The first meeting of the 17th ICSMGE Conference Advisory Committee (CAC) was held in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt on 18-19 November 2006. Members of the Conference Organizing Committee (COC), chaired by Dr. Mamdouh Hamza, welcomed to Egypt Prof. Pedro Sêco e Pinto, President of the ISSMGE, Professor Mounir Bouassida, ISSMGE Vice President for the African Region, Professor William Van Impe, Immediate Past President of the ISSMGE, Professor R. N. Taylor, Secretary-General of the ISSMGE, and Dr. Masahi Kamon, Professor of Environmental Geotechnics at Kyoto University and Secretary-General of the Organizing Committee for the 16th ICSMGE held in Osaka, Japan in 2005.