Good afternoon, ladies and gents, and welcome to the end of this super-short week. We took the past two days as a gentle reminder of what work is like after a wonderful long Eid break.
THE BIG STORY TODAY
Egypt’s economy will grow at a 4.5% clip in FY 2023-24, with growth expected to come in at 4.0% in the current fiscal year, according to a Reuters poll of economists. The poll sees growth picking up again in FY 2024-25 to 5.0%. The Madbouly government’s most recent estimates pencil in growth for the current fiscal year at 4.0-5.0%.
THE BIG STORY ABROAD
New air strikes throw cold water on truce extension in Sudan: Despite the Sudanese Army proposing a 72-hour extension to its truce with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), air strikes and clashes persisted today, Reuters reports. The RSF accused the army of attacking its forces today and spreading “false rumors,” even after Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan approved the truce, and agreed to send an envoy for talks in Juba, South Sudan, according to Reuters. The statement made no mention of the proposed truce extension.
It seems like a truce won’t hold: The clashing parties continued their assaults, despite the agreed to a three-day truce that expires today at midnight. The conflict that’s been going for two weeks so far has claimed at least 512 lives and injured more than 4.2k others.
** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:
DPI is doubling down on Kazyon: A consortium led by our friends at Africa-focused private equity firm Development Partners International (DPI) will invest USD 165 mn in supermarket chain Kazyon.
Gov’t expands subsidized loan program to include tourism: The Madbouly government will offer EGP 10 bn worth of loans at a subsidized 11% interest rate to tourism players, pushing the total value of its subsidized loan program to EGP 160 bn.
Hotel occupancy in Egypt increased 20-25% y-o-y in 1Q 2023 thanks to tourist inflows from new markets and the depreciation of the EGP.
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PSA #1- Daylight savings is coming at midnight: Get ready for some semi-jet lagged confusion and tardiness. Daylight savings — our first since 2016 — which will see Cairo Local Time (CLT) pushed forward by one hour as of midnight tonight. Daylight savings will remain in effect until 11:59pm on Thursday, 26 October, Cabinet said in a statement yesterday. The move, which breezed through the House of Representatives earlier this month, was made with an eye towards potentially cutting down our natural gas consumption.
PSA #2- Next week is another short one: We’ve got a three-day weekend next week to easeus all back into work mode, after Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly made Thursday, 4 May, a holiday for the public and private sector to mark Labor Day, which falls on 1 May. Banks will also be closed next Thursday, the Central Bank of Egypt said today.
The NBA Basketball Africa League Nile Conference group phase kicked off yesterday and runs through 5 May at Hassan Moustafa Sports Hall in Sixth of October City, according to a Youth and Sports Ministry statement. Six African teams will go head-to-head in Cairo to secure one of four slots in the playoffs and finals in Kigali, Rwanda in May, where they will face the top four teams from the Sahara Conference group phase that took place in Senegal in March, the NBA said.
☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- We’re in for a pleasantly warm weekend, with highs of 27°C tomorrow and 25°C on Saturday, and overnight lows of 14°C-16°C.
What keeps Google’s CEO up at night? The dark side of AI advancement: Google CEO Sundar Pichai, expressed his concerns about the dark side of artificial intelligence, if not regulated and deployed appropriately, “It can be very harmful if deployed wrongly and we don’t have all the answers there yet — and the technology is moving fast. So does that keep me up at night? Absolutely,” Pichai said in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.
Should AI be treated like nuclear power? Pichai argued that governments and AI developing companies should consider nuclear arms-style treaties when regulating AI development. The reason for such suggestions stems from the dangers Ai poses to society globally, including disinformation and the technology’s impacts on knowledge-based jobs.
A gap between us and AI and potential safety concerns: There’s also a “mismatch” between users’ thinking and adaptability using AI, and the rapid development pace of AI, Pichai said, calling for a global regulatory framework for AI developers amid fierce competition that could lead to cutbacks on safety measures.
Of course, Google’s tools are safer: The version rolled out for public testing of Google’s chatbot Bard was safe, according to Pichai. Google has been cautious, holding back more advanced versions of the chatbot for public testing, he said.
Remember: Last month, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Yuval Noah Harari were among 1k who signed an open letter demanding a temporary pause on the advancement of ChatGPT-like programs, warning “human-competitive intelligence” could cause “dramatic economic and political disruptions” to society.
