>> from Bahrain. It's the Q recovery AWS Public sector Bahrain brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> welcome to the cues conversation here. You're in Bahrain for Amazon Webster, is this summit our second summit? Um, here. Big news. Amazon Web services announced the availability of the region in the Middle East. I'm here with the chief of Public Sector Theresa Cross and vice President of Worldwide Public Sector. This is a huge milestone. This event one just in terms of the event. The interest across multiple countries in the region. Yes. And you have a new region with multiple availability zones? Yes, up and running. Congratulations. >> Hey, we launched the confetti today and yes, we're open for business and we do. It's a hyper scale region with three available the zones and lots of activity already here in the delays. But it really is a substantial kind of milestone because we started this sometime back in the Middle East, was one of the top regions around the world requested by our partners and customers. And now here we are. >> We've been talking with you for many, many years and I love interviewing you, but this one to me feels like it's not the weight off your shoulders. It's you're at the start line of another marathon. You've achieved so much with this because what's the first thing about Bart Rainey? We've reported on this on Select Angle and our other sites is that you get a lot of work here, is not just turning on a region. There's a lot of government commitment cloud first, full modernization, fintech banking systems, a full re platforming of a government and society and Amazons powering a lot of it and causing a lot of economic growth. So this is a big deal. >> It really is a big deal because, like you said, it really is about digital transformation here. And when I met the crown Prince in 2014 we had this conversation about really creating the economy here in a different way because Bob terrain itself, it's not oil rich country, but a smaller country with lots and lots of tourism. But in this region, while we haven't based here in Bahrain, this is truly a Middle East GCC region and but But part of that, the reason to start it here in my reign was that they really did take a lead in government transformation. As you heard them say, they're going all in shake Some on today talked about government is moving really fast, and they actually did the hard work to think about their telecommunications industry, their government regulations. They started with cloud first, and then they created all the write regulations to make this happen. So it is kind of phenomenal how quickly, in some ways, you know, feel slower than we'd like, But it's really moving quite fast. >> It's pretty fast. You should get a lot of kudos for that. I think you will. But I think to me what's interesting. The news here is that there is a balance between regulation and innovation going on, and regulation can be hampering innovation, some cases and not enough regulation. You have a Facebook situation or >> right so >> it's a balance. These guys have done it right. But to me, the tell sign is the fintech community, >> because that's where >> the money is. The central bank and then the ABC bank are all talking about a pea eye's all in with Amazon that's gonna create an ecosystem for innovation. Startups, et cetera. >> It totally isn't you heard Thean Vivid Jewel from ABC Bank today talk about their platform. What they're doing with clouds and the reason they chose a DBS was because we had this region of Bob Terrain, and they wanted to move quickly in. The regulations now have been updated in a way that actually allows them to do their banking applications in the lab. There's also a startup accelerator here, Fintech May, and they're doing a tenant work with new types of financial applications. So it's so exciting to see this kind of happening than the lace for I think a lot of people thought it would be much slower. We have a ways to go. It's still day one, for sure, but all the building blocks are getting there in the right place to really make this happen. >> You know, 80. Jessie's quoting the announcement you guys had just a couple weeks ago. Laura Angel And in July, the clouds of chance unlocked digital transmission. Middle East, says Andy chassis. Obviously unlocking is a key word because now you have customers from startups to large enterprises and ecosystem of a P M party. So the Ap N Group is here. Yes, So you have global I SUV's here and knew I s V's. You got the government and the education and to me, the news of the show. To me at least maybe it's not the big news, but is that you guys? They're offering a computer like a cloud computing degree. Yeah, for the first time about that news, >> you are right in terms of kind of every sector's picking at, but like in most places around the world, this is not unique. We need skills, and we've got to make sure that we're teaching the skills, working backwards from what the employer needs, like a TVs. So what? We've been here. We announced today we're launching our first cloud computing degree at the university of our terrain, and they're kind of thing. That's really unusual, John. They're going to do a phase one where they offer a cloud certification starting in early 2021 every program at the University of Bahrain, Whether you're in finance or banking, or business or health care or law, you can do this cloud computing certification, which gets you going and helps you understand how you last cloud in your business and then in the fall will be announcing the four year starting, the four year cloud computing degree, and that is in conjunction with our A DBS Educate program. And it will be all the right cloud skills that are needed to be successful. >> Talk about the demographics in this country because one of the things that's coming up is when I talk people in the doorways and it's a chance to talk to some local folks last night that that all in an Amazon, the theme is this. This younger generation yes, is here, and they have different expectations. They all want to work hard. They don't want to just sit back on their laurels and rest on their on their location. Here. They want to build companies they want to change. This is a key factor in the bottle rain modernization. Is that >> Yeah, generation well, all across the Middle East. The thing that's unique about the mill aces, the very young population you had millions of gamers across the Middle East as an example that comic con and Saudi like two years ago on that was one of the most popular things was fortnight. As soon as the region got at all the different gaming started taking place. But we want to create a culture of builders here, and the way you do that is what you said, John putting it into their hands, allowing these young people have the tools create a startup became entrepreneur, but they need to have access to these tools. And sometimes capital is often not that easy to get. So they want to make sure that the capital that they're given or that they have, whether it's bootstrap capital or venture capital, fending or whatever friends and family, they want to make sure that they can use that capital to the greatest advantage to build that company out. And I truly believe that this is gonna help them having an eight of us cloud region. I mean, you saw. Today we have 36 companies that launched their offering in the region on the day we actually announced so that they had specific offerings for the Middle East, which pretty exciting. I mean, that's a lot on day one. >> I mean, it's still day. One of you guys always say, but literally day one they were launching Yeah, I wanted to comment if you could just share some insights. I know, Um, your passion for, you know, entrepreneurship. You guys are also some skill development investing a lot of women in tech power panel this morning, there's major change going on. You guys were providing a lot of incentives, a lot of mentoring, this internships in conjunction with by rain. There's a lot of good things. Share some of the new things that you're working on, maybe deals you're talking about doing or >> way announced Thio kind of new things today. One is we have our we partake program, which I'm, of course, super passionate about. And that is about preventing tech learning and skills to women and underserved in representative communities. So we announced three other training programs here across the Middle East time. So those were put up today and you'll continue to see its role more and more of those out. And the other thing we did yesterday we announced a internship program with the minister of Youth here in Bahrain. That was shaped Nassir, who's a very famous He's that King san, and he's a very famous sportsmen. He does. He just won the Ironman Ironman and 2016. It was the world champion. He does endurance horse racing, so he's a He's a someone that the youth look at to here, and so he's doing all these programs. So we announced a partnership that were the first group doing the internship with this youth program, and so we're very excited. We're going to start that small and scale it, but we want to get these young people quickly and kind of get them excited. But here, what they focus on it is underrepresented communities. So it fits so nicely in with what we're doing with our attack. So you have both Oliver training our over 400 online courses that we offer with a dubious education academy. Now degree now our internship program and we protect. So, John, we're just getting going. I'm not saying that this is all will offer, but these are the things that were getting going with, and we need to make sure we also Taylor things like this Ministry of Youth program and sports at to the region in terms of water, their local needs, and we'll make sure that we're always looking >> at the entrance. Just just get him some great experience. Yes, so they can earn and feel good about themselves. This is kind of a key, exactly thing not just getting an internship, >> and it's, I think, locally it will be about teaching them to do that, disagree and commit really have that backbone to build that company and ask all those hard questions. So we're really going to try to indoctrinate them into the Amazon a TVs culture so we can help them be entrepreneurs like we are every day. >> And you got the data center, you got the city, the centers, you get the regions up and running, and architect, it perfectly suits up with people in it. Are you going to staff that with local talent, or is it gonna be Amazonian is coming in? What's the makeup of staff gonna be? What's the >> story? I mean, our goal is to hire as many local talent. We everywhere we go around the world. We want to get local talent because you can't yet if we did, First of all, we don't have enough people in our headquarters to bring folks in here, so we really have to train and educate. But locally, we have an office open here by rain. We haven't Office Open and Dubai and one down Saudi, and that is local talent. I mean, we are trying to use as much local talent and will continue to create that. And that's kind of the point. Jonas talking about the degree working backwards from what the employer needs. We want to give input because we think we also are getting good. Yeah, so we need to get the top. But we need those other individual employers that keep telling us we need more cloud skills to give that input. But, yeah, >> we're going to get a degree, migrate them into the job >> market, right quick like >> and educates. Been doing great. I learned a lot. This is a whole opportunity for people who want to make money, get a job. Amazon Web service is >> It's a place you could either work for us. Work for someone now, like even the government has a >> virus. Make a person tomorrow >> there. Yet >> we had one, >> but the point of being a builder, what we're seeing more and more John are these companies and government entities are building their talent internally. They're not outsourcing everything anymore, and the whole culture at being a builder, not just outsourcing all that. And that's what eight of us really helps all these entities. D'oh is moved quicker by having kind of some in house talent and not outsourcing everything to slow you down. That >> really thank ABC pointed that out beautifully in his point was, Hey, I'm gonna you know, I'm all in on AWS. We have domain expertise, We have data. That's our intellectual property. We're going to use that and be competitive and partner. And >> yes, and the new models it is. And that I p stays in house with that company or entity or government organization. It was so fun for me today to hear Shake some on from Maggie. A talk about the government is moving fast, and I think that's an example of a really are they figured out clown helps him just go a lot faster and save many security. >> I'm glad you brought that up. I know you got a short time here, but I want one last point in. We've been talking a lot about modernization of government, your success with C i a United States jet I contract still under consideration. All this going on you're experiencing by ranges and, um, unbelievable, fast moving government. They kind of get it. United States some places gets it. This is really about focusing in on the workloads. What have you learned? As you've been engaging these modernization efforts with governments summer slow, some of political ramifications behind. No one wants to lose. Old guard will hold onto the rails. We've seen that in the news, but this is coming fast. What are you learning? What do you >> take away its leadership? I mean, at the end of the day, all these things were driven by a very strong leaders. And even you can see everybody today on stage. It is leaders that make a decision that they wanted a faster and they want to modernize but have the capabilities. No matter if you're the U. S. Department of Defense. Ah, yes. Health and human resource is National Health Service in the UK or RG a hearing by rain, the government's or enterprises that we work with around the world. The key is leadership. And if there's that leader that is really strong and says we're moving, did you actually see organizations move a lot faster if you see people kind of waffle anger. I'm not sure, you know, that's when you can see the slowness. Wow, What I will tell you is from the early days of starting this business in 2010 the individuals that always move fastest for the mission owners because the mission owners of whatever the business West at a governmental level or enterprise, they said, we need to keep our mission going. So that's the reason they wanted to walk through this transformation. >> And now, I think, with developers coming in and started to see these employees for these companies saying, No, no, what's the reason why we can't go fast? That's right now a groundswell of pressure you see in both government, public sector and commercial. >> And you saw Mark Allen today on stage talking about security. It iss literally day. Zero thing for us, and the reason a lot of our customers are meeting faster now is because of security. Cloud is more secure in their meeting to the cloud for security because they feel like they could both optimize, move faster for workloads, and now they have security. Better, faster, cheaper security, bad design, >> Theresa always pleasure thinking coming. Spending time. Thank >> you for coming to Barbara Ryan. Thank you. So >> we're going global with you guys is seeing the global expansion 20 to 22nd region. 69 availabilities owns nine more coming. More regions. More easy. You guys doing great. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Secure. We are here in Bahrain. Form or coverage. Global coverage of the cube with Reese Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector. She's running the show doing a great job. We're here more after the stroke break. Stay with us.

