, visit this link