Robotics Scandal Shakes Egypt - What's The Truth?

Yesterday, our Web Intelligence Unit investigated a surge in traffic and stumbled upon a viral story coming from Egypt. The author of the post, which has been shared almost 10,000 times as we're writing these lines and received the same amount of likes and reactions, spotted something disturbing in a video news report. In this video, the Egyptian President is attending  the graduation ceremony of the first batch of Future Technology Pioneers initiative, with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhy, Minister of Communication and Information Technology Yasser El-Kady, and a number of ministers and senior state officials also attending. Among the 5,000 graduates from all technological fields, one was showcasing a dancing robot. This was presented as the first Egyptian Robot to dance to music by media outlets such as Al-Jazeera.

Except that this Robot wasn't...

After searching online, the author quickly realized this robot wasn't an original creation. But actually an education kit from Bioloid. And he linked to our website as we happen to carry this great product. And we'd like to highlight there that we are not linked to this story besides the fact that the original poster chose to link to our website. And if that wasn't enough, the programming also seems to have been plagiarized from an online video from 2014. It seems it'd be obvious but presenting an invention as your own is never a good idea. Especially in a school-related contest. Especially in a graduating ceremony. Especially if media are present to cover the news. Especially in our Internet Era where nothing can stay hidden for long.

What are this story's implications?

Following the virality of the original post, the report has been relayed by the Huffington Post in Arabic. Noting the original report of the author of the original post, the journalist do contextualize the extract chosen. Indeed, if you're to watch the entire video, the students do also talk extensively about the robot invention process with 3D printing. This actually makes the all story even more confusing and weird. Indeed we have 3 scenarios possible to explain the whole scandal:

• Either the original author took an element out of context. And the whole story is just about students plagiarizing (or more likely counterfeiting) a commercial design with 3D Printing.
• Or it's a mockery of government officials being fooled by a student who got an educational kit online and presented it as their own marvel.
• Or it's a deep denunciation of what could seem like a propaganda operation from the Egyptian government to promote their education initiative.

Unfortunately, none of these options are pleasant news.

Robotics in Education

First and foremost, we'd like to highlight the fact that we were saddened to see this story. And we do condemn plagiarizing or counterfeiting, especially in a scholar context. That being said, we've always been a promoter of robotics in education. We've covered the topic extensively over the years on our blog (see our latest posts on the topic here and here - and our GoRobotics website). We also carry many amazing products to help schools teach people of all ages Robotics and STEM in general. We've also partnered with non-profits like Project Lead The Way over the years to democratize robotics in education. We, and the RobotShop Community, stand ready to help any schools or student which'd like to get in Robotics or start a Robotics program. Just don't plagiarize/counterfeit a commercial project. It's not only definitely not something you should do, but you can achieve much more than just replicating. Actually, that's the beauty of robotics. You can achieve pretty much anything you can dream of.