>> from Bahrain. It's the Q covering AWS Public sector Bahrain brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> Welcome back to the cubes coverage here in by rain in the Middle East for AWS Summit wrapping up event here with the cloud computing shift that's happening. Amazon regions live lot of innovation in the area Middle East and Africa. We're here with the head executive of A W s who manages the territory. Suban Shag, part head of Middle East Africa for public sector. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. >> Absolutely. John, Thank you. Thank you for having me here. And thanks for being here with your team, learning about this story from the Middle East and, of course, all the way to North Africa and Africa as well to >> Well, it's been a lot of work that you're on your team have done it been successful, were super interested because there's a big story developing here. The Amazon region, which was announced two years ago, is available on Day one. Pun intended a lot of couples shipping their products on the cloud, but it's also a cultural revolution happening for a whole another generation that could change the landscape of the Middle East. Culture, technology, innovation, banking, entrepreneurship. This is a grass roots groundswell of change, empowerment, self esteem, money making, banking. I mean, all this that's going on >> absolute in the middle of it. Well, hey, we're proud to be part of it, and we're proud to be partners with many different organizations here as well. I think it's actually coming from all different directions, not just the ground swell, but even the leadership, the leadership of the countries that can Bahrain, but also the other countries in the Middle East and across the region. What we're seeing is that these countries air creating these vision plants, and these vision plans air about diversifying the economy, creating opportunity for youth, creating opportunity for folks that are diversifying from the economy. So then they're actually being displaced, and where do you turn to sew? These countries are turning to technology and in ah, Bahrain, in particular, they've set up programs where they helped to develop youth. They helped develop citizens, they could get free training on technology, all that to do, sees it and take it. And we've seen that uptake as well to have seen a lot of Bahrainis just taking courses, getting trained and then building. And that's what you witnessed today at our summit. >> You know, innovation takes on many forms you've seen in every way from the mobile wave. You saw, um, countries that didn't have good infrastructure, stand up mobile, fisher and Beam or connected than some of the incumbent countries that had connectivity last mile into >> an elite leap is >> the lead frog, right? So So this is happening here. But the trend we're seeing is that the old business school adage of focus on your core competency and then it's okay to outsource that that's not a core competency is a trend we're seeing with Cloud where you guys are providing the infrastructure for countries, not just businesses. Yeah, to focus on their core competency, and it's making things go faster. So speed is the table stakes, so it's slow. It's probably the old way. What are some of the conversations around this? Because this seems to be the hottest topic from things I've seen in the United States with CIA and Jed I that Therese has been involved in two education with educate and now here with the government modernizing with cloud first. Yeah, that's trickling throughout the entire country. >> Yeah, well, I mean, it's it's need, I'm part of that is needs. So in some of the countries in the region barring included, they wanted to spend controls. They want to reduce their costs. You want to get away from legacy, They want to get away from licenses they're not using or hardware that's sitting on shelves. So then they come and look at what we're doing in the same Well, wait a second. You're investing in the region. You're making infrastructure available. I can build on top of that, I can leverage open source I can create I could make citizen service is it's almost a no brainer for them to one of the biggest problems they have is that the train people and then those folks go in. They do start ups where they're going to start work for other businesses. Well, which is fantastic. It's actually creating that Gertrude a cycle that we want to be a part of his well too. So already starting to see that happening in the past couple of years. Have you been here? And of course, now we have the region lunch, which is only accelerating the journey. >> Talk about the business because you guys are active. Your presents early with a region which we think is a revitalisation, creates economic value. That's something we've been reporting on. But there's more than that. It's not just by rain. It's the whole region that you cover. What's the business landscape like? What if some of the deals you're doing? What's the startups look like when you talk about some of the the landscape dynamics? >> Absolutely. So first, let's start up Eco system is very, um, I was gonna say robust, but it's it's some to use the word that use. It's a groundswell Right now. We're seeing a lot of interest, Lot of activity. Ah, lot of folks getting into in experimenting very quickly. But it's not easy as we know. Doing a start. It's not easy, so that robust war will come with time. Ah, we're seeing that more funding is going into the space now. It's still very anemic. So in the Middle East, there's not enough funds going in there, especially for the early stage. We're seeing interest coming from outside for the later stages. We're talking about the creams, and we're talking about the cabbages and some of those companies, but at the earliest, ones >> that are clearly validated, growing like >> exactly the ones who have already earned market share with ones that air. Starting right now, they're finding their way. So we didn't do you need more funding for experimentation? Enter AWS and we provide is programs like Activate, which is an early stage start, a program. We work very closely with the V C's and the accelerators, so they're leveraging that now, too. So we're starting to see that growth, whether it's in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Riyadh or Cairo or here. It's just starting to grow, which is great. And we're seeing that interest and some of that, um, should I go into this field? Would what When my mom's safe, I'm an entrepreneur versus a doctor that started swaying Now to where people say entrepreneurship is actually pretty >> cool, it's a legitimate field. >> It's a legitimate feeling that, believe it or not, which is excited, and people are going into it as well. On the enterprise side, s Emi's all the way to large enterprises. We're seeing that folks are saying, Hey, I can actually maybe even get new markets. So if you look at Al Tayyar Group, which are telltale Travel Group, which is out of Saudi Arabia, they're using that to learn more about their custom. Customers come up with new solutions and new packages that they can offer, all using a I and ML, which is incredible or fly Dubai FlyDubai in, In. In Dubai, you probably guessed that Ah, they need to stand up very quickly and online booking system. They did it in four months. It's leveraging cloud. So they're getting that they're getting that idea that you can kick it off real quick, get it running, and then launch it as well, too, and then the government. So we're seeing governments across the region saying, Hey, we've got a controller cost first of all, and we've got to make a better citizen service is we want to make sure that we improve the lives of citizens. So been able to launch new service is in a short amount of time. Today we heard about the I G A. Working on a building permit system that allows people to build quicker because they're able to get a permit in days instead of months. This is an example scene where speed matters to the point where we now have the government challenging business in terms of moving quicker, which is unheard of anywhere else in the world, which is super exciting, >> not certainly in the United States, that's for sure. I would like just to point out that from my standpoint, I heard this many V C. C are seeing them in the hallways mix of veces entrepreneurs business, globalize V's and New Eyes bees. The Amazon partner networks here. Yeah, it is partner Network. So it's all the things are in place now. Yes, What's missing? What do you see? It's to do items. Where do you think that you can raise the bar for AWS? What's what do you sees as to do items for you? What's your plan? >> Well, to your point, I mean, all the ingredients are here. So in terms of what's missing, I don't think there's anything missing spoke putting the ingredients together and build baking that cake. That's what we gotta work on right now, too. So that's why we're doing a lot of activity in the schools across the region, getting our program Educate and Academy, which of two different programs, ones broad. One is very directed to the schools. That is what we're helping to make sure that we get the next generation of learners. We're working on items, a cloud degrees. So in four years you can actually a degree leveraging all the technologies that are enabled by cloud. That's happened at the University of Bahrain, and we hope to get that in other schools. But also just getting training out there, just getting quick training. So you learn a little mint modules and you go and build something that's another area. Need spend more time and again encouraging experimentation. Try some new things, get it out there, see what the market says. So in terms of what we could do more of it. AWS is continue to push that message. Continue developing the people out here so that they're building. >> I gotta ask you, you know, you've been in Silicon Valley. You know that game for the folks living in silicon value in the U. S. What should they know about what's going on in your territory out here that they may not know? Or maybe this was fleeting thought or something that's not being reported. What's what. What's should did people know about what's going on in this region? >> Absolutely. I think sometimes for for many markets that are outside of Silicon Valley outside of the U. S. It's about copycats, start ups, which is fine. You can actually do quite well with that. Ah, usually the returns on that when you go to an exit event is less than what you might see it in the valley. Ah, but again, there's a great triage opportunity. So you want to bring the funds here? But I do see now a change where folks are building original technologies as well, too. And I think we're going to see more of the multiples, tens or 20 time multiples out here in the region, which would be wonderful. Ah, we saw a company today. You know, phonic, which is from Saudi Arabia that is building telecommunications, and, uh, contact invoice type of service is that's gonna be huge if they get this right. And I think they will, because they got a really scrappy and hungry team. That's one of those companies that actually could start getting people to notice the Middle East is a place for original innovation. >> Awesome. Um, anything else on your to do list for next year? What's Ah, Give a quick plug for your crew. You guys hiring? I see the region here. You gotta fill staff here. Actually got curriculum in the schools here. What are you looking >> for? You coming all the big What's not here to do? Yeah. You know, into this is continue to develop my team. We got a wonderful team here. Ah, lot of people that are local to the, uh, to the region. Ah, that We want to make sure that they're growing and contributing. A swell too. Our team missions to do good into. Well, at the same time, I think they go hand in hand. So we want to do more around programs that help to develop communities. You know, there are refugee crisis is around the region. We want to make sure we can help out over there. Ah, women in tech is a big area of focus for us. How can we get more women into technology and leading and technology as well? To have got my team having a mandate to get more solution architects that our women as well to we don't have one yet. We have a lot of great women on our team, but we need more technical women, too. That's another key focus area for us. Um, and just continue building continued to help the communities build solutions on the cloud. >> Zubin Chang, part here, head of the territory here in the Middle East and Africa. That's the cubes coverage of eight of US Summit and buyer in the Middle East. Signing off our second year. We'll be back with more next year and you'll see it around in the territory. Thanks for Thanks for watching.

