It’s been a hot minute since my last post. About 4 millions of them, give or take a few. To be honest, I never thought this much would change between then and now on both personal and professional perspectives. Let me explain.
A Decade
While laser-focused on customer experience, 10 years have passed by since I joined AWS. A major milestone my career, more time than any other company I’ve worked at but also more miles, smiles and certainly the most innovation I’ve had to travel, see and witness. AWS transformed from 40-ish services, building blocks into an innovation powerhouse with 200+ services. I’ve trained, delivered sessions, workshops, immersion days, countless meetings with customers moving from bare EC2 instances to sophisticated architectures leveraging AI, serverless, and specialized industry solutions.
Watching my clients grow from garage startups to global enterprises on our platform was definitively the most fulfilling part; this and that “A-ha !” moment builders, innovators, founders got to experience. Through launches, late night calls and support escalations. From whiteboarding sessions to product feature requests, one thing remained constant: my genuine obsession with builder success; and despite our exponential growth, Day 1 mentality still drives every solution I architect, just as it did ten years ago.
It is this very passion that led me in September 2017 to move on from theory - Technical Trainer to practice with Professional Services - Consultant, joining forces to migrate the country to the cloud. I was about to witness—and participate in—one of the most ambitious digital transformations in the Middle East. But more importantly, I had a front-row seat to observe how cloud technology could fundamentally reshape a nation’s approach to technology and innovation.
Settling In
After embarking my family into this new chapter in the Kingdom of Bahrain, we were living out of our (15!) suitcases and a hotel suite for the first month. It was somehow convenient.
It took us a little while to finalize all our paperwork, visas, bank accounts and we had my oldest had started school already. When all out admin was settled, we eventually moved in the house and life started to shape into a new normal. Not at all what we expected from our exposure to western media, all of the contrary to be honest: Kindness, Security, new friends and Cultural immersion. On the work side; with AWS coming to the region, it represented the first hyperscale cloud infrastructure in the Middle East that brought world-class cloud capabilities to the doorstep of regional businesses and government entities.
What made this investment particularly significant was its timing. Bahrain was already positioning itself as a fintech hub in the region, and the availability of local cloud infrastructure provided the necessary technological backbone to support this vision. Suddenly, startups, enterprises, and government agencies had access to the same powerful tools that were driving innovation in Silicon Valley, but with the added benefits of local data residency and lower latency.
The Kingdom has been able to migrate 70% of the operations and systems of 72 government agencies to AWS within three years with a strong local team trained and built from scratch. A resounding success and tremendeous achievement.
Innovation as a Driver
Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of my time in Bahrain has been establishing and running AWS Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) at the University of Bahrain and Bahrain Polytechnic. These centers represented more than just educational initiatives—they were catalysts for cultivating a new generation of cloud-native thinkers.
The CIC model centered around challenge-based learning, where students tackled real-world problems presented by public sector organizations. Using AWS’s Working Backwards innovation methodology, students would start with the customer problem and work backward to the solution, leveraging AWS services to build functional prototypes.
One particularly memorable project involved students developing an AI-powered solution to create a proof of Adress certificate. At the time and due to the outbreak of Covid-19, Bahrain Municipality Service Center was forced to stop providing some services, which surfaced an urgent need for an alternative automated solution and one that is highly available, secure and easy to use. The solution automates in real time the application, inquiry, payment and collection services that were handled manually in the past reducing the processing time from 5 days to 2 and a half minutes.
These Innovation Centers have now graduated over a hundred of cloud-proficient professionals who are driving digital transformation across various sectors in Bahrain and beyond. The ripple effect has been remarkable—many alumni have joined top tier multi-nationals and launched their own startups, further enriching the kingdom’s tech ecosystem.
Bahrain’s cloud journey has become a blueprint that neighboring countries are now following and its model demonstrates several key principles that resonated throughout the region:
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Government as an enabler: By adopting cloud technologies itself, Bahrain’s government created both market demand and demonstrated the feasibility of cloud migration.
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Talent development emphasis: The investment in education and training through the CICs ensured that cloud adoption wasn’t hampered by skills shortages.
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Regulatory foresight: Bahrain updated its data protection laws and cloud computing regulations to create a secure yet innovation-friendly environment.
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Focus on practical outcomes: Rather than pursuing technology for its own sake, initiatives consistently emphasized solving real problems for citizens and businesses.
Forward Thoughts
As I reflect on my years in Bahrain, I’m struck by how much has been accomplished in such a short time. The kingdom has transformed from a cloud novice to a regional leader, with a thriving ecosystem of skilled professionals and forward-thinking government entities.
The next phase of this journey is even more exciting. With the foundation firmly established, Bahrain is now exploring advanced use cases in AI, machine learning, and IoT. The focus has shifted from “cloud adoption” to “cloud innovation”—using these powerful tools to solve unique challenges in areas highlighted by SDGs - Social Development Goals. For that specific purpose, at the heart of the Government, iGA - Bahrain’s Information & eGovernment Authority created The Innovation Hub with a mission to drive digital transformation, improve governmental services, and address pressing social challenges.
For anyone interested in how technology adoption can transform a nation, Bahrain’s cloud journey offers valuable lessons. It demonstrates that with the right combination of infrastructure investment, government policy, skills development, and cultural openness to innovation, remarkable transformations are possible—even in regions not traditionally associated with technological leadership.
The cloud revolution in Bahrain wasn’t just about deploying servers and services; it was about changing mindsets and creating possibilities. And that, perhaps, is the most powerful innovation of all.
- Nicolas David
