alkan times 2, oct 2010

Alkan Times, Issue # 2

Wishing

everybody a happy and

blessed Eid

Dear colleagues, thank you all for

the great feedback! your ideas and

contributions are very constructive

and I’m really happy that we now

have this common window for shar-

ing together our ideas, knowledge

and experiences, please send more

of your creative ideas and sugges-

tions and l promise to do my best to

incorporate as much as possible into

our magazine. In this issue two new

sections have been added: internal

vacancies and achievers whom we

proudly acknowledge and congratu-

late, hope you like them, looking

forward to getting your feedback on

[email protected]

I ‘d also like to take this opportunity to

wish you all a happy and blessed Eid

with your families and friends.

Rania Abou-Steite

ALKAN CIT Successfully Deploys its in-house developed “Welcome SMS” application at Sonatel, Senegal

Alkan CIT has successfully deployed the “welcome SMS” application at Sonatel, Senegal’s leading telecom operator, serving more than 3.5 million subscribers. The appli-cation was fully developed by Alkan’s devel-opment team, with capacity of up to 30 million location update/day. Upon deploying the ap-plication, Sonatel has started sending wel-come and informative messages to inbound and outbound roamers upon arriving to Sene-gal, wishing them a pleasant stay and inform-ing them with service rates, , emergency numbers and other useful information. Preliminary testing has proved successful and provisional acceptance took place in July 2010 The project was completed in less than three months, thanks to the dedication and professionalism of the devel-opment and deployment team, namely Waleed Abd el Aleem and Mostafa Mah-moud, who created this technological break-through. We take this opportunity to congratu-late our colleagues and wish them best of luck and more success in upcoming projects isa: Tarek Darwish, Walid Abdallah, Mo-hamed Samir, Mohamed Fouda, Mohamed Ramy, Walid Abd El Aleem, Mostafa Mah-moud and Ahmed Mabrouk

About the application:

Welcome SMS is a location based application, that enables Mobile operators to send welcome SMSs to inbound roamers landing in their coun-tries upon arrival, wishing them a pleasant stay and providing them with useful information re-garding local transportation, emergency num-bers, restaurants, attractions, banks, and how to reach customer service in case of having difficul-ties on making calls, messages could be sent in

Arabic, English, French or any other language.

Bon Voyage SMSs are also sent to Outbound Roamers (subscribers roaming to a for-eign network) wishing them a nice trip. The application guaran-tees increased revenues through

customer satisfaction, reduced Churn, roaming Analysis, convenience, safety and usefulness, and we’re looking forward to repeating same success in different areas and deploying the application at other leading operators within the region

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A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE ISSUED BY ALKAN CIT PEOPLE

Alkan Times

Alkan’s breakthrough

“Welcome SMS

application”

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“The IMAX Experience” IMAX 3D Movies: How to?

If you have ever been to a 3D movie like Avatar, Alice in won‐derland or toy story 3, then you are already familiar with the IMAX technology and know how much different the experience is from that we usually get in normal cinemas, so different and unique that it is nearly a genre of its own, but how does it really work and what’s the trick, sure it’s not just that pair of black glasses we wear during the movie

The trick is quite simple, here’s how it works, the IMAX 3D camera has two lenses set at the same distance apart as our eyes, and films both the left and the right eye images at the same time on two separate films. The two pictures are then superimposed and projected onto the screen simultaneously as a single image.

By using a special light filter, polarized glass, each eye is polar‐ized differently so that the left eye does not see the image of the right eye and vice versa, viewers wear polarized glasses to help keep the two images separate. our brain then converges the two images and the magic is complete ‐ the picture is within an arm's reach!

By Awsam Abdel Azeem

States’ economy relies heavily on the promotion of their products and services within and outside their borders, with globalization and free markets economy, it’s not a secret that the quality of products and services play a dominant role in reaching that goal.

The concept of the quality is based on following a set of proce‐dures in the production process or in the provision of the service, to standardize these procedures at the global level, the interna‐tional organization for Standardization (ISO) formed some proto‐cols with graduated levels, some are general protocols valid for any product/service while others are product / service specific , all protocols are aimed for achieving the following goals:

1. documentation of the workflow system to be used as refer‐ence, and to enable measuring activity performance

2. Measuring performance: of each activity based on preselected parameters with agreed nominal, measurements are analyzed corrective actions applied

3.Implementing development plan: using available resources

4. Measuring customer satisfaction: measurements analyzed and corrective actions applied

In this regard Alkan Telecom was keen to get the ISO9001‐2008 general certification which certifies that formalized business processes are being applied. meanwhile we plan to add special certification for the telecommunications activity named TL9000 during 2011 .

