Honourable Audience;
Peace be upon you,
                                               Allow me first to offer my condolences to our Professor, Dr. Moataz Khurshid, Ex. Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, for the demise of his mother, may the Almighty God bestow Mercy and Forgiveness to her soul. In keeping up with a previous promise, he insisted on attending our conference and this attitude reveals his genuine roots, his glorious nature, and his high-ranking scholastic level.
Distinguished Audience:
Allow me also to begin with thanking you, express my sincere gratitude, sincere greeting, besides an apology that I hope you accept and understand.
 
Due thanks to Ain Shams University and Scientific Research Academy.
"Sincere gratitude" for the setting, the idea, the message and noble goal of those who contributed to organizing this conference.
"Sincere greeting" to all of you: Participants, attendees, followers, and debaters.
A hopefully accepted apology was expressed by a number of conference sponsors, who due to their unexpected obligations could not participate. They also expressed their hopes for the success of the conference.
Distinguished Audience:
On behalf of the Arab Center for Education and Development, I am pleased to welcome your distinguished attendance to open our twelfth annual international conference, which we are organizing with the University of Ain Shams, the Academy of Scientific and Technological Research, and a number of regional and local institutions and bodies. The Conference is titled: Innovation and strategic Leadership of Educational and Research Institutions: Options for Sustainability.
         
The world today is breaking through the beginnings of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with all its implications and achievements, and is trying to benefit from its amazing results, directions, and techniques. The talk is about embodying the fifth generation, its techniques and its dedication to artificial intelligence, and the integration of Internet technology with the daily life of people, as well as crystallizing the so-called “Super Network”, which includes the fifth generation, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of things as a pivotal strategy. The emergence of a new kind of technology, the "mass chain" technology, which will bring about spectacular changes to the world, and soon turn into an important infrastructure that will lead the world's future development movement.
Perhaps the trend towards strategic leadership represents one of the fruits of this revolution on the administrative, innovative, and even institutional levels. As a methodology, strategic leadership can integrate the strengths of small enterprises, the distinction of small enterprises (innovation, flexibility, vision, risk, and opportunities) and the marketing capabilities of organizations and resources of large organizations (organizational learning, governance, and growth).
It is noted, that this methodology represents for our educational and research institutions a certain and strategic option capable of achieving sustainable excellence and competitive advantages.
Our educational and research institutions should seek to move away from traditional public administration models that constrain their movement to sustainability.
This necessarily ensures that it has the greatest impact on long-term organizational performance in terms of its ability to adapt, survive and sustain.
No institution, especially the big ones, can sustain itself if it does not acquire a tangible skill for strategic leadership. It is a strategic choice through which excellence and competitive advantages can only be achieved.
Therefore, our educational, academic and research institutions must be proactive rather than passive wait, spread an integrated culture of leadership, strengthen their independence continuously. They must bridge their relationship with other institutions and sectors, inside and outside their arena, among the most important of which is an effective administrative system and a diverse financial base - strong relations with sectors to expand their development environment.
That is why we need to revisit all of our existing processes. We have to adapt our plans to the future with its challenges and the opportunities and dangers it brings, because the way we do things has to change. The way we produce our activities should be substituted.
There is no doubt that educational, academic, and research institutions, in order to perform what is required of them in this new era, must be preceded by a pre-university education system. The system that is capable of preparing generations of young people, who represent strong inputs to universities, and equipped with the foundations and skills of science and knowledge, with the ability to deal with the new society with an open mind and solid values.
Since we firmly believe that education is the process of forming the future and leading development, therefore, any educational system can only believe in its vision, evaluation and direction in light of its developmental contexts, and the powers, directions, goals, values and capabilities that it contains. We, as education professionals, who are responsible for it and those who are looking after it, have to study the future and follow its studies, and learn about the developmental contexts in which education is found, which gives us clear mechanisms not only to create the future but also to lead it.
Our Conference seeks to confirm this trend by proclaiming the following objectives:
Based on the above; the significance of the conference is evidenced as it aims to:

• Uplifting the role of the education and scientific research system and making it the leading sector for sustainable development.
• A social and technological evaluation to the movement of educational and research institutions under the variables of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
• Reinforce education development and planning efforts to deliver intelligent innovation environments
• Stimulate the effectiveness of governmental and private efforts and initiatives towards commitment to innovation and strategic leadership.
• Attract the institutions of civil society and maximize their participation in innovation in scientific research by ideas, financing, organization and use.

Our conference includes forty-two research papers and is attended by more than one hundred professors, researchers, and those who are interested in conference topics from Egyptian and Arab universities.
I promise all of you, that we will come out of this Conference richer, more intellectual, and with more flawless vision.