AWS, Manara join hands to develop cloud talent across MENA
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced its collaboration with Manara, the social impact technology talent startup, for launching an ambitious initiative aimed at training 2,500 software engineers across the region on cloud skills.
The project will see an investment of $3.6 million over two years by AWS.
With a shared commitment to fostering innovation and driving social change at scale, AWS and Manara are teaming up to upskill the top software engineers, data scientists, and AI engineers in this region with cloud and AI skills. Both companies believe this region is poised to become a major technology hub in the coming decade. AWS also recently announced a $5.3 billion investment in Saudi Arabia.
"The Middle East is poised to become the next frontier for technology talent, and Manara is at the forefront of this movement," said Iliana Montauk, Founder and CEO of Manara. "Through our collaboration with AWS, we are doubling down on our commitment to accelerate the development of top tech talent across MENA with the skills and resources they need to succeed in today's digital economy."
Founded in Silicon Valley by two visionary female entrepreneurs, Manara has quickly emerged as a leading force in the region's tech community, backed by top investors including Y Combinator, Seedcamp, Precursor Ventures, Neo Capital, and notable figures such as Reid Hoffman, Eric Ries, Marc Benioff, Paul Graham, and Jessica Livingston. Manara's mission is not only to bridge the gap between top tech talent and global opportunities but also to champion diversity and inclusion, particularly among women throughout the region.
Antonio Alonso Lopez, Director of Partner Management, EMEA, AWS, said: 'AWS is committed to providing learners and organisations with high-quality training and certifications to build and validate cloud skills. Together with outstanding partners like Manara, we are equipping communities with the expertise required to pursue careers in cloud computing and capitalize on the tremendous opportunity that generative AI represents. We look forward to working together to cultivate the next generation of cloud professionals in MENA.'
The joint initiative will focus on providing 2,500 software engineers with training in cloud computing and AWS services to equip them with the skills needed to thrive in today's tech-driven economy. The training will be delivered through Manara's proprietary education technology platform. Engineers will receive AWS Certifications and pathways to meaningful employment opportunities, a statement said. - TradeArabia News Service
Copyright 2024 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Tahawul Tech
2 days ago
- Tahawul Tech
Amazon to invest $20bn in cloud infrastructure
said recently it plans to invest at least $20 billion in Pennsylvania to expand data centre infrastructure, adding on to the billions of dollars the technology giant has committed to the expansion of artificial intelligence. This underscores Big Tech's commitment to making hefty investments to support booming generative AI technology, as the world's biggest companies race each other to deliver the most sophisticated AI models and cloud services. The investment in Pennsylvania comes less than a week after Amazon said it will invest $10 billion in North Carolina and announced plans to invest more than $5 billion in its new cloud infrastructure in Taiwan. The investment will create 1,250 high-skilled jobs and support thousands more in the Amazon Web Services data centre supply chain, the company said. Salem Township and Falls Township are the first communities identified as sites for future campuses, according to the company. Amazon's capital expenditures totalled about $25 billion in the first quarter, and the company has said it expects to maintain that level of spending for the rest of the year. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for additional details on whether the $20 billion investment was part of the previously announced capital expenditure plans. The company also did not specify a timeframe for its investment. Source: Reuters Image Credit: Amazon


Web Release
05-06-2025
- Web Release
Snowflake Unveils Comprehensive Product Innovations to Empower Enterprises to Achieve Their Full Potential Through Data and AI
Snowflake Unveils Comprehensive Product Innovations to Empower Enterprises to Achieve Their Full Potential Through Data and AI Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), the AI Data Cloud company, today announced several product innovations at its annual user conference, Snowflake Summit 2025 , designed to revolutionize how enterprises manage, analyze, and activate their data in the AI era. These announcements span data engineering, compute performance, analytics, and agentic AI capabilities, all aimed at helping organizations break down data silos and bridge the gap between enterprise data and business action — without sacrificing control, simplicity, or governance. 'With our latest announcements, we're showcasing how Snowflake is fundamentally redefining what organizations can expect from a modern data platform,' said James Petter, Vice President, Snowflake EMEA. 'These innovations are focused on helping businesses make AI and machine learning workflows more easy, connected, and trusted for users of all abilities by democratizing access to data and eliminating the technical overhead that slows down business decision-making.' Snowflake Openflow Unlocks Full Data Interoperability, Accelerating Data Movement for AI Innovation Snowflake unveiled Snowflake Openflow , a multi-modal data ingestion service that allows users to connect to virtually any data source and drive value from any data architecture. Now generally available on AWS, Openflow eliminates fragmented data stacks and manual labor by unifying various types of data and formats, enabling customers to rapidly deploy AI-powered innovations. Snowflake Openflow embraces open standards, so organizations can bring data integrations into a single, unified platform without vendor lock-in and with full support for architecture interoperability. Powered by Apache NiFi ™, an Apache Software Foundation project built to automate the flow of data between systems, Snowflake Openflow enables data engineers to build custom connectors in minutes and run them seamlessly on Snowflake's managed platform. With Snowflake Openflow, users can harness their data across the entire end-to-end data lifecycle, while adapting to evolving data standards and business demands. Hundreds of ready-to-use connectors and processors simplify and rapidly accelerate data integration from a broad range of data sources including Box, Google Ads, Proofpoint, ServiceNow, Workday, Zendesk, and more , to a wide array of destinations including cloud object stores and messaging platforms, not just Snowflake. Snowflake Unveils Next Wave of Compute Innovations For Faster, More Efficient Warehouses and AI-Driven Data Governance Snowflake announced the next evolution of compute innovations that deliver faster performance, enhanced usability, and stronger price-performance value — raising the bar for modern data