ISO has developed over 18 000 International Standards on a vari‐ety of subjects and some 1100 new ISO standards are published every year.

For more information

Contact Dr. Ahmed Diaa, Alkan CIT Quality Assurance Manager

Check: http://alkanna/qualityassurance/default.aspx

http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html

Technology Blast Alkan Highlights

Dear Colleagues, the following vacancies are

available, if you’d like to apply, send your CV to

[email protected], quoting the job

title in the subject line, for more details, check

HR page on Alkanna

• Sales Account Manager

• Product Manager

• Admin Assistant

Internal Vacancies

“Quality”

• Do some research on the business before the interview • Make sure to arrive 15 minutes early • Greet the employer with a handshake • Make frequent eye contact, smile and show respect for interviewer • Listen carefully to questions and answer directly as possible • Be upbeat and make positive statements • Talk well about your previous employers and what you’ve learned from them • Use examples of how your skills and abilities would fit the job • Bring your “fact sheet” with contact info of references and previous employers in case you’re asked to complete an application

Questions to expect: introduce yourself, what do you know about the type of work we do, why do you want to leave your job, what are your strengths and weaknesses, why should we hire you?

Pitfalls: Being late for the interview, untidy personal appearance, inability to express information clearly, lack of eye contact, incomplete or sloppy application, negative attitude, lack of genuine interest or enthusiasm

Bits & Pieces: Interview Tips

FACES “Maged El Marsafy” Northern Zone Manager, O& M, Alkan Networks

Maged El Marsafy, O & M Northern Zone Manager, graduate of Communications department, Faculty of engineering, Alexandria University 1978, a former handball player, a husband and father of Sarah and Salma, he joined Alkan in 1999, and has been known since then for his dedication and efficiency, targeting new assignments and developing new methodologies, we had the pleasure of interviewing Maged El Marsafy and getting to know him better

How and when did you join Alkan? Back in the late 1990s, there seemed to be a real revolution in communica-tions all over the world and I was really enthusiastic about being part of this new era, so I joined Alkan in April 1999 as a GSM site engineer in Cairo. I enjoyed my first assignment and the quick changes that followed becoming a vice installation manager, then a vice quality control manager, and quality control manager, at this assignment I remember working 12 hours per day for almost a whole year as we were handling the final acceptance of more than 60 Vodafone sites per month. Finally, I became a maintenance quality control manager in Alexandria in 2002 and I had the honor of representing Alkan networks in the International Telecom exhibition in South Africa which marked the launching of new GSM markets outside Egypt. I truly enjoyed all my assignments and acquired lots of experiences; however I had a pressing need to further polish my skills and get exposed to international markets, so I joined Bin Laden in KSA late 2002 till 2008, when I rejoined Alkan as an Area manager for maintenance, and I hope to continue working for Alkan for many years to come. Tell us about the Northern zone maintenance unit ? The Northern zone extends from Alexandria to Saloum and Siwa in the west, Baltim in the east and Tanta in the south. We serve a total of 225 BTS sites, 175 Generators and 60 towers. The unit consists of 54 employees, engineers, technicians and clerks. We perform GSM corrective & preventive mainte-nances. Corrective maintenance is carried out upon receiving Emergency Calls from customers round the clock every day of the year, while the preven-tive type is periodically performed for all sites. We do both types of mainte-nance for BTS, Generators, Towers, and corrective maintenances for Radio Networks and Microwave. Our main customers are Vodafone and Huawei.

What’s Your Strategy ? We use our resources efficiently, invest in people and develop their capabilities. As for dealing with our customers, we try to be always alert and ready, show care and good follow up. We also established a hotline so that our customers can directly contact us anytime to report any request of our services. We ar-range regular meetings to discuss issues and ensure ongoing customer satisfaction

Handling the daily problems of leading telecom operators should be really stressful, what qualities have you acquired on doing this job? The true lesson I’ve learnt is that team spirit is the real hero, and that per-forming under great pressure doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy work

What challenges do you face?

