Brinc MENA and Batelco proudly announce the renewal of their collaboration for further 3 years under the Brinc Batelco IoT Hub Umbrella located in Bahrain, in the heart of Manama. This collaboration strives to develop Bahrain’s technology and startup ecosystem. It also aims to support Bahrain’s youth by promoting innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and most importantly, the upskilling of future generations of technology experts. This contribution to developing a tech-savvy workforce and emerging technology startups is positioned to support the drive for digital transformation across all sectors of the economy.
The renewed collaboration with Brinc stems from Batelco’s vision, as the first mover in high-speed technology adoption and execution in Bahrain, to continue to pioneer in driving new value across the economy and the organization. The partnership was structured to drive innovation and creativity within the company through rigorous product design and development initiatives as well as workshops designed to drive entrepreneurial practices and a culture of trial and testing within the company, encouraging the generation of new products and services. The Brinc Batelco IoT Hub will also roll out a series of initiatives that support youth entrepreneurship and digital literacy across the Bahraini ecosystem.
Brinc Batelco kicked off its first youth-centric event with the launch of a virtual education-themed hackathon. The hackathon is organized in support of social distancing measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. The hackathon, launched in partnership with InJaz Bahrain and Cleverplay, focused on the development of remote learning solutions that support educational efficiency and learning outcomes during this time. Concept development during this event aims to overcome current restrictions and explore various future options. Thirty high school and university students divided into five teams participated in the virtual hackathon which utilized such tools as Zoom and Google Sheet, Forms, and Slides. The ideas presented by the teams were very diverse and tackled different perspectives of remote learning like VR, programming terminal, digital internship, and much more. The winning team under the name ‘Minds’ presented a pitch that featured the use of virtual reality, with an application that provides the visuals and environment of a science lab for students who are missing out on the laboratory experience. The ‘Minds’ team members won cash prizes, vouchers, and 3-months hot desk at the Brinc Batelco IoT Hub.
This event is going to be succeeded by a series of Brinc Batelco IoT Hub camps led by world-class experts to provide mentorship in the areas of coding, solution prototyping, and business modeling. Over the past two years, The Brinc Batelco IoT Hub conducted 8 hackathons for Batelco’s employees, students, and the community with 230 participants who were able to tackle 32 real-world challenges. Brinc Batelco also delivered 3 corporate product design boot camps for Batelco employees to create new innovative solutions. The hub also delivered over 30 workshops revolving around IoT, technology, and innovation and hosted more than 90 technology events for the community’s aspiring future entrepreneurs.
The Brinc Batelco brand has made remarkable strides in spreading awareness of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship events, mentorship and resources available to employees, students and the community at the hub, this includes coverage throughout event cycles to ensure the accessibility of information on all events geared towards upskilling and inspiring the entrepreneurial community. The hub’s comprehensive offering to startups aims to build a base of game-changers working from Bahrain to solve local, regional, and global dilemmas. The continued partnership between Brinc and Batelco aspires to continue to revolutionize technology in the Kingdom of Bahrain, drive youth to lead the future of technology, enable innovation, boost creativity, encourage knowledge transfer from global scale-ups and be a one-stop-shop for all the resources an innovator requires to build a successful product or service and a successful company.
