On the 15th of September 2019, the Amazon Web Services global summit commenced in Bahrain witnessing the rendezvous of technologists representing countries from across the world, governmental & educational representatives and more. The event kick-started with the launch of 36 start-ups and introduced its participants on opportunities to learn how the cloud plays key in accelerating innovation for businesses of all sizes and boost connectivity with colleagues and peers. The summit further aimed to provide its attendees with key aspects on the AWS pledge in establishing cloud in terms of a digital transformation and discover how cloud-based skills could empower the workforce of today and tomorrow. Teresa Carlson, the Chief of Public Sector & the VP of AWS World Wide Public Sector Businesses, set the stage by inspiring the crowd on the availability of technology and using it to the advantage of building security and culture hinting at automation of all things. She stated, “ The big change in technology is the fact that we can now be builders, it allows you to develop and more than that, you can understand how you want technology to experiment and grow fast in skill and business formation.”

The event enlightened its audience on how AWS plays key in public sector undertakings and how customers could accelerate their pace of innovation and how organizations could leverage machine learning and AI for the same. Further the event threw light on AWS’ supportive role towards defence and national security customers and the critical nature of moving fast to solve public sector challenges. It further sounded the launching of ‘Ground station’ as a service transforming space technology and utilizing this to the advantage of using its capacity in reducing the processing time from an hour to less than a minute – democratizing space data to serve mankind.

Most significantly, Teresa commented on educational systems, and accelerating the passing of information relatively, wherein the University of Bahrain will be launching the first ever ‘Cloud Computing Degree Program’ in the Middle East. The program aims to focus on providing Cloud-based job-relevant skills based on certification that could be used across all degrees, whether learning cloud in finance, gaming and so on. The University will go on to launch a full-fledged four-year degree course in the fall of 2020.

AWS Summit 2019 was an infallible demonstration of the impact of ‘Cloud’ and how it has thrived beyond human intelligence. Attendees experienced an outstanding revelation of Fatema – a fully autonomous, AI- driven digital human who will function as an integral part of Bank ABCs customer experience. In conversation, Fatema addressed the gathering and in-short left the audience spell bound at her few awe-filled words, “I am Fatema, the first digital employee at ABC & I am excited to be a part of such an event. People ask me where I live and guess what? I live in a ‘Cloud’ above Bahrain.” It is much clear from the above excerpts that AWS is truly creating a global revolution in terms of utilizing Cloud to the advantage of an all-round growth and the summit held in Bahrain was a much needed revelation in this path not just to the Middle East but the world-over.