Ahmed Zaki Badr is Egypt's new Local Development Minister in Sherif Ismail's Cabinet that was sworn in Saturday. Badr used to be the education minister during Mubarak's regime on January 3, 2010 until he was replaced by Ahmed Gamal El-Din in 2011. Badr is the son of the late interior minister Zaki Badr, who served in his post from 1986 to 1990 and was criticised for human rights restrictions. Badr is replacing Adel Labib, who served as minister of local and administrative development since July 2013. He graduated in 1978 from Faculty of Engineering, Dspecializing in electrical engineering at Ain Shams University. He got his Master's in computer engineering and automatic control in 1982, and his doctorate in the same field in 1986. In 2007 he was appointed the dean of Ain Shams University. His Academic experience reaches more than 30 years in the field of computers and automatic control systems. He has taught in several Egyptian, Arabic and French universities and supervised and discussed numerous MAs and PhDs of computing, electronics and automatic control engineering projects in Egyptian and foreign universities, as well as teaching at the American University in Cairo, department of computer science. He also has an experience in computers' design and information systems, and automated control systems. Badr worked more than 30 years in teaching and research at Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, and he has got more than a three-year experience in the scientific research field that he unlocked at the National Institute of Engineering in France. Badr also filled as an advisor of computer systems and information technology to several government, private entities and the business sector. During his ministerial post hundreds of employees demonstrated for about six hours in front of the ministry of education back in 2011, protesting their transfer to other governorates without a reason given. During his time as education minister, Badr began transferring employees to other governorates, saying they were not doing their jobs properly. A number of employees protested, prompting Badr to rescind his decisions. He remained a minister of education until the uprising that removed former president Hosni Mubarak back in January 2011. Badr was also a member of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP), which was disbanded in the wake of the 2011 uprising. In late 2011, Badr was appointed as president of Akhbar Al-Youm Academy, a private media college belonging to Al-Akhbar newspaper, prompting some students to protest against the choice of "an icon of the Mubarak regime," to run their college. Appointing Badr caused on uproar on social media. Some Twitter users supported such choice in the new cabinet stating that Badr is "known for his stance against corruption." But not all supported the choice of his appointments; Hussein tweeted, "same people, same faces, same ideology, no different from the faces we see in Ramadan's series." While Aya Stated, "Who failed to succeed in education will succeed in local development! How?!" People's opinion of him varies between a laughable failure and a heavy politician, but yet to see.