>> From Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Welcome back, everyone, this is theCUBE's coverage of AWS Summit and Bahrain in the Middle East where cloud computing is changing the game from start-ups, business, government, and society. And of course training and skill development is job number one. We have two great guests here. Esam Hammad, who's director of partnerships and customer engagement at Tamkeen. Thanks for joining us, appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Ahmed AlHujairy, CEO of ThinkSmart for development and training, welcome back. Good to see you. >> Good to see you too. >> Last year we talked about training being important. Guess what? Number one talking point here this week has been cloud computing degrees, certificates, more training. This has been a real enabler, a real focus area. You guys have been actively involved. >> Correct. >> Helping, subsidizing, creating incentives. So this is a real push. Is it just the growth? Is it a needed part? Give us an update. >> So in terms of our mandates in Tamkeen, one of our key priorities is to actually upscale Bahrainis and make them the number one choice for the private sector. And obviously when you consider the future of jobs, you know, there's a huge digital element. And so far we've been able to sort of adapt to market requirements, the growing industry requirements. So with the set up of AWS in Bahrain, there is an obvious need to build that knowledge and know-how within the market. So we've been able to introduce programs to actually develop that knowledge within the market. Both in the private sector and to some extent within the public sector as well. Whereby we've been able to provide these sort of vendor-specific certifications. In this case, provided by AWS. Whereby we are able to subsidize completely the cost of training for any Bahraini that is looking to get certified in various fields such as system architecture for example. Where there's going to be a greater need if we are really going to be positioning ourself as a cloud nation. You know, that is really going to be required for the individuals that will drive this sort of revolution and migrate onto the cloud. >> It's certainly, certainly relevant, you get done a great job. But I'll tell you, in the hallway conversations that I've had, it's trickling down to start-ups. Some side conversations I've had has been, "Wow, this is really great market, I can find great talent "from the university and I get credits." Tamkeen's been involved. You guys are also trickling, not just for education. It's hitting the accelerator piece. So it's like it's a crossover. >> Absolutely. >> And is that part of the plan? >> Definitely. I mean, part of developing our entrepreneurship mindset and capability is really to drive forward our agenda to actually make the private sector in Bahrain the engine of growth. And given the size of our economy, you know, start-ups are required to sort of have that expansion mentality from day one. They just can't afford to be limited. So there are cloud technologies that really enable companies to scale fast. And, you know, part of this building this sort of know-how in cloud technologies will really help our entrepreneurs get there faster. >> You know, I love that it's just like a chair, you need all the legs to sit on it. And that's economies sit on these legs. Cloud computing, REED's up and running. Capital markets, they're doing a good job there pedaling as fast as they can. Getting better and better. The training and support, this is critical because it's not just for those private, it's also the public sector as a cloud nation. All the ministries got to be cloud by 2020, that's next year. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> You guys got to get people trained. >> Yes. >> And people are excited by this. But trainees continue. Ahmed, what's your take on this because, you know, how much training do you give? When is there a crossover? Is there a ladder? Is this a gamification? How do you keep track of all this? >> We try to have little bit of, let's say hybrid training. So usually when AWS was in Bahrain and the cloud is there, we started with awareness. Not certify training, no exams. So that started and we looked at students. We looked at current IT employee who are not sure what is the AWS cloud for them, so there is little bit of fear. Whether it's government, private sector, start-ups. And with the support of course of the existing programs of Tamkeen, that made it very, very, very easy. So through our awareness program we got people excited and we had our team at ThinkSmart out at the universities, at the job places, doing road shows. So it took a while for people to see and then we started getting the demand. So people started getting the basic certification, the awareness for business people, and then jumped to more advanced training. So people who were, at the beginning, reluctant to go for even normal certification, now they say, "We want to be advanced." They need to know more. So that is excitement. But at the same time, AWS has all of this also online. So somebody does not to want to go to a classroom, he is too busy, especially like people like start-ups. You can go online. And that's where our students sometimes go online, come to the classroom. And one of the things that we have in turn is that you have challenge with time, the instructor is available. Give, put them an email, give them a call, you come and have, you don't have to attend with a badge. So that kept building up, now, for a number of Bahraini, We have, we are on a very high number, in terms of number of people we got trained and certified. We are proud of that, and we see the demand. So have now in September, and already we have exceeded our target. So we are looking forward for a very successful year. >> We were talking before we came on camera about, you know, education and training as food for your brain. >> Yes. >> Build up those technical muscles. We had his excellency on Minister of Youth, social programs. Talking about tech athletes. >> Yes. >> They got people running triathlons, where's the tech athletes? You got to get those muscles going. You guys are providing that kind of capability. This is the new competitive, you know, all joking aside, this is real. >> Yes. >> The technical talent is just like sports. >> Yes, that's correct. >> This is a mindset, not a freebie. Free education, sink or swim. This is the ethos in the culture. >> Correct, right. >> How is the young generation responding to this challenge? Opportunity? >> It's actually been interesting. You know, to look at, sort of, let's start with the gap between academia and industry. So we're narrowing in, and we're actually closing in that gap. So the new generation's actually very proactive, and not depending on academia, to provide what is required for the future of jobs, or to actually develop a business. So they are actually very active in seeking out, this information, and it's readily available today. Now, the examples I use from Tamkeen, these are very, sort of, formal platforms available for any Bahraini, but, as you know now it's very easy to find this information to actually up skill yourself and this is what we're seeing. You know, the younger generation's very proactively seeking this information. Online. Anywhere. >> I think you guys are smart, I think you're on it because one of the things I see, in the U.S., at least, is some old reliance, old dogma, or habits, or bad habits, around thinking of education as a linear thing. Digital is different. You can certainly take whatever path you want, and if you can augment, say, education and university or training, with a non linear progression. You got education, you got YouTube. You've got all kinds of things happening, around learning. >> Absolutely. >> The younger generation, they want that. >> Yes. >> They don't want the, sit there computer-based training, press one to continue. >> Correct >> That's over, those days are over. >> Yes, especially since we're pushing for a more entrepreneurship kind of mindset. Where we actually go and create work for yourself. So, people actually go and up skill themselves. So, they don't actually wait for this to come their way, they go and seek it. >> Okay, so we're back to the stool, we've got the legs of the stool, got the capabilities with the cloud. You've got the culture shift happening in the training and you've got the entrepreneurship. Now you've got to sit in the chair. It's got to not break. That's the entrepreneurship. So, you've got to measure to results. At the end of the day it's about the results. How are you guys looking at success? What does success look like as everyone starts to level up in the entrepreneurial game of tech athletics? >> So, the program that we developed and that's why we wanted to make it unique and not more of a classical training. We gave candidates, who join our program options. They can join and draw targets. A career, that I'm going to be a tech guy, somewhere, in the government or a private enterprise and there was also, the entrepreneurship track. No, you're going to be a developer. You're going to be a gaming developer, You're going to have your own media company, or whatever you want. So, we give them softer skill training, we give them entrepreneurship guidance. They have mentors that are available all the time. And at the beginning, when we started two years back, we were less reluctant to take this track, the entrepreneurship track. Now it has changed, the formula is changing. Actually, I need to note something, that female were more interested in the entrepreneurship because it gives them the opportunity to work from home, develop solutions, they don't need to go to an office. They have the freedom they need. So we see-- >> Diversity is increasing, with entrepreneurship. >> Yes. So it has completely changed the mindset, going two years back not 20 years back, and we're looking at even generations now graduating from university. And one of the biggest challenges was university because universities are not teaching less. So, it took us a while to give the awareness. As I said earlier today, university, even the university's president, and now it's also everybody speaks the same language. And I think this is the success of the leadership of Bahrain where they were able to build an ecosystem, Tamkeen, the private sector, the government. All are speaking the same language. So now the students, the Bahraini individuals start feeling this change. >> Well it's hard, you guys were talking about, we live this everyday. You, certainly, guys are succeeding. If I'm the government and I'm preaching agility and digital transformation. IF I'm not doing it, what kind of example is that? >> Very true. >> Exactly. >> This is really the culture. >> Yes. >> And I can appreciate that, I respect that, I think that's really the way to do it, you've got to lead from the top. I got to ask you guys about community, 'cause one of the things that we were talking about, and not really comparing to Silicone Valley, but looking at success, entrepreneurial formula's like Silicone Valley. Which can be replicated locally in its own Bahrain way. It's about people and community. How is the community developing? 