The rise of AI might be worrisome, but it’s tough to deny it’s helpful: Customer service representatives at a Fortune 500 software firm who were given access to generative AI tools were 14% more productive on average than those who were not, with the least skilled employees benefiting the most, according to a recent study by Stanford University and MIT researchers. Researchers tracked over 5k customer support agents at an unnamed Philippine-based software company, which serves small and medium-sized US businesses, measuring the employees’ performance using key metrics like the effectiveness of resolving customer issues successfully in a timely manner.
Least-skilled employees had the most to gain: The study demonstrated that the firm’s least-skilled customer service agents were able to complete their work 35% faster with AI assistance. The improvements in productivity may be due to AI tools’ ability to disseminate the knowledge of top performing workers to less experienced workers via AI-generated suggested responses. This suggests that companies should acknowledge the expertise of their top-performing employees as their knowledge and skills are likely to be used as the foundation for AI tools that will be used across the organizations. This raises the question about how these high-skilled employees should be compensated for their additional service to the firm, MIT researcher and one of the study’s co-authors Lindsey Raymond suggested, according to Bloomberg.
What makes this study different from others? The study is the first to measure the impact of generative AI outside of a laboratory setting. Previous studies have shown the potential of large language models in fields in the workplace, but their true impact has mostly been speculative until tested in real-world settings, Director of the Digital Economy Lab at Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI and one of the study’s co-authors Erik Brynjolfsson told Bloomberg.
The Pope and the Devil: A docu-series on the role of exorcism in the Catholic Church. The series focuses on Pope Pius XII during a controversial four-decade period for the Church before, during, and in the immediate wake of WWII, using archival footage and interviews shot inside Vatican City. Throughout its four episodes, the series examines several themes, including the former Pope’s belief that the devil is a real entity that can possess individuals, as well as the Catholic Church’s ongoing battle against evil and its use of exorcism as a means of driving out demonic spirits from those who have been possessed. Pope Pius XII is said to have performed several “remote exorcisms” on Adolf Hitler, with stories indicating that the pope believed the Nazi leader was an instrument of the devil but was unable to publicly denounce Hitler’s regime despite being outraged by the rise of fascism and the oppression of Jews. The Pope and the Devil is available to watch on Shahid.
Related
⚽ The Premier League’s Gameweek 33 wraps today, with the following matches: Everton v Newcastle and Southampton v Bournemouth, both at 8:45pm, followed by Nottingham v Manchester United at 9:15pm.
Remember to join the Enterprise Fantasy League to compete with more than 200 of our readers for a special prize. Just click this link or enter the code 8o4sut.
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Over in La Liga’s Gameweek 31:
Valencia v Valladolid (7:30pm)
Villareal v Espanyol (7:30pm)
Athletic Club v Sevilla (10pm)
A new gameweek kicks off tomorrow in the Spanish league with just one match: Osasuna v Real Sociedad at 9pm.
Dortmund is on a mission to end Bayern München’s monopoly of Bundesliga titles: Borussia Dortmund faces off against VfL Bochum at the start of Matchday 31 in the Bundesliga at 8:30pm tomorrow. With just five matchdays left in the season, Dortmund is currently at the top of the league with 60 points — just one point ahead of Bayern, which has taken home the league title for the past 10 consecutive seasons. Dortmund has lifted the championship cup eight times, the last of which was under Jurgen Klopp’s leadership in the 2011-2012 season.
This weekend in the EFA Cup quarter-finals:
Al Ittihad Al Sakandary v Enppi (Friday — 7pm)
Al Masry v Al Ismaili (Saturday — 7pm)
Meanwhile, Al Ahly will play its away game in the quarter-finals of the CAF Champions League against Morocco’s Raja CA at 9pm on Saturday. Al Ahly walked away with a 2-0 victory in its home game, and can now settle for a tie or a defeat with a one-goal differential to qualify for the semi-finals.
Gameweek 34 kicks off in the Premier League on Saturday with the following matches:
Crystal Palace v West Ham (1:30pm)
Brighton v Wolverhampton (4pm)
Brentford v Nottingham Forest (4pm)
And on Saturday in La Liga:
Elche v Rayo Vallecano (4:15pm)
Real Madrid v Almeria (6:30pm)
Barcelona v Real Betis (9pm)
One more step towards a third scudetto: Napoli has an important game with Salernitana in Gameweek 32 of Serie A at 3pm on Saturday. Napoli is still topping the league, maintaining a 17-point berth with second-place Lazio, and needs just seven more points to lock down its third title in the club’s history — and its first in 33 years.
