3 Bahraini startups selected to join “Open Innovation”

Bahrain Aluminum Company (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world, announced that it has moved to the implementation phase of the Open Innovation Programme, a strategic collaboration between Alba, the Makeen Labor Fund, and Brink Middle East, after selecting three Bahraini startups from the SME sector to move to this phase after conducting a comprehensive evaluation process. This comes as an extension of Alba’s early participation as the first company in the Kingdom of Bahrain to join the Open Innovation Programme, in a step that confirmed its keenness to support innovation and enable local companies to grow and achieve success.

The selected companies have qualified to join the six-month implementation phase, during which they will receive financial support, specialized guidance and technical guidance from experts at Alba and Brink. During this period, the companies will work on developing POC prototypes based on AI and IoT technologies to address specific challenges related to efficient data management and increased asset reliability at Alba. UData was selected for the Data Management Challenge, and Dynavit and InfiniteWare were selected for the Asset Reliability Challenge.

Each startup will present these prototypes to the program’s steering committee in the fifth month of the implementation phase, where one prototype from each challenge will be selected to move to the pilot implementation phase at Alba. The selected companies will then work closely with Alba and BRINK experts to refine and test their technology solutions, with the potential to expand their application more widely across Alba’s operations.

Alba’s CEO, Ali Al Baqali, said: “Innovation is one of the pillars of operational excellence at Alba. This cooperation with Tamkeen and Brink Middle East will provide us with the opportunity to work with emerging, small and medium-sized companies to find solutions supported by the latest technologies to overcome some operational challenges, while at the same time supporting entrepreneurship and its adaptation to economic changes in the long term.”

For his part, Chief Development Officer and Managing Partner of Brink Middle East and North Africa, Yassin Abu Daoud, said: “The selection of these companies reflects the true value that the program offers, as we link the needs of large companies with the capabilities of emerging companies, to provide practical solutions that create a tangible economic impact.”

Brink, the program’s certified innovation partner, carried out a comprehensive evaluation and discovery process for eligible companies, according to strict criteria to ensure that the selected companies are compatible with the program’s objectives. These criteria included the presence of Bahraini founders, the technical capabilities of companies, their readiness to provide innovative technical solutions, their ability to work within the program’s institutional governance framework, and to adapt effectively to various institutional challenges. During the evaluation phase, the nominated companies underwent interviews before a joint committee that included representatives from Alba, Tamkeen, and Brink, during which each company reviewed its technical capabilities, the expertise of its work teams, and the proposed solutions to address the identified challenges. The best companies were selected to move to the next stage of the program based on a comprehensive evaluation and a specific scoring matrix.