'Cause you've got two years going back on, diversities increased, entrepreneurship changing. What's the community like? What's the community nurturing strategy? How do you guys see that culture here? Because this is going to be a community driven, data driven, result driven. >> Correct, yes, yes. >> World. >> So you know, we like to say that we have one of the most connected entrepreneurship ecosystems in the world. Now we can say that, because we're a small market but it's a small place, so everyone really knows what everyone else is doing. So, in terms of, you know, what the ecosystem is providing to the community, I think we have good joint efforts in actually building up the community and now we're seeing much more participation from the community, compared to, I would say five years ago, for example. Where we're actually seeing people pursuing entrepreneurship as a path, versus getting employed with a government, with a financial institution, for example. I think the best testimony to this was the creation of StartUp Bahrain. So this was a community initiative, initially spearheaded or initiated by the economic development board. And it is a collective of government organizations, SMB development, organizations, and start ups, who actually pushed this sort of entrepreneurship agenda, start up agenda forward. So we have a very successful case study with StartUp Bahrain. And we can actually show for it in terms of what's patient of startups and even maybe educational institutions like universities that are now jumping on board and actually contributing somehow, to the community. >> Yeah, it's been fun to watch. I think you can always do better, as we heard from the folks here on theCUBE all day today but everyone pretty much generally agrees it's going in the right direction. The question I have to ask you guys, is where is the work that needs to get done, still on the table? What's the key areas? >> I think one key element that I think is a must, based on what we have achieved now. When we talk about successful startups, successful entrepreneurship, we really need to connect, have a bridge to certain things like Silicone Valley because Bahrain market is small. Even the DCC market is small. So our startups should have a clearer access to larger market, to big companies. Now, they have access to AWS, INTEL, HP, whoever within that international market. That's the only way you can take your product from the labs or ideas to that international market. I think this is an area which requires good development and based on the successful, gradual success we have seen, I think this is now the most important step for for moving forward. >> Is to connect to these other hubs? >> Yes. >> Where there is a lot of collaboration. You guys know, companies have engineering teams, they have certain teams. And you guys will get a bulk of that. This is the plan for that. >> Yes. >> Exactly. >> I think that you would probably agree that maybe another gap is a private sector investment. So, there is a lot of money going around from the public sector to provide grants, subsidized financing, et cetera, we're looking to have more VCs established in our region to have more agent investment, more private sector, sort of, contribution, to the start of scene in Bahrain. I think going back to something important, you mentioned earlier, Ahmed, is the awareness. We still need to build more awareness around what kind of technologies will help companies startup scale. There might be the will there, but they're not completely aware of how to get there. >> What kind of hurdles would you look for in a partnership with a VC? Early stage, you thinking 10 million, 20 million dollar fund? Is there a number, is there like a filter? >> Very good question. I would say across the spectrum. Definitely early stage, although we are addressing that gap as public sector through grants and other means of providing capital. But I think we do require some private sector contribution, at that specific stage, at the early stage. >> We're certainly in Palo Alto, Silicone Valley, you need any cross connection... >> Definitely. >> You guys are CUBE Alumni now, VIPs, you're in the network now so feel free to knock on our door. We want to help as well. >> We appreciate that. >> Thanks so much for everything you guys are doing, I think this is going to be a historic moment looking back at this time in history, new region, revitalization. This is a theme, it's not just money making, that's one piece and I like that piece, but it's impacting citizens. >> Correct. >> This is a big part of the culture. >> Yes. >> Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> theCUBE coverage, we are here in Bahrain for AWS Summit. Stay tuned for more coverage, after this short break. (light music)

>> From Bahrain, it's theCUBE covering AWS' Public Sector Bahrain, brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Welcome back everyone, it's theCUBE coverage. We are here for the Amazon Web Services Summit in Bahrain in the Middle East where cloud computing is changing the game for start-ups, businesses, and the government, and society Amazon announcing their new read, it's up and running. We've got two great guests to talk about all the integration and opportunities. We have Hassaini who is the CEO of ACME and we have Cherian Abraham, who is the general manager of Computer World. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me. >> Thank you, John. I'm so excited to be here. (laughter) >> Thank you John. It's a pleasure to be here. >> It's a great day, it's a bigger venue than last year. It's our second time here, but what's striking from this event is the explosion of innovation, not just start-ups. You're seeing the businesses, large, global ISV's are here. Seeing new ISV's, new software environments, and the demand for cloud computing is off the charts. So, there's a real need, thirst, for cloud computing. >> Absolutely. >> What's your assessment? >> I believe that most customers have started to look into digital transformation and customers have started buying into a new experience, of moving from Imperium into Cloud. And I think that's a great story because customers are looking to move from CapEx to OpEx and driving innovation and driving more for their businesses. >> And the cloud's first message here in Bahrain has been mandated from the top. >> Absolutely. >> And that's been forcing all the ministries to do it, that's changing the citizen relationship to society, which includes entrepreneurs and business, and now they got to integrate it in the banking systems behind it, so good business for you guys. What's the business impact? >> The new diplomacy in business, I think we are on the right track with the cloud business, with interviews in particular. Just to add to all Abraham's mentioned, you know, I think it's an entire eco system which is working well for the whole cloud objective. I was just speaking to one of, a gentleman who was from one of the news cities, he was teaching there, and what he mentioned to me, you know, that we have been giving students, good students, who were like on the verge of getting certified, now we are going to make them certified and hand them over to you. So we'll have limited people available to us. I think the policies right from the cloud-first policy, you know the banking policies, you know. As the last awareness that AWS has got to the market, it's been a game-changer all of a sudden. >> And it's causing a pipe-lining for talent, that's going to allow people to participate. >> Yup. >> Yes. >> Has there been a business driver behind all this? What's been the big business benefit, besides the mandates? Have you seen from customers, is it software development? What's the business driver? >> The key driver has been, you know, every entity would like to have an edge in the business, you know. It's no more of the old days, where you have the set in a competitors. You all of a sudden see new faces, new companies, who become big challengers. I think the very need to face this challenge as well as the desire to grow more and do more, which is driving the whole cloud momentum. >> You know, one of the things as Agility, we've heard that message here, and we go to all the other cloud events. Agility, agility, agility. Data, data, data. Compute, storage networking. Less about storage networking, because that's become elastic, that's available. That's what Amazon brings to the table. >> True. >> Data and agility now drive a lot of the business conversation because now they got to go hire software developers, who need to build on top of something, that's going to be Amazon or something else. This is a big part of the business architecture. >> Mmhmm, true. >> What are some of the things that you guys have done? Can you talk in generalities about some of the projects? >> We have looked at the elasticity of the platform. We looked at the scalability of the platform. What it brings to our customers? And how do we build innovation, bringing in new technology that helps customers' insight from their existing data, and build onto it. >> What are some of the challenges that you guys have seen that are now available to be overcome, that weren't maybe a few years ago. >> I think that the overall resistance to adapting to Cloud. I think that was one of the major challenges that we've seen a couple of years back, because people felt that going to Cloud is going to hinder the way they do the job, the work. In addition to that, the Cloud brought in a lot of security-related issues where people were not aware. But today, people are embracing it. Customers have started to embrace technology because they see value in cloud data >> The culture fear of change- >> Yes. >> And then the security are being addressed. The banks are going cloud. That's a good tell-sign. >> Absolutely. And there are a lot of ISB's that brings in resilient solutions that addresses customer requirements. >> What's the number one conversation you have with customers? >> Thank you. How do we build further on the cloud? How do we take good applications into cloud and take it into modernizing them? How do we take our digital transformation strategy, moving forward? >> Your conversations? >> I think we talk about longevity in terms of how the business can move forward and stay in the game for a longer time. That's so the discussion starts okay, then we start talking about you know, what it means to modernize the applications, so that you know you have the agility to address