Napoleon's University

• Napoleon and his French army occupied Egypt in 1798 and brought major changes in three short years, before they were booted out of the country by an Anglo-Ottoman alliance. Napoleon enhanced the education of the Egyptian workforce by bringing over printing presses from France and establishing a university, called Institut d'Egypte. One of Napoleon's first acts in Egypt was founding the university in Cairo on August 21, 1798. According to historian Daniel Boorstin, the Institut d'Egypte researched many areas pertinent to the Egyptian economy, such as the subterranean movement of water and irrigation. The university conducted a major survey of Egyptian aqueducts and studied the ruins of an ancient canal that connected the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.
  
  

Nationalized Land

• Egyptian leader Muhammad Ali (1769-1849) consolidated power in 1811 and embarked on major economic reforms. Ali confiscated land from the feudal farms all over the country. He also confiscated the 600,000 acres of valuable Cairo real estate owned by major religious institutions. With so much land under his control, Ali could design a centrally planned economy and decide what he wanted the country to produce.
  
  

Cotton Monopoly

• Muhammad Ali used his ambitious nationalization of land to control the industrial and agricultural economy. He ordered peasants to produce cotton, which he expected to be a lucrative cash crop he could sell to the British to finance ambitious industrial projects. He purchased the country's entire cotton crop so his government could sell it to Britain at a profit. The operation was unsuccessful, and Ali resorted to setting up numerous textile manufacturing plants in Egypt to convert cotton into cloth.
  
  

Mahmudiya Canal

• Muhammad Ali began digging the Mahmudiya Canal in 1819 to make a safe transportation route from the Nile to Alexandria. There had been a canal before, but it had since decayed and was unusable for transportation. Ali named the reconstructed canal after the reigning sultan of Turkey.
  
  

Foreign Training

• Noticing the limited educational resources in Egypt compared to wealthy European countries, Muhammad Ali brought foreign experts into Egypt to train local workers in various manufacturing industries. He also sent many Egyptians abroad to learn trades in other countries.