The nation of Bahrain has the blessing of its government for fresh technology initiatives; a just-opened Amazon Web Services Inc. Cloud Region; new technological education initiatives up to the college level; and startup support networks. But will any of these help Bahrain’s entrepreneurs win hard cash from venture capitalists?

Bahrain’s startup scene is best described as a “groundswell,” according to Zubin Chagpar, head of the Middle East and Africa public sector at AWS. There’s plenty of interest, activity and experimentation. And funding is trickling in — but it’s not yet the deluge its startup hopefuls would like.

“It’s still very anemic. In the Middle East, there’s not enough funds … especially for the early stage,” Chagpar said. A few lucky startups that have established market share are now attracting investors. But to grow a robust and innovative startup ecosystem, Bahrain must attract more funds for experimental and early-stage efforts.

Bahrain is signalling its interest in becoming the Silicon Valley of the Middle East in a number of ways; for example, the University of Bahrain introducing a four-year-degree in cloud computing. And its recently founded accelerators are like boot camps for burgeoning entrepreneurs. Among them is an AWS-led program called Activate for early-stage startups. But investors likely need to see more than good-faith efforts to nurture hopefuls and would-bes, according to Chagpar. They need to see real, salable innovation.

Source Credit: Silicon Angle