newer opportunities, you know, to have the growth that you always wanted to have. And, of course you know, the awareness and education that has happened in this country in particular, in the recent times, that has helped us a lot. Okay, we are no more talking about, you know, the challenges of security, whether it's going to be secure in Cloud or not. We are talking about how the business is going to behave once they make the move. >> I got to put you guys both on the spot with a question, I'd like you both to answer it because I think, any conference you go to that's always the hallway conversations that are interesting, because what happens in the hallways, you see someone you know. You mentioned before we came on camera you see people here. Everyone knows each other, it's growing. What are some of the hallway conversations that you guys have had here that you could share with folks watching. >> We need to adopt the Cloud. We need to build a strategy on Cloud. We need to look at innovations. >> If it is a comment, it is about, you know more services that they can offer. It's an ongoing sector, the new revenue streams that they can generate, these are the conversations that I have most of the time . >> It gets business deals done. Come on, come on. You've got some deals happening. >> Yes. We're getting a lot of good traction with people showing a lot of interest in new areas of business. >> I've found there's three types of companies in digital transformation. One's that know they got to do it, people that are doing it and they get stuck a little bit, and folks that are done it and are like "Wow, maybe I can do it over again" or are successful. So, three kind of phases. How would you categorize the market here in terms of progress, more phase one, two or three? What do you guys see the distribution? >> I think it's phase one and two. We haven't reached phase three yet. There are some customers who have started looking at phase three, but it's all centered around phase one, phase two. >> Understand the playbook? >> Yes. >> Yup. >> What systems to start with, those kinds of things? >> Absolutely. >> Fixing the culture, making more buy into it. >> Absolutely. >> Okay, other question I wanted to get your thoughts on, I think it's important that we're reporting here, is that cultural shift, this new generation of workers, we alluded to it about the young people coming to the university, there's a generational shift happening. >> Absolutely. >> It's almost pride. You see the sparkle in the entrepreneurs eyes that like, there's a whole 'nother thinking out there. >> (Husseini) Sure. >> How do you guys relate to that? What's your observations, being that we're the older, mature generation, kind of looking back at the young guns coming up. >> I think it works very well for us, innovating the event for a combined strategy, you know. We come from a strong lineal system integration and application delivery, and we have a lot of people who are very much tuned to offering turnkey solutions. So, I work first on them okay, because I wanted to have those mindsets with huge amount of experience, ready you know, in the new era of big business. At the same time, we started getting the new team from whom we started learning and know many things in Cloud, many things in DownSoft, you know, acclimation via learning more from them. So this way I think, you know, we had the initial success. I think that you continue that strategy. >> You bring in, combine them on teams... >> Yep. >> They can learn from each other. The key is learning two ways. >> I think the younger generation does not carry baggages, unlike the older generation. >> (chuckling) Yeah. >> They are more open, they are more agile to learning new technology and they want to be entrepreneurs. They've lived new applications that create opportunity for the community, for businesses, and for themselves. >> Yeah, I mean, we had a start-up on here, a thirteen year old company, doing API's >> True >> Billions of transactions, API calls... >> Yeah >> That wasn't even possible in the old days. Remember, you had security perimeter, firewalls, everything's locked down. Not anymore, it's all open. The surface area is completely- >> Entirely new dimension. >> Yeah, security's huge. Thanks so much guys for coming on theCUBE. Take a quick minute, each of you, to give a plug for your companies, what you guys are working on, key initiatives you'd like to share. We'll start over here. >> Thank you, John. My company, Computer World, focuses on digital transformation. We help businesses thrive on new areas by building innovations. >> My company, Almoayyed Computers Middle East, we are a four decade old company and we have taken a reboot recently in Cloud data, focusing more on Cloud now, whatever we do it's all focused on Cloud and we are on to many services. We are on to the emerging technologies, RTA, AIA, machine loading... >> Yeah, the bots are coming. This is going to help humans. >> True. >> The big debate about automating jobs away kind of, I always laugh at that, because there's so many job openings. It's like (chuckling) some go away but more are born. This is the dynamic. >> Yep, yep. >> Guys, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your insights, appreciate it. CUBE coverage here in Bahrain for AWS Summit. I'm John Furrier. We'll be back with more CUBE coverage, after this short break.

>> from Bahrain. It's the Q recovery AWS Public sector Bahrain brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> Welcome back. Everyone's Cube coverage here in my reign Middle East, part of A W s Amazon Web services Summit, sir. Second year covering the evolution and the Revolution to cloud computing. This year, the big news is a Davis has a region spurring innovation and entrepreneurship in the Middle East region or next gases. Ahmad Hamadan, CEO and CO. Front of Uniform Nick, a super hot company. Congratulations on your success. Welcome to the Cube. Thank you, Joe. So we just talked before we came on camera. This ap I economy that we've been covering in death you been living? This is your world. You have a really big business. Not a lot of employees. Less than 200 employees, billions of transactions. Ap I transactions. This is This is the successful man we've been seeing in the public companies truly, among others. Messaging application integration. This is cloud now, right? This is happening. What's your story? >> Okay, so >> you know, these times I would say it's a golden age for the technology in the region on for the cloud specifically when we started back in 2006. Uh, you know, we're very lonely. We're we're not even in that time in the club. So we started just tow, solve the issue off bulk messaging through writing a script or software that allow us to broadcast a message to a group of people. But along the journey, we realized that businesses need tools, especially a B I's that will allow them tow, tow each toe a wider, I would say audience with a seamless integration. And this is how the cloud communication industry emerged. So we avoid our baby eyes for businesses from all around TV region, especially with segments or sectors that have a mass communication need, like banks in government retailers on the E businesses, >> the data is the data in this business is a fascinating. Before we get into some of those questions about the origination story, how did it all start? >> Okay, so I wasn't at the university a teenage off 22 probably on I leave the one of the student clubs. Andi. I wanted to communicate a message Tau 400 people on, you know, the limitation of the mobile. Back then, I couldn't do it. It's terrible experience. You cannot send two more than 10 people. The text is not full. You know all these complications. So being a software engineer on Dhe, you know, I had an idea. There should be a solution that you can write code, publish it online, and then it will do the magic for you. For months later, I apartment with my brother was a software, you know, geek more than I on dhe. You know, already >> older or younger, brother. >> Younger brother. Okay. Yeah. Hey, was at high school on then four months later, we're life sending thousands of messages over the Internet. It was like magic friends and family like it. It's really making money on, you know, for us, you know, You know, it's like when you have 4005 thousand's a big money for us. That way, any each month, Andre, Like moving forward 2008. I decided this is the dream we need to scale this and, ah, venture out of this small, you know, experiment on. Then I left the job and dedicated my time to scale that business. And I moved the business toward the business and the cloud and communication. Our first move to the cloud was, Ah, 2010. We used aws toe move most of our infrastructure to the cloud on By 2013 we completely divert it into the cloud communication business where the focus is into the FBI. The integration with the applications at the customer systems on Ben allow them tow, communicate to, you know, 100 of millions off >> and then mobile phones, obviously GPS built in application. Tsunamis happened. Exactly. People want to interface with the companies. The other phone? >> Exactly. I will give you an example. You know, you come to my mind while you're talking. We used to have customers back in 2010 descend on Lee along the year like maximum one million transaction the same customers nowadays, like nine years later, they send at least 200 million transactions, so you can imagine the growth in the use cases on the adoption from the customers. Use it now for engagement for notification, for awareness for security and authentication for personalized marketing content, like hundreds of fuse cases like we do some analysis in the behavior of the customers and the consumer on. We realised that in a modern society on individual interact digitally with at least 50 grands and a day. This is huge. You can do the math if you multiply this by 100 million population than there is a massively huge number of transaction and data's being >> percent. What are you guys doing now? Is mainly targeted application developers or businesses as a turnkey solution? What's the What's the value proposition? >> So, >> UH, >> two years like nature, we realized that we cannot target or the market and serve, or the customers we need to focus into the sick man that has hypertension. Then we identified five segment where we tell her our solution, our value proposition toward those segments on it's aligned with the trends in the region. Maybe it's not applicable to other regions. Eso number one for us is the online banking segment. I would see the financial industry with all the, you know, evolution off the authentic and the online and mobile banking. So those are number one. We do integrate our system with their current systems out off the shelf. We don't do much of a cast immunization. We usually provide really integral components toe toward their system, and then they hook up their system two hours, and then they have the dashboard and blood form to orchestrate the communication. The number one is the M government. It's also a, you know, an industry that is evolving in the region. The number three for us is the businesses, and they're very hot, very high potential growth. I would say the number one in terms of growth a business include the e commerce on demand delivery, the food delivery applications you name it on then. The fourth industry for us is the retailer who are moving now toward the reality and the engagement. More to