The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

We’ve celebrated women empowerment in many of our past articles. Day by day, more and more female figures are featured in headlines and receiving the acknowledgement and attention that they genuinely deserve. One day soon, women will be conquering STEM fields left and right, and then people will cease from using the expression, the “First Woman” to accomplish something. Instead, women accomplishments will become the norm. Let’s meet today’s female role model, Eng. Marwa Hafnawi. 

What better way to meet our heroine than through a heartfelt introduction from the German University in Cairo. The university uploaded a post on their Facebook page, last Sunday, to celebrate its esteemed alumnus, under the title, “GUC Graduate Eng. Marwa Hafnawi Working on Developing 5th Generation of Cell Phones.” 

The GUC also shared an article by Sada Elbalad English (SEE) that gives a brief synopsis of Hafnawi. The first shocking fact is that our protagonist is only 32 years of age! Not only that, she also received her PhD in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Munich at the age of 29, after which she was contacted by several countries, namely Germany and Japan, to utilize her expertise in the development of 5G mobile phones. Today, she is a strategic planner for the fifth generation of mobile phones at Intel, Germany.

When SEE asked her about the nature of her work, Hafnawi stated that her job focuses on analyzing the signals transmitted from and to the phone, in order to develop a more rapid communication service. She also revealed that the fifth generation technology is not just for mobile phones, but also for cars and cities as they will be provided with communication antennas to connect them to each other.

Against all odds, including colleagues’ prejudice against her relatively young age and ethnicity, she strode on to become a PhD holder, trilingual speaker, former Nokia employee, and an inspirational role model to all Egyptian girls, proving that anything is possible if you just believe in yourself and work hard.