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?EAT THIS TONIGHT-
Eat among the stars of Italy’s golden age of cinema at La Trattoria: It’s almost too easy to walk past La Trattoria without noticing it — the Italian restaurant does little to call attention to passersby with a softly lit sign and lace curtains covering the yellowy interior. But for those in the know, it’s obvious why this restaurant has been one of Zamalek’s favorite Italian eateries since 2006. With walls decked out in black and white photos of Italy’s greatest film stars, large tables of friends or smaller corner ones with groups of three huddled together, Tony Soprano-style, the atmosphere is old school Italian warmth. Chef Augusto Rosati has designed a perfectly sized menu that packs a punch — we recommend the Ravioli Ricotta e Spinaci, full of creamy cheese and slightly tangy spinach, the fresh and lemony Branzino or the Trancio di Salmone Croccante, a pan roasted salmon filet with buttery beurre blanc — all of which will leave you in an Italian food coma. Munch your way through the breadstick basket as you go and don’t forget to end with Trattoria’s Infamous Tiramisu or their Tarte Tatin.
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? OUT AND ABOUT- (all times CLT)
Dive into Egypt’s infinitely rich contemporary art world: The “Traces of Egypt” Exhibition began in late March and will continue until Thursday, 15 June, at the Grand Egyptian Museum. The exhibit is organized by Egyptian-German artist Susan Hefuna and celebrates the country’s Khayamiya tradition through 28 dresses celebrating local artisans and their craftsmanship.
Expressionist depiction of Egypt’s rural communities: Artist Omar Abdel Zaher’s latest art exhibition, Roots, will open at Safarkhan Art Gallery next Tuesday, 2 May and run through Wednesday, 24 May. The exhibition is “a sincere, impassioned exploration and meditation on the modest and down-to-earth sanctities of Egypt’s rural communities.”
Top of the Pops with Bubblegum Kollectiv returns next Wednesday, 3 May with Afrobeats and Reggaeton night at Cairo Jazz Club Agouza. DJ Amen-Ra will start the evening at 9pm.
Enjoy art for a good cause: The French Embassy in Cairo is hosting Le Printemps des Artistes, a nonprofit exhibition from next Friday-Sunday, 5-7 May at the Diplomatic Club in downtown Cairo. The exhibition — which will be open to the public at no charge — will feature nearly 400 art pieces from 80 Egypt-based artists. The exhibition will benefit French NGO Samusocial International Egypt, which “supports street children and isolated young mothers in Cairo,” according to a press release (pdf).
Learn how to (properly) use your phone camera with the help of professional photographer Mohamed Elmaandi, who will be running a 10-hour workshop on mobile photography. The workshop will run on Friday and Saturday, 5 and 6 May at the AUC School of Continuing Education from 9:30am until 6:30pm.
Back to the Cairo Opera House: Egypt’s iconic Omar Khairat will be performing on Wednesday, 10 and Thursday 11 May, starting 8pm. The concerts are expected to run through until 11pm at the historical venue’s Main Hall.
Who else has a 40-year roster of songs to choose from at a concert? Catch Amr Diabperforming some of his biggest hits — old and new — at AUC on Friday, 12 May. Tickets are available through Tazkarti.
Start training for your next half marathon: The TriFactory is hosting another edition of itsMadinaty Half Marathon on Friday, 9 June at Madinaty. You can sign up for the event through the TriFactory website.
Related
? EARS TO THE GROUND-
Life in Dollyland: Dolly Parton’s America is a nonfiction series retelling the socio-political makeup of the US through Dolly’s musical legacy and life-long career. Parton — or Saint Dolly as many voices call her throughout the show — is a “quivering mass of irreconcilable contradictions,” the podcast’s creator Jad Abumrad says. When the podcast was released in 2019, America was (and still is) a wildly divided country. Yet one unwavering unifying factor was always Parton — her songs beloved by everyone from “drag queens to evangelical Christians to hipsters,” Abumrad says. And while Parton’s songs and image — platinum blonde and rhinestone decked — are instantly recognizable, her personal life is rarely public as she keeps her political and religious views private. Listen on Apple Podcasts to hear from fans, academics and friends what it is that keeps us singing along to Dolly Parton.
