Effat El-Shooky thinks the internet is a great tool for spreading knowledge but disputes the accuracy of referring to Egypt's so-called jasmine revolution as an 'internet revolution'.
An adviser to Egypt's minister of communication and information technology, El-Shooky was a delegate at the World Summit Award conference in Hong Kong.
She said the 'internet revolution' label was misleading, despite campaigns on social networking websites that were widely seen to have played a major role in the dramatic uprising.
'Our revolution has been labelled because it was led by the youth, who have been called the internet generation,' she said. 'In fact, it is a revolution of the generation which has been using the internet. These youths have been social-networking months before the revolution.'
El-Shooky took up the advisory position three years ago under the Mubarak regime and is still holds the post in the transitional government.
But she said the online political movements did force the authorities to hear the people's voices in new ways and helped educate people about their rights more quickly.
'It was a big surprise when we found the military council had opened a Facebook page,' she said. It had to have a Facebook forum to get feedback from the young people, she said.