infrastructure. This includes Standard Warehouse – Generation 2 (Gen2) (now generally available), an enhanced version of Snowflake's virtual Standard Warehouse with next-generation hardware and additional enhancements to deliver 2.1x faster analytics performance. Snowflake also introduced Snowflake Adaptive Compute (now in private preview), a new compute service that lowers the burden of resource management by maximizing efficiency through automatic resource sizing and sharing. Warehouses created using Adaptive Compute, known as Adaptive Warehouses, accelerate performance for users without driving up costs, ultimately redefining data management in the evolving AI landscape. Snowflake Intelligence and Data Science Agent Deliver The Next Frontier of Data Agents for Enterprise AI and ML Snowflake announced Snowflake Intelligence (public preview soon), which enables technical and non-technical users alike to ask natural language questions and instantly uncover actionable insights from both structured tables and unstructured documents. Snowflake Intelligence is powered by state-of-the-art large language models from Anthropic and OpenAI, running inside the secure Snowflake perimeter, and is powered by Cortex Agents (public preview) under the hood — all delivered through an intuitive, no-code interface that helps provide transparency and explainability. Snowflake also unveiled Data Science Agent (private preview soon), an agentic companion that boosts data scientists' productivity by automating routine ML model development tasks. Data Science Agent uses Anthropic's Claude to break down problems associated with ML workflows into distinct steps, such as data analysis, data preparation, feature engineering, and training. Today, over 5,200 customers from companies like BlackRock, Luminate, and Penske Logistics are using Snowflake Cortex AI to transform their businesses. Snowflake Introduces Cortex AISQL and SnowConvert AI: Analytics Rebuilt for the AI Era Snowflake announced major innovations that expand on Snowflake Cortex AI , Snowflake's suite of enterprise-grade AI capabilities, empowering global organizations to modernize their data analytics for today's AI landscape. This includes SnowConvert AI , an agentic automation solution that accelerates migrations from legacy platforms to Snowflake. With SnowConvert AI, data professionals can modernize their data infrastructure faster, more cost-effectively, and with less manual effort. Once data lands in Snowflake, Cortex AISQL (now in public preview) then brings generative AI directly into customers' query engines, enabling teams to extract insights across multi-modal data and build flexible AI pipelines using SQL — all while providing best?in?class performance and cost efficiency. Snowflake Marketplace Adds Agentic Products and AI-Ready Data from Leading News, Research, and Market Data Providers Snowflake announced new agentic products on Snowflake Marketplace that accelerate agentic AI adoption across the enterprise. This includes Cortex Knowledge Extensions (generally available soon) on Snowflake Marketplace , which enables enterprises to enrich their AI apps and agents with proprietary unstructured data from third-party providers — all while allowing providers to protect their intellectual property and ensure proper attribution. Users can tap into a selection of business articles and content from The Associated Press, which will help users further enhance the usefulness of results in their AI systems. In addition, Snowflake unveiled sharing of Semantic Models (now in private preview), which allows users to easily integrate AI-ready structured data within their Snowflake Cortex AI apps and agents — both from internal teams or third-party providers like CARTO, CB Insights, Cotality™ powered by Bobsled, Deutsche Börse, IPinfo, and truestar.


TECHx
04-06-2025
- TECHx
Snowflake Unveils AI Data Cloud Innovations at Summit 2025
Home » Tech Value Chain » Global Brands » Snowflake Unveils AI Data Cloud Innovations at Summit 2025 Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), the AI Data Cloud company, announced major product innovations at its annual user conference, Snowflake Summit 2025. These updates are set to transform how enterprises manage, analyze, and activate data in the AI era. The company revealed enhancements across data engineering, compute performance, analytics, and agentic AI. These innovations aim to eliminate data silos and connect enterprise data to business action. At the same time, they maintain control, simplicity, and governance. James Petter, Vice President, Snowflake EMEA, stated that the new updates redefine what organizations can expect from a modern data platform. He emphasized that the company's goal is to make AI and machine learning workflows more accessible, trusted, and efficient. Snowflake introduced Snowflake Openflow, a multi-modal data ingestion service now generally available on AWS. It enables users to connect to nearly any data source and drive value from any architecture. Openflow removes data fragmentation by unifying formats and systems. The service is powered by Apache NiFi™, automating data flow between systems. It allows data engineers to create custom connectors in minutes, running them on Snowflake's managed platform. It supports a wide range of sources like Box, Google Ads, Proofpoint, ServiceNow, Workday, and Zendesk, among others. Key capabilities include: Hundreds of ready-to-use connectors Integration with cloud object stores and messaging platforms Snowflake also revealed new compute innovations. These include Standard Warehouse Generation 2 (Gen2), now generally available, which offers 2.1x faster performance. Another addition, Adaptive Compute, is now in private preview. This feature automatically sizes and shares resources for better performance and lower costs. The company reported the upcoming release of Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Agents, both in public preview soon. These tools enable users to ask natural language questions and get insights from structured and unstructured data. Powered by models from Anthropic and OpenAI, they run securely within Snowflake. Another announcement was the Data Science Agent, now in private preview. It helps data scientists by automating tasks like data preparation, feature engineering, and model training using Anthropic's Claude. According to Snowflake, more than 5,200 customers, including BlackRock, Luminate, and Penske Logistics, are already using Cortex AI to transform their operations. The company also introduced SnowConvert AI and Cortex AISQL. These tools support fast and cost-effective migration from legacy systems and enable generative AI-powered SQL analytics. Both are designed for high performance and efficiency. Additionally, Snowflake revealed updates to its Marketplace. New agentic products like Cortex Knowledge Extensions will soon be available. These allow enterprises to enrich AI agents with third-party data while ensuring data protection and attribution. Users can access content from The Associated Press and other providers. Through these developments, Snowflake aims to empower global organizations to modernize their data strategies with enterprise-ready AI.