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? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Leftari is a short and poignant narrative of a Syrian couple who have lost all they held dear in Aleppo and have no other option except to leave their beloved home to survive. The narrative opens with Nuri and his blind wife, Afra, lying in limbo in a refugee holding house in Yorkshire surrounded by other refugees from different conflict zones all waiting to see whether they will be accepted as refugees. As they await their fate, we enter Nuri’s mind and see flashbacks of the life that they had in Aleppo: He was a successful beekeeper and his wife was an artist and mother to their son. They were living a full life surrounded by family and had aspirations and plans for themselves and their little family. As we read we see how their happy simple life slowly disintegrated and witness the ultimate loss — their young son’s death from a bombing near their home. Devoted to his wife, who has lost her sight and will to live, Nuri convinces her to flee for their lives traveling illegally through Turkey, Greece, and eventually to the UK. We see how both find coping mechanisms to face their loss — Afra through blindness and Nuri through Mohammed, a young refugee boy whom he cares for and realizes that only he can see him. Leftari, a journalist who spent time in Greece at the refugee camps, used the stories of the humans in transition, who left all that is warm and familiar, forgoing privacy, family, and home to survive, as the inspiration for her novel. The simplicity of the language makes tragedy legible and extends the experience to anyone who knows little about the refugee experience.
Is the end of surveillance capitalism on the horizon? The commodification of users’ personal data has underpinned the revenue streams of tech companies for years. Personalized ads — which leverage detailed information about digital behaviors, such as what Instagram videos users stop scrolling to see or what links they click on Facebook — have earned Meta alone USD 118 bn in revenue in 2021, according to theNew York Times. This digital culture ofsurveillance capitalism — a term coined by American author and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff in 2014 — has long raised ethical concerns about infringing upon privacy, democracy, and autonomy. But recent changes in legislation and advertising practices in some jurisdictions suggest a partial shift away from the non-consensual use of personal data.
The winds of change are blowing hard Meta’s way: On 4 January, EU regulators fined MetaUSD 414 mn for violating the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ruling that the tech giant had illegally forced users to accept personalized ads by bundling them with lengthy terms of service. The judgment, which demanded that Meta remodel its advertising approach, jeopardizes 5-7% of the company’s overall advertising revenue. “It is the beginning of the end of the data freeforall,” privacy activist Johnny Ryan toldWired.
Apple is spinning its own storm: In 2021, the company rolled out a new feature that explicitly asks iPhone users if they want their data to be tracked by mobile applications for personalized ads. The new policy impinged on the revenues of firms that rely on user data for advertising, most notably Meta, which in February 2022 said in its earnings call (pdf) that Apple’s move could have a “significant headwind” of around USD 10 bn to its business.
And Google is baking a new cookie strategy: The tech giant intends to beginphasing out Chrome’s third-party cookies in 2H 2024 as part of its widerPrivacy Sandbox initiative, which seeks to create standards for websites to track user data without compromising privacy. Third-party cookies, like their more benign first-party counterparts, are small packets of information that websites store on a user’s computer by tracking their browsing activity. But while first-party cookies help streamline the user experience by remembering useful data such as log-in credentials, language preferences, or shopping cart items, third-party cookies are predominantly created by advertisers (the third party) to deliver targeted ads. Google’s endeavor follows moves by Safari, Firefox, and Brave, all of which have been blocking third-party cookies for years.
Not so fast, Google: The firm’s cookie-killing plan involves a replacement namedTopics, a new system that analyzes browsing history to share topics that interest the user, such as fitness or travel, with websites and their advertising partners. The system purportedly gives the user more privacy and control by concealing the specific websites they’ve visited and enabling them to remove assigned topics or disable the feature entirely. However, Topics doesn’t completely rule out the risk of websites uncovering personal data. “It is still possible that websites calling the API may combine or correlate topics with other signals to infer sensitive information, outside of intended use,” Google says.
Surveillance capitalism is more rampant than it seems. “This economic logic has now spread beyond the tech companies to … virtually every economic sector, from ins. to automobiles to health, education, finance, to every product described as ‘smart’ and every service described as ‘personalized,’” Zuboff told theHarvard Gazette. For instance, CPAP machines — breathing devices that assist patients with sleep disorders — send usage data to health insurers, whichdeny insurance payments to patients who don’t use the machine. Giant US retailer Target, meanwhile, has figured out how toanalyze historical buying data to find out when a woman is pregnant in order to sell baby merchandise.
The future remains uncertain. While some advocate for an opt-in economy that lets users choose who their data is shared with, others endorse tracker-free contextual advertising that displays ads where they are likely to be of interest, such as a VW ad embedded in an article about cars, Wired writes. The EU ruling against Meta and progress by tech companies in soliciting user consent are significant milestones that may help rein in surveillance capitalism, “[b]ut with personalized ads being proposed as part of an alternative system, what comes next might not look that different,” says Wired.
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