Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the biggest providers of cloud services, and Bahrain Polytechnic are strengthening their partnership to help achieve the kingdom’s ambition to become a digital nation.

AWS and Bahrain Polytechnic have a strong strategic relationship that covers a wide area of educational services and testing and proposals are in place to establish a Centre of Excellence in Bahrain as part of the partnership.

AWS is working with Bahrain Polytechnic to help it transform its organisation using cloud technologies, said Teresa Carlson, vice president and head of worldwide public sector, AWS.

Carlson, who was in Bahrain to meet officials including those of Bahrain Polytechnic last week, told TradeArabia in an interview that Bahrain Polytechnic has already completed the first of its ‘Proof of Concept’ tests on the road to moving some of its core systems to AWS.

The interview was also attended by Sameera Al Atawi, director, ICT, Bahrain Polytechnic.

"Bahrain Polytechnic worked with the AWS Professional Services team to move lab workstations into the cloud using Amazon WorkSpaces. This gives the school a flexible, fully managed, and secure desktop computing environment for its students to use while also helping it save 20 per cent of IT operational budget per year. The Polytechnic is also currently expanding its work in the cloud and is in the process of testing to move its eLearning platforms to AWS. This is bringing projected savings of 20 per cent over its previous on-premises system," said Carlson.

Bahrain Polytechnic is also planning to use AWS technologies for its research programmes, allowing it to speed up study and reducing the time to deliver research results.

"To help with this, AWS is providing access to grants and support through the AWS Cloud Credits for Research programme. Working with AWS also gives the Polytechnic access to advanced cloud services to incorporate into its research, such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data analytics, Internet of Things technologies, and more," added Carlson.

The strategic relationship with AWS comes from using and trying to develop the products to suit for Bahrain market and its users, said Al Atawi.

"Given the opportunity and the generous sponsorship by AWS to try its virtual labs and also to move our infrastructure to AWS, we are creating a very positive ecosystem for a higher educational institute. Imagine if a university wants to open a branch or a centre in Bahrain, there is no need to worry about the cost of IT hardware and the IT infrastructure is available readily," she said.

"We are working with AWS on developing a template for products that can be used by higher education institutes or educational institutes in general,” she continued.

Bahrain Polytechnic's strategic ambition is to grow rapidly from the current 2,000 students to 5,000 students in the coming few years and it sees AWS and its services as a catalyst in this process.

The cloud services are also a great help to students in their ambition to become entrepreneurs. "Students use the AWS cloud services for their graduation projects and it's just a matter of logistics to keep it running and they have a product ready to start as a business after they complete their graduation," said Al Atawi.

Bahrain Polytechnic's mandate is to prepare 'ready to work' graduates to meet the requirements of the local and regional jobs market, especially in IT and logistics businesses.

"Our students are empowered with the 21st Century skills that allow them to solve real time problems right away. We get feedback from local employers that they are distinguished in a way that they can really start working immediately after graduation. This is the result of the strategy that we follow,  working with international vendors like AWS and trying to take the technology offering and update our curriculum so our students are armed with the new technology.

"AWS services offer a great opportunity for higher educational institutions like Bahrain Polytechnic to grow beyond the limitations of IT resources,” she said.

“The Bahrain government has identified IT as one of the main pillars of change in Bahrain, knowing that there will be a great demand for IT people in the region. We believe that Bahrain provides the right ecosystem for businesses to start up and grow and cloud services are a great enabler in this process.”

Al Atawi said according to data, 60 per cent of the people in the IT sector in Bahrain are females. "That's a very interesting statistics. Looking into the challenges working women face, I think IT holds one part of the solution for women.

"We support the national agenda of Bahrain, how they want to be in 21st century and beyond. Bahrain Polytechnic is one of our amazing partners,” said Carlson.

"The government has asked them to test our services. We are working together to allow them to evaluate the services for their value proposition for businesses. This partnership is very strategic.

"We are also working with them on the AWS educate programme, which they have signed up for. AWS Educate is a global initiative to provide students and educators with the resources needed to accelerate cloud-related learning and helping education institutes get into the cloud. We provide streaming and online training and education programme, as well as content for students and professors. We work with universities so they can become certification arms too for our services,” said Carlson.

"Bahrain, though small in size, is an impactful country in terms of its thought leadership. It's a country that has vision. I really believe Bahrain is an example of what countries can do in terms innovation," she added. - TradeArabia News Service