Abdel-Moneim's contribution, titled "The State Ownership Document," examines the State Ownership Policy Document, approved by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in December 2022, to determine the state's presence in economic sectors and enhance private sector participation in public investments.
The award recognizes investigative projects produced under a specialized training grant focused on data journalism and the use of artificial intelligence tools, organizers said.
The Heikal for Arab Journalism grant received 164 applications from journalists working at newspapers and digital platforms across Egypt and the Arab world. Twenty-six journalists were selected for the programme based on what organisers described as balanced institutional representation and equal-opportunity criteria.
The training ran from November 2025 to mid-January 2026 and produced 20 completed journalistic projects competing for the top three prizes.
The shortlisted finalists are Islam Abdel-Maboud of Al-Shorouk for “The Journey of an Antiquity,” Omnia El-Mogy of Youm7 for “An Expensive Click,” Alaa Hamza of Al-Osboa for “Al-Mawasi… Graves of the Living,” Doaa Abdel-Moneim of Al-Ahram for “The State Ownership Document,” Alaa Taha of Al-Gomhuria for “The Mystery of the Disappearance of 99% of Egyptian Migrants to America,” and Hoda Rashwan of Al-Watan for “The Map of Mental Illnesses in Egypt.”
Organizers said the programme included training on data journalism standards, evidence-based storytelling, open-source data collection, data cleaning and processing, visualization tools, and the use of artificial intelligence in investigative reporting.
The workshops were delivered by trainers including Gamal Gheitas, Khaled El-Barmawy, Amr El-Iraqi, Osama El-Qady, Eman El-Warraqi, Maha Salah, and Ahmed Abou-Amira. Sahar El-Meligy and Mohamed Zeidan supervised participants through the final project stage.
Mohamed Saad Abdel-Hafeez, undersecretary of the Journalists’ Syndicate and head of its Training Committee, said the grant aims to equip Egyptian and Arab journalists with data and AI skills amid what he described as structural shifts in the media industry.
He added that the final winners will be announced at a ceremony to be scheduled in coordination with the foundation’s board of trustees and the head of the Journalists’ Syndicate, with further details expected soon.
Sahar El-Meligy, the programme’s general coordinator, said the workshop saw “strong intellectual momentum and clear professional competition,” adding that participants worked to translate three months of training into substantive projects addressing a range of social issues.
She noted that previous editions of the joint programme have produced projects that later won major Egyptian and Arab journalism awards.
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