them prison share themselves in this stuff word for them. And the last one is the I would say the hospitality and the, you know, the, you know, hotels and, you know, travel agents. >> I think anyone building an app would want this of their mobile. So what's what's your take of the ecosystem? Entrepreneurship now much different in one year. You have an Amazon region here. What do you think's gonna happen? It's gonna be like you and your brother all over again with other entrepreneur. >> Exactly. You know, when I you know, see, photo interpreters usually approach me for, you know, kind of mentorship and coaching. You know, we're at the stage little bit, you know, being fruit difficult. You know, >> the situation's got the scar >> tissue. Yeah, So I usually told them guys, it's like being so easy for you. You know, at this time, I know that with all the luck, I would say support the barrier to entry had become much less. But at least there are many things you don't need to think how you figure out. It's already there. Just need to have the badge and dedication, and then you'll find many people to support you. Especially, I would say there is only one areas not yet will, you know, covered in the region, which is the access to the talents. I think this is a worldwide problem, even for Forks in the Silicon Valley. But in terms of funding thes of doing business, sitting up ventures, access to the technology platforms like the cloud infrastructure in terms, off advice, mentorship and coaching there is, I would say, an abundant off that available today for for interpreters. And I can tell the next five years you will see a huge value being created out of this. >> Yeah, instead of riding, waves will be running s curves. So it's easier now, Still hard to build a company. But you're right. I mean, go back 10 years ago. You to put it all together, >> Takes us six months to set up the company. You know, legally, back in 2006 >> to get the infrastructure legally, get servers, get some funding, prototype it, get it launched its customers. Now they have a partner network. These kids are spoiled. >> But you know, it's difficult >> today to differentiate yourself because you will find tons of people are either doing or planning to do the same. >> They gotta build some smart intellectual property. This one machine learning is gonna be a great opportunity. That's gonna be a domain expertise kind of thing. You guys have a nice niche, and broad market is growing good. Calm, surround it. Got all kinds of systems out there that need this >> Exactly. You know, the question today is not if the tools and support is available or not. The question is, how you gonna use those tools to create something unique? >> I'm a great to See you. Thanks for coming on and sharing your experiences. You're an inspiration to the other entrepreneurs out there again. Remember Entrepreneurship like a family. Took a team, sport. Pay it forward. The other generations coming online. Absolutely. Congratulations on your success Cube coverage here by rain talking to start ups. This is going to be a hot market for entrepreneurship If the capital markets conform around it. The Cube is here covering it here and by rain. Stay with us for more at a debate summit. If this trip

>> From Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Welcome back, everyone, to CUBE coverage here in Bahrain for AWS Summit. Cloud computing's changing the landscape, startups, business, government, and society. We're here with a special guest, His Excellency, Aymen Tawfiq Almoayed. Thank you very much, thanks for coming, thanks for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> And of course Max Peterson, Vice President of International Sales, Worldwide Public Sector for Amazon Web Services. >> Good to be here, John. >> Your Excellency, this program you're doing with Amazon, this MOU you've signed is interesting, I want to unpack it, because it speaks to the bigger picture of how the region is shaped by its generational shift of cloud computing and the people here. This is a really big part of this modernization plan. >> No question, no question. So the program that the government adopted, so Vision 2030, which was adopted a while ago, is based on one premise, one key premise. That the government is going to move from operator to regulator, and our focus would be to focus on and establish, create almost, an open, just, competitive environment. So the idea is for us to provide the platform and then allow the meritocratic system to let those that can aspire to opportunities and reach these opportunities come up through the system. So this program really sets the stage to get a new level going. >> Explain the difference with this program and why it's different than some of the things we've been hearing. We saw a cloud computing degree coming out of the University of Bahrain. We're seeing a lot of job skill training. This is different, this is a unique thing. Can you give a more detail around how it works. >> So, what we're doing is we're looking at very quick wins. And for us, six months, for somebody to spend six months, one year, in Amazon is a very quick win. This is not an extended degree. What this is is it's an opportunity to interact with the best of the best in their world sector. And to, honestly it's almost like a reset, where what Max and I were talking about earlier is somebody that spends a year with Amazon, I think that something happens to the pulse rate, right. So your pulse literally starts to beat much faster. >> Max knows all about that. >> Exactly, exactly. We hear about their traveling patterns, and that in itself is amazing. So in any case, so the reason it's different from a degree is it gives you real-life vocational experience. It gives you the networking opportunity. It gives you the lifestyle exposure. And then it gives you the shortcuts in organization. >> So you're exposing them to the excellence of what a culture looks like, Amazon in this case. They're hard-charging, they're fast. Anyone who's worked with Amazon knows that they move pretty quickly. But they're disciplined. It's a world-class organization. It's like a sports team being promoted to varsity or the pro team. Work their way up from the entry-level. >> So maybe the difference as well is, in this sort of program it's sink or swim. It's really as simple as that. I mean, you need to hit the ground running and take off. Maybe with a degree, it's much less so. With a degree, you go through your first year, your second year, your sophomore and so on. So what we do, what we want, is we want our youth to hit the ground running. We want very quick wins and I have no doubt that once the first trench, first team goes out to Amazon, comes back, I'm sure that the ripple effect that you see in industry and you see in the marketplace will be tremendous. >> Max, what's your take on this? 'Cause obviously you're on the Amazon side. You're taking them in Amazon Web Services here in Bahrain, or is it outside corporate headquarters in Seattle? Is there a definition around? >> All good questions. First, we're excited to be the first company that is partnered with the Ministry on this effort. We're sure many others are going to join, but we're excited to be first. I think what makes it different is the aspect of experiential. There's a lot of experiential learning that's going on different than the academic learning. Equally or maybe even more necessary is the sort of organizational cultural learning. Just what does it take to operate at world scale or at pace. And then to be able to bring that back to the region. We'll do that wherever we've got the right mix of skills. So it could be in Bahrain, where we've got a big office now, it could be in London, could be Washington, D.C., could be Seattle. >> Your Excellency, we always talk about on theCUBE over the years, tech athletes. Because, you know, to be an athlete, you got to have durability, intelligence, stability. Being a tech athlete, the travel schedules, we were just joking last night about it, you mentioned it. But also the intelligence and the integrity to do this at this speed. So this is kind of, I love the theme, so I want you to elaborate why this connects in with your vision and how did this idea get started, what was the origination around this effort? >> So initially the, again, if one takes a step back, we started experimenting about a year ago, a year and a half ago with the sports sector. So what we were doing with the sports sector, because it was a much smaller sector. What we're trying to experiment there is, if you were to allow our athletes to interact with the best in class, what would happen? Would they live up to that experience or not? And so one of the segments that we were looking at is, for example, triathlons. So about two years ago, this sport, triathlons in general, just simply didn't exist in the region. So two, maximum three years ago, they just, they were nonexistent. So His Highness had ordered that we go ahead and see if we can develop this and see if we can develop the athletes for it. And so what we needed to do, essentially, was pick some-- >> Find the athletes. (laughs) >> Is find the athletes, exactly. Send them out, we did a few triathlons. They did Kuna and Florida, came back, loved it, the addiction and the adrenaline kicked in, and then we started arranging duathlons and then triathletes here in Bahrain. Of course, I don't know if you know this, a year, fast forward, a year and a half later, and BE13, which is our triathlon team, is number one in the world. Simply it's number one in the world. Now we're doing this, we tried this with biking. So we sent a team to the Tour de France, and we started to do exactly the same thing. We were aspiring to look at greats like Sky team and the rest, and just learning from them, imitate, and then innovate, and-- >> One, if you have to have the talent to begin with, your theory is put 'em in, let 'em see it, and they'll either level up or they won't. It's self selection. >> Absolutely, no question. >> And you want to bring that formula to tech. >> It's pure meritocratic sink or swim. So we've got, so there's two, there's two phrases that we live by, all right. Number one, our role is open, competitive, just environment. That's it, all right. The number two is we open doors with no hand-holding. Simply no hand-holding, but we'll get you the opportunity. But if Amazon calls us and says participant number 606 or whatever isn't up to the cut, then they're not up to the cut. And what our youth have proven to us time after time is they're always up to the cut. As long as you make that clear, they-- >> The expectation defines the experience. So if you say this is what it is, you can swim or you can sink, your choice, people will tap out, they won't even jump in. >> I like the tech athletes piece. >> Yeah, I'm loving it, absolutely. >> Well, I mean, a lot of tech athletes, it takes a lot of energy, it is like you said, you don't know what it takes to build a company, it's really hard, I mean, it's not easy. >> It is, and the thing, just like this program, the thing that was interesting about the University of Bahrain idea was they're going to try and immerse everybody, because cloud and technology now is immersed in any field. I mean, anything becomes digital. And we were talkin' earlier about e-sports, so you need a whole bunch of great tech athletes to start bringing e-sports services to the world. >> Absolutely. >> Do you see e-sports emerging? >> Yeah, no doubt. So what we did