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Top1. Introduction
Since the early 1990s, Egypt has shown a strong commitment to global discourse 1 following the global agenda in applying new evolutionary development strategies known as Knowledge-based Urban Development (KBUD), where new policies were issued and new projects of Knowledge Precincts (KPs) were built to fulfill these policies. In theory, it is argued that the concept of Knowledge-based Urban Development (KBUD) has emerged as a new scientific movement, as a result of the growing role of ‘knowledge’ in contemporary human societies. KBUD has established itself as a theoretical and applied approach, a development policy, and a planning strategy that aspires to achieve development through four main dimensions: economical, socio-cultural, environmental, and institutional. This could be achieved through the creation of different spaces for the production of knowledge itself within the community. Such a case can only happen through the potential provided by the Communication and Information Technology (ICT), which facilitate the production of knowledge and its sustainable employment through different specialized projects of Knowledge Precincts (KPs). Potentially, the KPs projects depend on a fully equipped ICT infrastructure along with an empowered and creative human capital (Abdrabo, 2018).
In the field of Sociology, many studies have shown that implementing KBUD policies, while achieving social justice, cannot be considered as an easy or fast process as it cannot happen solely through the efforts of an interventionist state. It requires real support from all social agents: local government, citizens, civil society, NGOs, active universities, strong research centers, and powerful activists. Such process aspires to create a Knowledge Society which cannot be defined as a society based only on knowledge sharing since it is about the capability to identify, process, transform, disseminate, and use information to build and apply knowledge for human development. It requires the empowering of a holistic social vision that encompasses plurality, inclusion, solidarity, and participation amongst its people (Popper, 2013: 26-27; Taleb, 2007: xx-xxii). In this vein, the research followed an ethnographic empirical approach gathering primary data from the field within three cases of study through in-depth interviews with experts working in three Egyptian Knowledge Precincts (KPs): (1) The Information Technology Institute (ITI), founded in 1993; (2) The City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications in Burg Al-Arab (SRTA-City), founded in 1993 (institutional decision and on the 13th of August 2000 started working; (3) the final case is Smart Village (SV), founded in November 2001.