Amazon partners Mena startup to train Gulf cloud engineers 

• $3.6m Amazon investment
• Training 2,500 engineers
• UAE and Saudi Arabia focus

Amazon has partnered with the Middle East and North Africa social impact startup Manara to train thousands of people in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in cloud software skills.

Amazon Web Services, a division of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments on a metered, pay-as-you-go basis, will invest $3.6 million in the project over two years, 

The Amazon initiative will provide 2,500 software engineers with training, in partnership with Manara, a startup dedicated to developing technology talent in the Mena region, Manara said.

Cloud services are digital tools that exist on the internet, as opposed to on personal hardware such as smartphones or tablets. Applications include shared online folders, website hosting and many AI tools.

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Amazon’s AWS is the largest of the global economy’s three main cloud service providers, alongside Microsoft’s Azure and Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform.

While cloud adoption in the Middle East has been slower than elsewhere, cloud services could create up to $132 billion in value for Mena’s top 600 companies by 2030, the management consultantcy McKinsey & Company has said.

The global cloud computing market size was valued at more than $500 billion in 2023, with predictions that it will surpass $1 trillion by 2028 and $1.6 trillion by 2030.

Manara was founded in California’s Silicon Valley by two female entrepreneurs, Laila Abudahi and Iliana Montauk, who met in Gaza.