Ahmed Zewail

As an instructor at Alexandria University, I did research that was published in international journals. Although I left to pursue a doctorate in the United States, it was not for want of a good life.

The youth movement is aware that old visions can not take Egypt into the future.

In the 1960s, I personally lived the resounding impact of President Nasser's vision of constructing Aswan's High Dam as a 'national project' for controlling the Nile irrigation and the production of electricity.

I'd rather have the influence than the power, and the influence to me is to build institutions of independence and democracy, to regain for Egypt prestige in education and science and technology.

In adapting to life in the melting pot of America, I discovered that the same soft power of science has a huge influence in building bridges between cultures and religions - and has the potential to do so with the Muslim world.

Shortly after Sisi was elected, his administration announced cuts of 'subsidies' on natural gas and energy consumption and lowered those for bread and other goods. Such action was taboo during the Mubarak and Sadat presidencies for over half a century, but Sisi was able to convince Egyptians he was taking necessary action.

Investment in education and economic prosperity is the best way to cure fanaticism and for establishing a just peace in the Middle East.

In addition to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which is crucial to U.S. interests both domestically and in the Middle East, the U.S. has had and will continue to need Egypt's collaboration in the war on terrorism.

Reading was and still is my real joy.

In today's world, America's soft power is commonly thought to reside in the global popularity of Hollywood movies, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Starbucks.

We must nurture creative scientists in an environment that encourages interactions and collaborations across different fields, and support research free from weighty bureaucracies.

When I was a boy in Desuq, Egypt, a city on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, about 50 miles east of Alexandria, my family lived steps away from the local landmark, a mosque named for a 13th-century Sufi sheik.