The existence of 23 million mines in Egypt’s oil-rich Western Sahara is a major obstacle to development projects.
This prompted 24-year-old Ahmed Gouda and his team to invent a new mine detector capable of defusing mines without causing casualties, thereby saving more than 25,000 people from mine explosions every year. He dreams of selling his device to 76 countries in the world suffering from the same problem.
Gouda, who is a finalist in the Business Challenge competition organized by Intel in cooperation with Nile University and the American University in Cairo, says the device penetrates the soil by remote control through a radar GPR system, which is a unique feature.
"The radar detects resonant waves coming out of the soil,” he explained, adding that this could be applied to rocky ground, water, ice, or any other type of soil. “The device is able to determine the nature of objects through voids and cracks.”
“The armed forces showed interest,” he said, adding that the Arab Organization for Industrialization and other international corporations offered a partnership.
“We dream of converting the Western Sahara into an attractive investment opportunity for the economy to flourish,” he said. “We only extract 10 percent of its oil.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
