MASAR Competitions announces its next step at the Dialogue with the Nile closing ceremony on 26 September 2026: MASAR 101 is now MASAR Competitions, and the first competition under the new name is called Afterlife. In his talk “Something Bigger Is Taking Shape”, founder Ahmed El-Metwaly tells what the team learned from two rounds of competitions — and why this is the next step.

From training to competition

MASAR 101 started with a clear decision: not to teach software, but to teach thinking, and to close the gap between what students learn at university and what they meet at work. The first training began in September 2024 with about seven students from Future University in Egypt (FUE), who came to the office: an orientation day, then the design phase — moodboards, material selection and furniture plans — and certificates at the end of the internship in October 2024. Then fifty students at Misr International University (MIU), then Round 1 on site, then Round 2 online: 65 entries, 24 Finalists and seven jurors from four countries.

The lesson the team took from it is that a competition made students think harder than any course. Hence the decision: the competition is not something next to education — the competition is the education. Training, mentoring and sessions carry on, now inside every competition.

Three permanent themes

MASAR Competitions runs its competitions under three themes; the competitions under each theme are renewed every year:

  • 01 — Dialogue with the Nile: projects along the Nile — its cultures, its civilisations, its stories.
  • 02 — Afterlife: old buildings, a second life — reuse, restoration and modern interventions in historic places.
  • 03 — Re:Act: real problems, real proposals — every problem that can be solved deserves a competition.

All three share one rule: Egyptian identity and real impact — on the place, and on the people who live in it.

Afterlife: old buildings, a second life

Egypt is full of buildings that have lost their use but not their value. Afterlife asks how an old building can live a second time — not by restoration alone, and not by demolition, but by reading the building, deciding what stays and what is added, and proposing a new use that brings people back. The existing shell is kept; the new life is inserted.

What if a gallery lived inside a citadel? What if a concert filled an old caravanserai? What if a forgotten palace became a place to learn again? It has happened: The Louvre was a royal palace, Tate Modern a power station, The Reichstag became a glass dome open to all, Arena di Verona hosts the opera every summer — and in Cairo itself, Baron Empain Palace has come back as a place for exhibitions and events, and the Cairo Citadel hosts the Citadel Music Festival.

What is set, and what is coming

  • Early-bird registration: opens next week.
  • Submission: planned for January 2027.
  • Brief, jury, prizes and fees: announced within a month.

All of this is provisional until the full brief is published on the competition page. There is no registration and no payment before then.

How to follow

The Afterlife page on this site carries every update first. Leave your e-mail there and we will write when the brief is published and registration opens — one message per step.

As Ahmed El-Metwaly puts it: we refused to teach software so that we could teach you to think — and from next week, you have the chance to prove it.