 In a historic educational agreement, the Library of Alexandria and edX became partners to bring educational platforms to empower women and fight the extremist ideology in the Middle East. EdX for us is an opportunity to implement the vision of the Library of Alexandria as a place of learning, a place of dialogue, a place of openness. A window for Egypt onto the world, a window for the world onto Egypt, and a leading institution of the digital age, but above all a space of freedom where people meet, exchange ideas across cultures and across groups of people. EdX has three parts to its mission. One part is access to education, so bringing that not only to the privileged few, but to everyone, everywhere, whether it's rural communities or women, or people who cannot afford higher education, it's very important to do that. We did not have the technology to reach significantly large numbers until now, and edX is the platform that will enable us to do so, to enable us to reach to remote areas in Egypt where children are deprived and young people are deprived of access to books and study halls, but where, through the magic of modern technology, we can actually bring the best teachers and the best materials all the way to them and actually link them into a network of learners and a community of scholars that transcends the boundaries of Egypt to the rest of the world. Women's rights are human rights, they are inherent in the notion of equality, and in the library I'm happy to say that many of my colleagues are very able women, and I've never had a quota system or anything like that, straight competitive merit. Dr. Azaz says that women in Egypt have had access to education for some time now. However, underprivileged women are not allowed to go to school and are limited by culture. But in most universities now, we have a lot of women, and I would like to also say it's not about lack of access, but it's about lack of quality. To rise to the challenge of confronting extremism and violence with ideas of openness, pluralism, dialogue and understanding, we will rely on knowledge being the most important thing. As it is implanted in our part of the world, I think will be a fundamental mechanism in confronting these waves of extremism and violence that we hope to gradually eliminate in our battle for the hearts and minds of a younger generation. On behalf of edX and the Library of Alexandria, for Arlington Public News, I'm Akriti Jagmohan.