The most recent challenge we had to deal with was clients’

cutting down expenses, which consequently led us to seri-

ously reduce our operational expenses in order to cope

with that change without affecting the performance quality.

We have luckily succeeded in doing so by 29% which

helped maintaining our clients and profits while keeping a

high quality performance at the same time.

What’s your personal dream ? Achieving excellence in my work and supporting my daughters in pursuing their dreams

Tell us about your Favorites

City: Alexandria & Sharm el Sheikh Food: Ducks Hobbies: walking, sports and paying cards TV shows: National football games Rًeadings: قصائد احمد فؤاد نجم

“at school, I was fasci-nated by my uncle’s tech-

nological knowledge. I became very interested in following in his footsteps and becoming a commu-nication engineer myself”


Alkan Times, Issue # 2 Page 5

A Recipe for Success “Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations

unless he or she begins with some wild expectations” By Ralph Charell

Haytham Abdel Naby System Engineer, OSS/

Sameh Elsayed

System Engineer, OSS/BSS

2010, Q3 Achievers Alkan CIT Proudly Acknowledges Q3 Achievers

And thanks them all for their outstanding efforts and dedication to work

CONGRATULATIONS

Sameh and Haytham successfully led the implementation of the APM Project deployment in Vodafone Egypt, the project provides VF with a detailed comprehensive set of KPIs which enables judging the Quality of their services and also the performance of network elements. Sameh & Haytham acquired Project acceptance during past Ramadan (leading the initial Project Plan by almost a month) by doubling their efforts and working extra hours.

Hisham Samir

Help desk, Team Leader

Congratulations for acquiring the MS Enterprise administra‐tor certificate 2010

Haitham Sultan

Project Manager, Burkina, International Business

Congratulations for outstanding performance in Burkina Faso

Mohamed Samir Abd El Aziz

Niger, International Business

Congratulations for outstanding performance in Niger

Mahmoud Ismail

Construction Manager, Senegal, International

Business

Congratulations for outstanding performance in Senegal

Ibrahim El Nakip

Help desk, IT Team Leader

Congratulations for acquiring the MS Exchange 2010 certificate

Walid Abdel Hameed Acquisition manger, Mobinil Projects Rollout Efforts led to top ranking Alkan (2nd highest rank contractor) in mobinil rollout projects during past August due to substantial efforts since April 2010

Mohamed Abdel Aziz Shaheen, Public Relations Manger , Vodafone

Projects Efforts led to obtaining highest volume of construction permit per month (over 27) during Sep. 2010

Mohamed Ahmed El Nakib, Acquisition Man-

ger , Vodafone Projects, Rollout Acquisition department succeeded in signing contracts with Talaat Mostafa group (madinty & el rehab) silver and downtown malls, Orabi associa‐tion and Golf city


Egypt Air, Server Consolidation & business continuity Solution Alkan CIT successfully deployed a Server Consolidation and busi‐ness continuity solution for Egyptair ground services, the solution will help cutting down operational costs and reducing downtime using VMware technology

Vodafone Egypt APM (Advanced Performance Monitoring) Project System engineers, led the APM Project deployment in Vodafone Egypt during past Ramadan, APM provides VF with a comprehensive set of KPIs that enables judging Quality of Service and performance of network elements

AOI Arab Organization for industrialization Microwave Network Renovation using state of the art technolo‐gies, involves connecting 6 factories to the ministry’s headquar‐ters on 2 phases

Alkan Burkina Five new sites , sharing towers, installation & commis‐sioning with Huawei for the leading mobile operator “Telemob”

Air Defense Forces, New Stadium Alkan Telecom was awarded a 12 million EGP project, for deploy‐ing the IT infrastructure, electronic gates, surveillance, public ad‐dress, fire protection system, broadcasting and ticketing for the

Latest Wins Khalda Petroleum Fleet management, equipping 300 vehicles with Wi‐Fi & GPRS kits and FN200 (in Vehicle monitoring units) the intended vehicles travel in town and between exploration and drilling sites in El Salam, Um Baraka, El Tarek and the company’s head quarter in Cairo, therefore the project is expected to increase safety levels, drastically reduce accidents and loses

Ministry of Interior, telecommunication department Mobile connectivity Solution, Thuraya phones, Ministry of inte‐rior, decided to empower the different mobile police forces with Thuraya phones to cover communication within rural and deserted areas all over Egypt

