C5 Accelerate, in partnership with Tamkeen, has hosted Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Zayed Al-Zayani for a chat with the startup community as part of its efforts to strengthen communication and cooperation between policy makers and the startup community in Bahrain.
The minister discussed at the “C5's Policy Hack” event the future direction of Bahrain’s economy and the importance of supporting and fostering small and medium enterprises (SME's) to create a diversified private sector of thriving industries. 
He also touched on the latest regulatory reforms, such as the accelerators and incubator license, steps taken by Bahrain to capitalize on technological innovation, transformation and convergence. 
"We are excited to host the Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister to discuss the MOIC's successes in liberalizing the market, encouraging entrepreneurship, and reducing government's role to a more regulatory one and what his plans are for the future,” Hadyah Fathalla, Executive Director of C5 Accelerate, said.
“The government plays an instrumental role in creating the right incentives and, more importantly, encouraging and nurturing a supportive environment conducive to the emergence of a robust and sustainable startup ecosystem. Greater conversations and cooperation between all stakeholders and government is key and this event is part of our plan to create a space to promote healthy dialogue and discourse on policy." 
C5 hopes to host similar events in the future to engage a variety of leaders and policy makers to foster open conversation and information exchange and support economic diversification and development. It plans to convene thought leaders and influencers including, government agencies and regulatory bodies.
This event was planned to coincide with the Bahrain Global Entrepreneurship Week's activities organized by Tamkeen on November 13-20. The initiative, which runs in parallel with international events, aims to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit and inspire innovation across all business sectors in line with Bahrain vision 2030. Global Entrepreneurship Week is organised by Global Entrepreneurship Network and powered by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. 
C5 will launch its fourth programme in February and will be the first Fintech focused acceleration programme in Bahrain. The programme is aligned with the governments ambitions to develop Bahrain into a regional Fintech Hub. 
The Fintech start-ups will have access to specialised mentoring by financial institutions, AWS Solution architects and support in entering the CBB Regulatory FinTech Sandbox to name a few benefits. Applications for C5’s fourth intake are now open. 
C5 Accelerate is a London, Washington D.C., and Bahrain based technology investment firm. Its mission is to accelerate best-of-breed start-ups to meet the growth opportunity being created by the geographic expansion of AWS, the world’s leading cloud computing platform.