on Friday is we signed the first agreement, this is the first time that a region hosts, we're hosting BLASTPro's finals in Bahrain, this is going to be on the 13th and the 14th of December, and that's running, streaming on Twitch. So we're excited, we're excited to be doing this with the guys at BLASTPro, and we're excited to be using Amazon's infrastructure to do it. So yes, absolutely, there is amazing things to be seen in e-sports and we're excited. >> This is awesome, digital disruption, you guys have been so proactive on this. I was commenting this morning on Twitter, then stats went out about entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley in the U.S., 51% of all ventures fail. And some other ones, 4% become unicorns, but it was all about optionality, et cetera, et cetera, and entrepreneurs are about getting on the right wave and falling and trying again, and this is, you guys have been very proactive on this. >> Right, so that's exactly why we think that sports plays a big role. So the idea behind the program was simply to gamify everything. The idea behind this program, the idea behind adopting the new bankruptcy law in Bahrain, and the new reform regulations that are coming in, all we're doing is we're gamifying things. What we're simply saying is when you fall, it's OK to fall. As long as you get back up and hit the ground running once again, we're OK with that. So you'll start to hear phrases that are pretty interesting. Like I said, with the entrepreneurships, what we're looking at is unlocking levels. So we're gamifying. With education we're doing exactly the same thing, we're looking at vocational training where you get to unlock levels. So as long as people know that the name of the game is just to stay in the game, and then outpace everybody else, then we're good. >> And the funding's been fantastic. You guys have been supporting it with resources. Now that the region's up and running, Max, do you feel good about the development so far with the new region? Therese was just on earlier, she mentioned first day they turned it on, a bunch of companies were launched already. >> Besides the cannons and the confetti that shot out today at the summit, the other exciting thing's I think when we launched the region, we had over 350 different companies, many small businesses, small and medium enterprises that put their offerings into the AWS Marketplace. When it was launched, anybody in the region, anybody in Bahrain, could literally turn on 1,700 different types of software solutions at the push of a button, so I think that's big. I think we heard how 35 local companies have created migration offerings and fast-start offerings. We heard from one great entrepreneur on stage today and we heard from government about how government's operating faster than business, I think Sheikh Salman threw down a bit of a challenge to the rest of the government and state enterprises and even corporations. And then of course I think we saw the digital bank of the future from Bank ABC with their first virtual banking assistant up on stage who, by the way, lives in the cloud over Bahrain. >> Yeah, digital employee, we had a great chat about that. This speaks to the generational shift, this is something that's going to be an interesting footnote in history. The sea change around expectations, you brought this up earlier, I think this is important. The younger generation, they want the world to be at a different speed, and they don't want an intolerant blockers in their way. And so whoever can be out front on setting up the environment, whether it's society, government, citizen services, but money-making potential, banks got to operate. So this is the replatforming of society is happening. >> No question, yeah, no question. I'll give you just the, when you compare ministries, when you compare government entities, you would walk in and you'd assume the ultra-bureaucratic system is still in place where you've got to go through tiers and so on and so forth. As far as the youth at the Ministry of Youth is involved, these guys are running things with chats, we've got internal chat systems, and so there is no memo-writing process where you then have to escalate it, and then it goes to the minister's office and so on. Absolutely not. These guys are on the likes of Slack, the likes of Teams from Microsoft and so on, and that's how government is run. >> Max, email's for old people like us. >> Hey, modern digital governments are redesigning the way all this stuff works, and it doesn't, the thing that's interesting to me is it doesn't just impact these things that you would think of as tech. I thought the example of going from 130 days to 5 days for permitting approvals-- >> For building permits, sure. >> That takes out a massive amount of inefficiency from the industry, right, and it enables that very industry to then move faster, instead of government as a blocker to so many of these things, becomes an enabler. And I think it's that attitude about modernized, customer-focused or citizen-focused that is the hallmark of what folks are doing now to make a difference. >> Well, thanks for coming in and sharing the insights. Your Excellency, great to see you. I have one final question, take a minute to explain to the folks what is the Ministry of Youth and Sports Affair, what's the charter, you going to add tech athletes to the mix now that we've kind of defined that term? But take a minute to explain-- >> Tech athletes. So the vast majority of the population is under the age of 35. The ministry's mandate is to make sure that anybody within that constituency, their touchpoints are being managed in the right way. So our job, very, very simply, is to be effectively the change agent for them, number one, and number two, to protect their interests. So we're the ones that are negotiating regulations that come in, but what touchpoint really is relevant? We're negotiating new laws that impact youth when it comes to their trades, new laws that impact youth when it comes to their rights, new laws-- >> Whether it's culture or art or whatever. >> Any touchpoints, so effectively we're customer-relations for youth, or client relations for youth. So that's that from one perspective. With regards to sports, we're simply regulators. So what we're doing is we're moving from an operator model to a regulator model, and what we're trying to do is we're trying to create a sports industry. So instead of us focusing on the actual tournament itself only, we're looking at sports diplomacy, we're looking at sports industry, we're looking at human performance and things like that. So any sectors that we can catalyze to grow in Bahrain that relates in any way, shape, or form to sports, whether it was medicinal development, technological development, regulations or otherwise, that falls under Ministry of Youth and Sports. >> You're charged to look at the whole individual across all spectrums touchpoints. >> Exactly >> That's awesome. >> So we're a horizontal as opposed to a vertical. >> Your Excellency, great to have you on theCUBE, great topic, could talk about it forever. We love sports, of course, on theCUBE, we love talkin' sports, Max, you're a tech athlete. >> I'm a tech athlete, I learned that today. Brilliant. >> You go from city to city, hit a home run everywhere you go. >> I'm looking for the next league to compete in. >> Guys, thanks so much for the insights. CUBE coverage here at AWS Summit in Bahrain, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (bright music)

>> From Bahrain, it's the Cube. Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain. Brought to you by, Amazon Web Services. >> Welcome back to the Cube coverage here in Bahrain, the Middle East, with AWS Summit celebrating the opening of their new region and all the economic development going on around it. A lot of change, cloud computing changing the landscape for startups, businesses, and the government for Cloud First. Mohamed Khalifa, senior manager, Economic Development Board for ICT. Welcome to the Cube, good to see you. >> John, it's a pleasure to see you again, and be here on the Cube with you all. >> You know, we're excited, second year the Cube's been here. What a stark contrast. Now, it's not just talk of the Amazon region being open, it's operational, startup scene is more dynamic, you guys are a big anchor in all of this. >> Absolutely. >> Give us the update. >> So, in the last year, the startup scene in Bahrain has grown by about 100% of where it previously was. Part of that's driven by the fact that Amazon is here, and the region is changing as a whole. You have Microsoft and Google and other companies all realizing the potential in this region. That's driven by the fact that there's a 40% year on year growth in cloud businesses, and uptake of those businesses as well. So, the talent pool as a result, is increasing in scope, and people are popping out of these companies and government ministries, and are energized to now start their own businesses. Aside to that, what you've started to see in Bahrain and the region as a whole, is a firm interest in governments in introducing regulations that are meaningful to these companies. Now, the way the governments work in these regions, especially in a country as small as Bahrain, is that we're able to legislate very fast on shore, and we're able to do that with a very close ear to the ground on what businesses need, and what they're requesting. So, it almost functions as a corporation and a enterprise that wants to do best for its subsidiary corporations. >> And you guys want to take care of the citizens as well, you guys listen to the societal impacts, the demographics a lot of young people. >> Absolutely. >> So the news around a cloud computing degree, bachelors degree, four years, or one years, that's going to help. >> Yeah. >> The entrepreneurial equation, you guys have been really the stewards of that. >> Mhmm. >> How is that going, is there any plans to have entrepreneurship being more formally taught in the universities, how do you guys think about the entrepreneurship equation? >> So, there are definitely thousands of people right now going through cloud training courses, because we see that as being the future. We ourselves, as a government, offer to make all of that training free. So, insofar as a person wants to attain a certification or a company wants to train one of their employees, that whole process is 100% free, granted by the governments of Bahrain. The reason why we do that, is because the human capital in the country, is seen as our single greatest asset, more so than anything else. We're not a heavy oil economy, oil is 17 and a half percent of GDP, financial services is similar level, tourism is a similar level, manufacturing is a similar level. So for us, if it's not oil, it's people. And people are what will generate everything in those subsectors that's relevant. So for us, the training programs that we're instituting with the universities, or the vocational training providers, et cetera, are all key to this. >> The insourcing strategy is something you're seeing that technology's enabling. I mean, we're seeing with corporations, they're building their own stacks. >> Yeah. >> They're building developers in house, you guys as a country saying, "hey, you know what, "we're not going to outsource to others, "we're going to build our sovereignty with the people." >> Yeah. >> This is about talent. >> Yeah. >> Now the younger generation, they want to move fast. (laughing) >> Yeah. >> They don't