Ministry of Higher Education IT Infrastructure for the ministry’s new buildings in Nasr City, , in‐cludes cabling, switches, security, internet connectivity and training, serves more 600 employee

Ministry of Education VSAT connectivity for 310 geographically scattered administrative sites to the headquarters in Cairo, this project comes as an exten‐sion for the 1000 school connectivity project previously deployed by Alkan

September 2010 28، جريدة اليوم السابع بأنه تم تغيير اسم مشروع " ألكان القابضة"صرح المهندس خالد نصير رئيس مجلس إدارة مجموعة

الزا " إلى مشروع " أبراج القلعة" المرآز المالى والتجارى المعروف قديمًا بـ م " سيتادل ب ت ى أن ي علاء 2011االنتهاء من المرحلة األولى للمشروع مع نهاية عام ي ون إلح ن ، والتى تتكون من مجمع للف

ق، طل هواء ال الزا فى ال عدد من األنشطة الثقافية والفنية ومن مكاتب إدارية وآافيهات ومطاعم وبتصف ن هى فى م ت ك . 2013باإلضافة إلى أماآن انتظار للسيارات، أما المرحلة الثانية فستن ل ت م وت

ادل " مشروع " ألكان القابضة" إحدى شرآات مجموعة " مرآز القاهرة المالى والسياحى" شرآة ت سيى " بالزا ن عل دي ة صالح ال ع المقام فى قلب القاهرة التاريخية، أول الطريق الصاعد بالمقطم أمام قل

.مليارات جنيه 3وبتكلفة 2ألف م 65مساحة

زة ووسط " سيتادل بالزا" وأوضح نصير، أن مشروع جي دقى وال ن وال فى موقع وسط، ولذا فإنه سيخدم سكان العديد من المناطق ومنها المهندسيل راٍق . البلد، باإلضافة إلى سكان مصر الجديدة، ومدينة نصر، والمعادى، والقاهرة الجديدة راغ بشك ف آما سيصبح الوجهة المفضلة لقضاء وقت ال

م، ق طري لجميع الزوار والمقيمين بالقاهرة الكبرى، نظرًا لموقعة االستراتيجى المتميز المحاط بشبكة من الطرق السريعة ومنها طريق صالح سالة 25إلى 15وأيضا الطريق الدائرى مما سيسمح بأن يرتاده سكان آل تلك المناطق فى مدة زمنية ال تتجاوز " األوتوستراد" ق ر، . دقي وأضاف نصي

ة " سيتادل بالزا" بأن مشروع طق ن م سيكون له أيضًا العديد من اإلسهامات االجتماعية والسياحية والثقافية واالقتصادية الهائلة التى سيضيفها إلى الي وف ة، وت ي م ال ات ع مواصف ة ب ة عصري ر ومنها، مساهمته لالرتقاء بالمنطقة المحيطة بالقلعة ومبادرته بإنشاء مجمع ثقافى للفنون ومكاتب إداري

د 5000مليون جنية آأجور مباشرة، باإلضافة إلى 900فرصة عمل طوال فترة اإلنشاء يتم خاللها صرف حوالى 15000 ة عن ت اب فرصة عمل ثاطق ن م ج التشغيل، باإلضافة إلى المساهمة فى إنشاء محاور مرورية جديدة لرفع الكفاءة المرورية بالمنطقة المحيطة، وفى تأمين التربة وال ة ال ي ل ب

.المحيطة والحد من الزحف غير المنظم للمساآن العشوائية القريبة من القلعة

يعتبر نموذجًا عالميًا سيحتذى به لكيفية تطوير قلب العاصمة، حيث يتكون من مجمع " سيتادل بالزا" وأشار نصير إلى أن مشروع مرات 320ثقافى للفنون ومسطحات إدارية وفندق خمس نجوم يضيف حوالى ؤت م ل زًا ل رآ ة فى مصر وم ي غرفة إلى السعة الفندق

ا عدد ه والمعارض الدولية، باإلضافة إلى مرآز للجذب السياحى للترفيه والتسوق من خالل مول تجاري، وبالزا فى الهواء الطلق بة ال ذوى اإلعاق ألطف اآن ل آبير من المطاعم، باإلضافة إلى منتجع صحى ورياضى، وأماآن مخصصة لألطفال يراعى بها وجود أم

ى حوال سع ل ت ارات ت سي كون 7000لتتاح لهم فرصة متساوية لمشارآة الطبيعيين فى اللعب والمرح، وأماآن انتظار لل ي ارة ل سي المشروع جزءًا مكمًال لخطة تطوير القاهرة وخدمة المنطقة السياحية المحيطة بالمكان وخدمة أهل القاهرة آكل

ي ر ا سم ي ة "ت غ ع ل ق ا د ل ب ال ز ا "إ ل ى " أ ب ر ا ج ا ل "سي ت


Time Out

Mohamed abd Elfattah, Emad Eldin Mohammed & Karim

Wild fun in Ghana!

