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Last Thursday, 28th September, was the last day of events that concluded Bahrain’s Technology Week, which wrapped up at the Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter). The room was filled with mixed emotions. Startups were nervous, as they were anticipating who would be winning the final round of the “FACE-OFF ON THE BAY” Pitch Competition, organized by Brinc and C5 Accelerate. Their nerves were calmed by the extremely entertaining Imran Al-Aradi, whose quick wit and humor on stage kept the crowd in stitches. With the winners finally announced and the week coming to a triumphant close, Bahrain’s Technology Week partners and organisers, including the Bahrain Economic Development Board, Tamkeen Bahrain, the StartUp Bahrain community, Rowad, C5 Accelerate, and Brinc, expressed their pride and happiness towards putting together such an incredible action-packed week for Bahrain’s startups.

If you missed the first couple of days, here’s your chance to catch up on the first day, second day, and third day.

As for the fourth day, it started with Day 2 of the MITEF Innovation Forum at the Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bay, where they continued their highly informative and insightful sessions on cloud computing, artificial intelligence, FinTech, Blockchain, and more. Following that, the final round of the “FACE-OFF ON THE BAY” Pitch Competition started with Baqala, Time Control Technologies, DualNetworks SA, Orddr, and Malaeb pitted against each other. The startups competed to win some great cash prizes from Tamkeen Bahrain, credits from Amazon Web Services (AWS), a Cloud10 Scalerator scholarship from C5 Accelerate, and two tickets to Web Summit in Lisbon for the first place winner.

Here’s what went down on the last day of #TechWeekBH:

  1. The MITEF Innovation Forum panel discussion on Blockchain and its positive impact on the world in the next few years. “The digital world feels a little unsafe, but Blockchain changes that and makes the digital world as safe as the real world” – Adam Vaziri, Director of Diacle.
  2. Another MITEF panel discussion featuring Yasin Aboudaoud, Chief Development Officer of Brinc, Emad Y. Kashgari, Regional Business Incubator Manager at Badir Program, KSA, Arieje Al-Shaker, Vice President and Co-Founder of Rowad and Deputy Head of Development Services Division at the Bahrain Development Bank, and Hadyah Fathallah, Executive Director of C5 Accelerate, where they discussed the importance of incubators and accelerators within the region to support seed stage and scale up startups.
  3. Bahrain Bayan School students passed by the Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter) where they were introduced to various organizations including Brinc, C5 Accelerate, educational institutes like University of Bahrain, BIBF, and Bahrain Polytechnic, and got to know more about how Bahrain is transforming into a technology hub in the region through AWS.
  4. Malaeb got crowned as the StartUp Bahrain Champion and received US$50,000 cash prize from Tamkeen Bahrain to scale up their startup, as well as tickets to the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal!
  5. DualNetworks SA won second place and received US$20,000 cash prize from Tamkeen Bahrain!
  6. Shaikh Mohammed Al Khalifa from the Bahrain Economic Development Board expressed his heartfelt gratitude towards all partners that contributed to the Technology Week and the startup community, including Batelco for their high-speed internet at the tent, C5 Accelerate & Brinc for organizing the “FACE-OFF ON THE BAY” Pitch Competition, Tamkeen Bahrain for providing the cash prizes for the competition, the Bahrain Economic Development Board team for organizing the week’s event in 25 days, Rowad for hosting events, and many more. Closing his speech with the idea that “80% of startups are likely to fail, but it’s okay to fail as a business, however we as a society need to pick them up and support them as they try to get back up on their feet”.
  7. StartUp Bahrain’s Pakiza Abdulrahman’s wonderful words towards the startup ecosystem: “Let’s connect, startups, students, government entities corporates, people with inspiring stories, share them with us, share them with the community and let us all be proud of Bahrain”.

Didn’t get a chance to experience all of this at the Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter)? You can read all about the Technology Week Highlights at the StartUp Bahrain website. You should also definitely check out @StartUpBahrain on Instagram for the full coverage of #TechWeekBH.

The Pavilion’s events will surely be missed, however this is not the end. Remember, you can always get involved with the awesome StartUp Bahrain Community, and be a part of these lively events that contribute to Bahrain’s startup ecosystem. All you have to do is head over to the website here and contact us.