Skytells and MSA University Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance AI Research and Engineering Talent
July 9, 2026 — Skytells and MSA University (October University for Modern Sciences and Arts) today announced an official partnership that connects Skytells' enterprise AI engineering and infrastructure with MSA's academic research and engineering talent. The agreement establishes a long-term working relationship between the two institutions and is anchored in DeepMinds, the flagship scientific day of MSA's Faculty of Computer Science, where student research meets the industry that puts it into production.
Founded in 1996, MSA University was the first university in Egypt to validate its programs with British institutions, granting its graduates a dual-origin bachelor's degree — an Egyptian degree accredited by Egypt's Supreme Council of Universities, alongside a British degree validated by the University of Greenwich. That validation, in place since 2002, has established MSA as one of Egypt's most academically rigorous private universities, with faculties spanning Computer Science, Engineering, Pharmacy, Biotechnology, Management Sciences, and more, and a substantial body of peer-reviewed research published across its disciplines.
A Partnership Between Research and Production
Skytells is an AI research and infrastructure company that builds and operates enterprise AI infrastructure and complex distributed systems for organizations working at scale. Its infrastructure spans six continents under a 99.999% uptime SLA with sub-10ms latency. Its cognitive models operate across text, image, audio, and video, while its services extend from cloud-native GenAI and custom model training to on-premises deployment and dedicated engineering teams. This is the environment MSA's work now connects to — production-grade infrastructure and engineering practices used to operate real-world AI systems.
That connection is the purpose of the partnership. Academic research and industrial engineering often operate in different environments: rigorous scholarship is produced inside the university, while the production systems needed to bring it into the real world sit elsewhere. Skytells and MSA are working together to close that gap. Skytells contributes infrastructure, engineering expertise, mentorship, and the resources needed to build, test, and refine promising research under real-world conditions. MSA contributes the academic depth, scientific output, and disciplined engineering talent that a serious partner can build on.
What We Saw in MSA University
MSA's academic model was built for the movement between rigorous theory and working systems that modern AI engineering demands. Its dual-degree structure ties every graduate's Egyptian qualification to a British academic standard through the University of Greenwich, and its Faculty of Computer Science has produced a consistent and growing record of scholarship and applied project work across artificial intelligence, data science, computer vision, cybersecurity, and cloud computing.
What impressed Skytells most was the depth beneath that record. The student work on display was not a set of coursework exercises but advanced, well-engineered systems spanning fields from embedded AI and the Internet of Things to computer vision, natural language processing, and healthcare — built with a level of professionalism usually associated with working engineering teams.
Behind these projects is an equally strong research culture. MSA has published more than 3,000 peer-reviewed papers that have received over 33,000 citations across computer science, engineering, medicine, and the natural sciences. This output places the university among the leading research-active private universities in Egypt. For Skytells, it was the grounding of that published work — its rigor, and the fact that students were building on it rather than around it — that made the partnership compelling.
I have seen a great deal of student work over the years, and it is rare for any of it to genuinely stop you in your tracks. At MSA, it did. I watched young engineers present systems across embedded AI, IoT, and computer vision with the composure of seasoned engineers, and every project stood on real, published research. That combination is rare, and it left a lasting impression on me. It is exactly the kind of talent and rigor we built Skytells to work alongside, and I am proud that we now get to help carry their work from the lab into the real world.
DeepMinds: Where the Partnership Takes the Stage
The partnership comes to life through DeepMinds, the annual scientific day of MSA's Faculty of Computer Science. Since its first edition in 2022, DeepMinds has grown into one of Egypt's most active university-industry showcases — its seventh edition, held on July 5, 2026, at MSA's October City campus, brought together more than 900 students, over 140 projects spanning 15 technical domains, and more than 45 industry partners in a single day.
DeepMinds places graduation and course projects in front of a professional jury and hiring companies, giving students structured evaluation and direct access to employers, and giving industry an early, first-hand view of graduating engineering talent. For Skytells, it is the natural place for the partnership to operate: a setting where the company can contribute to the jury, mentor project teams, and open a direct pathway from the showcase floor into its engineering organization — turning a single day of student work into long-term research and career opportunities.
Skytells Credits for MSA Students
As part of the partnership, Skytells is extending platform credits of up to $5,000 to eligible MSA students, giving them access to the same infrastructure, AI solutions, and models the company builds for enterprises. The credits can be applied across Skytells' cloud infrastructure, GenAI services, and model training workloads, so promising ideas are never constrained by the cost of the compute required to build them.
The program mirrors the approach of the Skytells Digital Start-up Program, which provides venture-backed companies with cloud credits and expert support to build and scale. Extending that model to students is a deliberate next step: the same production-grade platform that supports startups is now open to students still pursuing their degrees, at the stage where access to real infrastructure has the greatest effect on what they are able to learn and build.
Eligible MSA students can redeem their credits directly through the Skytells Console, with guidance provided in coordination with MSA's Faculty of Computer Science.
Research Grounded in Responsibility
Skytells is a member of the Coalition for Sustainable AI, the global initiative co-initiated by France with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and directs 2% of its annual revenue to verified carbon removal through the Skytells Climate program. That commitment shapes how the company chooses long-term academic partners: it looks not only at talent, but at the seriousness and integrity of the scientific work behind it. MSA's substantial and responsibly produced research record was central to why Skytells chose to build here — a foundation the company can stand behind as the partnership matures from mentorship and recruitment toward joint applied research.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, Skytells and MSA University will expand the partnership through student mentorship, applied research initiatives, technical workshops, and opportunities that help translate academic innovation into production-ready AI systems. Both organizations see the collaboration as a long-term investment in Egypt's next generation of AI engineers and researchers.
About MSA University
MSA University (October University for Modern Sciences and Arts) is a private university founded in 1996 and located in 6th of October City, Giza, Egypt. It was the first Egyptian university to grant its graduates a dual-origin bachelor's degree — an Egyptian degree accredited by Egypt's Supreme Council of Universities, and a British degree validated by the University of Greenwich. Its faculties include Computer Science, Engineering, Pharmacy, Biotechnology, Mass Communication, Management Sciences, and Physiotherapy, and the university maintains an active record of academic research across its disciplines. Learn more at msa.edu.eg.
About Skytells
Skytells is an AI research and infrastructure company that builds the platforms, models, and systems enterprises rely on to run AI at scale. The company operates globally distributed AI infrastructure spanning cloud, edge, and on-premises environments across six continents, engineered for a 99.999% uptime SLA and sub-10ms latency to support its enterprise AI platforms, multimodal cognitive models, and complex distributed systems. From cloud-native GenAI and custom model training to dedicated engineering teams, Skytells delivers production-grade AI with SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 compliance. By combining research, infrastructure, and engineering, the company helps organizations move AI from concept to production with confidence. Skytells is a member of the Coalition for Sustainable AI. Learn more about Skytells and its enterprise AI and infrastructure solutions.