Ramadan’s Outing, International Business team, Cairo, Egypt

Magnificent Water falls in Ghana

Victory for Egypt! International Business team, Mohamed Samir and Niger’s team during African Nations cup


Half Time

THE WORST VICTORY!

Al Ahly successfully achieved their worst victory and the team of blood and fire managed the smartest defeat. The naive goal that shook the goal of shaky Ikrami by the talented Osama Darraji, famously known as Darajenho, will be enough to carry el Tarraji through at the 7th of November Rades stadium, if they only score one goal and keep their nets clean.

But Al Ahly was able to answer to all its critics with a great performance, especially in the second half. If it weren’t for the reckless‐ness of Fadl, Francis being a coward, and Barakat’s misfortune, it would have been possible to score four goals in the first leg, so it is possible, with more focus and determination and the return of Gedo, Hossam Ghaly and Sayed Moawad to score in the return and seize the qualification it deserves.

But second place in his group may be a good omen for Al Ahly, because it will then be playing on the final on home land, with the Congo's TP Mazembe the frontrunner to win at the expense of Al Shabbeba JSK, having won the first leg on home land by three goals to one.

We only need a miraculous goal like Sayed Abdel‐Hafiz and Abu Trika’s goals in both al Taragi and CSS respectively, because al ahli will not accept three goals. For the head coach of Tarraji Fawzi Elbenzirty that doubles as much as skill in the management of games but he got flustered and loses his balance when the delay.

We also need to be careful of the Ghanian Referee Lamptey and not allow the opportunity for Inramo or Daraji to get a penalty the referee will be hoping for.

Another notable, if the prices of the players were on the basis of professionalism in Egypt, the most expensive player in Egypt is not Abou trika or Amr Zaki, but Wael Gomaa

A final word about the fans, having given careful thought to the exchange of masses in the meetings of North African countries, the existence of three or four thousand Tunisian fans opposite eighty thousand Egyptians like a drop in the ocean and vice versa is also true, but the damage from them, and the riots and what we have seen from their barbaric and brutal ways could be much higher. the list of the 15 Egyptian hooligans who raised a riot in Tunisia is probably already prepared by now!

By Mohamad El Shazly About the author: Mohamad El Shazly is a graduate of the faculty of Engineering Ain Shams University, and an avid football fan. He is French Area Coordinator at AL‐KAN CIT. He is also sports commentator with Shabab and Reyadah Broad cast, and an amateur sports writer.


Theme of photography corner for this issue of our magazine is leisure time in Animal Kingdom! Enjoy :)

Alkan Times market ing

“Outliers” The Story of Success

by Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell is a genius who makes you feel you are the genius while reading his books! In outliers, Gladwell proves that

success is not a random act. It depends on other perfectly predictable features such as your birth date, your culture and

access to education/leading edge technology. Suggests how Bills Gates (Gates and Joy) got ahead of others, he logically

unfolds many of the thought to be good luck incidents as it turns out that luck is simply a combination of opportunity and

preparedness and that outliers who are the most successful all around the world do not just work harder than others, they

work much much harder, which gives us all a fair chance to become very successful at what we’re doing!

Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of

practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful

lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps

Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples Gladwell invites conversations

about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the

world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential

Book Club

8 El Gazaer Street New Maadi, Cairo +202 2516 9722 phone

www.alkancit.com

Recommended Readings

The man who owns the news Tipping point

Wednesdays with Murray The man in white shark-skin suit

Photography Corner: Animal Kingdom!

Send your writings and ideas to

[email protected]

P.S. Provide the next business book Review and win the club’s prize!

A nap by seaside, Dahab, Egypt

Free ride on the highway! South Africa,

A Yummy Lunch Bali, Indonesia

alkan times 2, oct 2010

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