The first day of Bahrain’s Technology Week was an unforgettable success! From the groundbreaking announcement of Amazon Web Services’ opening a Middle East Region in Bahrain during MENA’s first-ever AWS Summit, to the news of Bahrain being the first country in the Middle East to implement a Cloud-First Policy! As Bahrain made history with these announcements, the startup community was gearing up for the launch of the Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter) just minutes away from the AWS Summit at the Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bahrain Bay. The pavilion featured an amazing line-up of panel discussions, keynote speeches, inspirational talks, exhibiting startups, accelerators and supporting government entities making it the most robust platform for networking.
The Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter) is a collaboration between the Bahrain Economic Development Board, Amazon Web Services, and the StartUp Bahrain community. The Pavilion is held in parallel with the AWS Summit which took place on the 25th of September, and the MITEF Innovation forum, which is set to take place on the 27th and 28th. Forming Bahrain’s first Technology Week,the events are mainly held at the Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bay, while the Pavilion is taking place just two minutes away from the hotel.
Here’s what you missed yesterday!
- Ms. Teresa Carlson,Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector of Amazon Web Services (AWS), has made the landmark announcement of the launch of AWS’ first Middle East Region here in Bahrain.
- Mohamed Ali AlQaed, Chief Executive of the Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA), announced the astonishing fact that Bahrain is now the very FIRST country in the Middle East to adopt a cloud first government policy!
- The Chief Executive of the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB), H.E. Khalid Al Rumaihi’s promising speech about his determination and persistence to shape the startup community and provide them with a business-friendly environment: “I am determined to provide startups the right ecosystem for them to prosper and prevail.”
- The #awssummit hashtag ended up trending in Bahrain on Twitter, with over 700+ tweets by 350+ users reaching an estimated 3.75 million users with 10.9 million impressions in just 24 hours!
- AWS Summit held both Business and Technical Track sessions – offering a crash course on cloud computing, and how adoption of AWS services provides an array of opportunities to accelerate innovation while driving down operational costs. Can you believe that FINRA managed to save up to $20 million in a year after using Amazon Web Services?
- It also took attendees into a deep dive on security, devOps, analytics, machine learning, big data and more.
- H.E. Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Director General of the Office of the First Deputy Prime Minister, extended his gratitude and appreciation towards the partners that did a brilliant job organizing Bahrain’s Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter), including Amazon Web Services, the Electricity and Water Authority, Batelco, the Bahrain Economic Development Board team, and the Ministry of Finance.
- The Gaming Panel Discussion was conducted by IGN featuring Ameen Al Tajer, Managing Director of InfiniteWare, Ahmed Al Omairi from Esport, Omar Abdulaziz, Head of the Rashid AlZayani Foundation, and moderated by Baraa Abdulla. They discussed why Bahrain is a growing hub for gaming, and how it hosts the best IGN events in the world.
- The StartUp Bahrain community exhibiting at the Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter) were really excited to be here. Some of them include Baqala, WNNA, Malaeb, Drie, OneGCC and more.
- The delicious food trucks that offered some cold ice cream from Baskin Robbins, mouth watering burgers from Gastro and the Paddock Cafe, and savory traditional Bahraini food from Villa Mamas – not to mention the fresh aromatic coffee drinks from Grind and their exquisite complimentary delicacies.
- PayFort’s CEO, Omar Al Suadodi gave invaluable advice to startups on being patient and not growing rapidly, “successful startups are the patient ones” – a strategy that has clearly worked for him, as he announced that with the help of the EDB, he will soon launch his startup in Bahrain.
- StartUp Bahrain announced that it will have three lucky winners for the first 1,000 followers of the account. What are you waiting for, follow @StartUpBahrain to win some cool mystery prizes from Batelco!
Didn’t get a chance to visit to experience all of this? No worries, you can always check out @StartUpBahrain on Instagram for the full live coverage.
The Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter) will be open until the 28th of September, so you’ve got plenty of time to come! Here’s a list of fun things happening this week. See you there! And don’t forget to follow @StartUpBahrain on Twitter and Instagram, and use #TechWeekBH on your posts! One of our lucky followers will be winning some cool prizes from Batelco.
