This article discusses the digital transformation of higher education in Egypt as distance education was abruptly implemented in early 2020. For eight months after that, 38,784 media items were crowdsourced reflecting spontaneous opinions, expectations, sentiments and experiences with the new digital learning. This random sample was drawn from digitised and online news articles, TV and radio programmes, and social media posts by students, parents, academics, education experts and media professionals who represented the media and public opinion. This article recommends the people-process-technology framework for the digital transformation of higher education based on previous research and digital archival research findings. It highlights its components and integrated approach, and discusses its implementation in Egypt and developing countries. Moreover, the framework will be the foundation for further research in higher education's digital transformation, operations, human resources and information technology.