An Egyptian activist who spent nearly three years as a political prisoner discussed his strong hopes for a “democratic transformation” in the Middle East during this OSI Forum. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, has begun efforts to gather other democratization advocates from his region and beyond. His hope is to establish a blueprint that countries can draw on to shift out of authoritarian regimes into open ones.