want anything passed down from the old guard, older folks like my age. >> Absolutely. >> They want speed, they want freedom to develop, and build something. This is kind of a cultural shift. >> Absolutely. >> What's your take on that? What's the sentiment around that culture, the younger generation, in terms of app developing technology and all them. >> Yeah, I mean, I think it's a bit split. You have a government that's very interested in insourcing. A lot of the private sector still does a lot of outsourcing. So, there's a happy middle between them. We try to make the visa policy quite straightforward for they guys that want to bring talent from abroad, where they can't fill that talent up locally. And there is a place for companies like Systems Integrators, et cetera, to fill those gaps up. But at the same time, insourcing remains key. As I mentioned, government is fully developing their own capability, and is primarily doing that by pulling students out of universities, and through those programs, and advising universities on what those programs should look like, to make sure that there's a match, and a synergy, between where we see the future of technology and the future of the services we're building with, you know, what the youth are learning. And the reason I talk about government, and it's typically not nice to talk about government as a fast mover, but in this part of the world, government tends to move faster than business when it comes down to innovation. >> Yeah. >> It's just, it's a weird flip that's happened between what you see in parts of the west, and what you see in this part of the world. So, what the changes that we make on the government side. >> Mhmm. >> End up being flags that indicate to the private sector some of the changes they're going to start seeing. >> So, that's the regulate fast piece. >> Yeah. >> So moving fast, set the pace for business, but not meddle in the startups world. >> Absolutely. >> We had a good chat with the central bank. >> Yeah. >> Same thing, they did some quick things, they got a sandbox, they do quick certifications. So I got to ask you the next question, startups. Nurturing them, attracting them, getting people excited by them, any new plans? You guys have any new programs? >> Yeah. So, right now, we've made the cloud crediting for businesses that are setting up in Bahrain, up to a certain cap, 100% free for them to use cloud credits on any cloud hosting provider basing operations in Bahrain. So, the reason we do that, is because we think, we already have a series of incentives, that already pay up to 50% of their capex and opex, we just increased the cloud side because it actually made more financial sense for us as a government. >> Yeah. >> And it drove innovation across these sectors and these industries. Aside from that, and aside from the capacity building, we've changed a series of laws, that resolve a couple of things. One is, the safety of investors in these companies, and the safety of their founders. Which include things like, including chapter 11 protection under the law, introducing laws against anti-competitive behavior at the governments level, and a few other sectors. But the more interesting thing for me, aside from those, I mean, that's obvious, right? >> Yeah. >> You want to help people fail, and you want to help remove friction from the investment environment, and you want people to build up capacity in training. But aside from that, the more interesting things that we're doing around open banking, APIs, so we're the first country in the region that has now set up a process for opening up all our banks APIs. That basically means at an infrastructure level, financial services companies can now build on top of banks, and create value added services. It's the same thing with the government, where the governments has now started building API bridges, using Amazon, and I'll give you one example of the first value added product that's come out of that. We've just released a product called EKYC, electronic KYC, entirely built out on the block chain, it's the first of its kind, globally. And in real terms, what that does, is it lowers the lifetime costs of doing electronic KYC from about $8,000 to a per-transaction cost of about $2 per transaction. So, it's a real meaningful difference for these companies, and the reason why you could deploy something like that so quickly and so effectively is because of the fact that the governments building on APIs and opening up some of that infrastructure, and the central bank is asking banks to do so as well. >> API standards, money, software innovation, kind of interesting fintech innovation strategy. >> Yeah. >> Kind of a data control plane, but the banks are protected, 'cause they're just exposing APIs. >> Yeah. >> Entrepreneurs can innovate right custom applications. >> Absolutely. >> Is that the thinking? >> Absolutely, so that combined with the fintech sandbox, which I think the central MAT bank must have talked you about. >> Yeah, it's phenomenal. >> Allows us to kind of regulate the licensing of the fintech products. So, it's safe for consumers, and it's safe for banks as well. Along side the fact that we're opening up the technical layer of the banks into these companies. >> You know, I think they got that right, I think you guys have a great collaboration equation, balancing regulatory and innovation. And the startups are going to take advantage of that. When the region's up and running, which it is, and starts humming along, you're going to start to see a flywheel of startups. >> Absolutely. >> The question that is on my mind, that I'd love to get your thoughts on is, the ecosystem support, because you said trust, and you guys have telegraphed and postured very trustfully as a country. >> Yeah. >> To entrepreneurs, that's clear. Can that ecosystem get localized? The service providers, the law firms, the angel investors, you know, the stakeholders that are always around. 'Cause people got to fall and they got to fail. >> Yeah. >> But they got to get back up again. They need that system of nurturing. >> Yeah. >> What's your take on all-- >> We spent a lot of time, my role as an economic developing board, is very much focused around keeping our ears close to the ground with respect to companies. And we listen to what both younger companies and smaller companies and large companies need. And the way we've looked at it, is why try to legislate along the lines of the fastest growing, most innovative companies, which tend to be these startups and SMEs in the country. And we tend to work, our role, is really what we call team Bahrain, and that strategy is to nurture a combination of all the regulators, >> Uh-huh. >> All the universities, all the schools, every single player, all the private sector players, students, into a collectivized understanding of where we want to go. And based on that, we constantly have an ongoing conversation with everybody, including the VCs about how we can meaningfully make impacts. >> Yeah. >> So just on the VC point, we recently set up and will have fund to funds, which is $100 million fund of funds, it puts money directly into venture capital funds, which then can redeploy that investment back into startups. The only request that we typically have for that fund, is that they set up a presence in Bahrain. In so far as they're going to receive capital. What that means is that there's going to be a critical mass in the country of venture capital funds that are now closer to those startups, and in a direct conversation with every part of society, whether it is government regulation all the way down to private sector. >> So you got some capital enablement there. >> Absolutely. >> That's awesome. >> We'll see about the capital markets, and you guys some developments goin' on there. >> Yeah. >> Final question I want to get your thoughts. From last year to this year, in looking forward, Mohamed, what are you most excited about right now? >> I'm excited about a whole lot. >> Come on, give me the top two, top three. >> So, the top three, there's stuff I can't talk about to be honest. >> Oh come on! (laughing) >> And you're going to see it come out in the next month. So there's stuff that's going to come out with respect to capital markets, and simplifying the investment. >> Yeah. >> Removing friction from the investment environment, and introducing greater amounts of volume. The other thing that I'm very excited about continues to be the capacity building that we're doing in universities with the AWS Educate program, that's continuing to expand in Bahrain. >> Mhmm. >> As well as other programs beyond AWS Educate, run by companies like Microsoft, >> Mhmm. >> Google with their development program. So there's a lot of fantastic capacity building work going on. And then I would also say, it's back to what I was saying earlier, it's just excited to see what companies are going to start building as we're opening up the infrastructure. We're working very closely with them and the regulators to make sure that as they build on top, they're not stopped by regulation, that the regulation constantly understands what they're trying to achieve. >> I like what you talk about, you got an ear to the ground, you're listening to what's going on in the marketplace, it's going to be, I think a lot of software surprises are going to come. >> Absolutely. >> You're going to start to see some, you know, what look like weird ideas turn into the best thing. Who would have thought that Airbnb would be successful. >> Yeah. >> Their original business plan was putting cots on the ground and selling cereal. >> Yeah. >> Now, they've changed the hotel industry. We're looking forward to seeing you guys do a great job, and we appreciate you supporting the Cube, to come here, it's awesome. >> Thanks for having me. >> And we hope to have the Cube in Bahrain next year as the team, covering you guys, and documenting what's going on. >> We look forward to continue to work with the team. >> Well, thank you very much, the Cube coverage at AWS Summit, Bahrain, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. Be back with more coverage after this short break. (upbeat music)

>> from Bahrain. It's the Q covering AWS Public sector Bahrain, brought to you by Amazon Web service, is, >> But we are here. The Cube in Bahrain, Middle East for Amazon Web service is some of our second year were cloud computing and their region of couple availability zones are up and running. Big news with Amazon got our next guest. Here's Cameron Years as head of strategy at the University of By Rain. You guys big news announcing a degree bachelor's degree in cloud computing? Yeah, a certificate one year that is gonna rapidly put new talent in the market. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. We're really excited by this announcement today on Dhe. What's exciting about it is Ah, first of all, it's the first cloud computing degree in the Middle East on the other. The other element to this is that the the students suits from any background. Any discipline can get a really good understanding about cloud technology for the certification because the challenges we face in the region right now are we don't have enough skilled tech talent on we don't have enough skill talent to fill the jobs are available in the region. This is not just a regional thing is you know this is a global issue on universities. Have Thio adapt, be a bit more forward thinking live in the future. And we feel really optimistic with our partnership with Amazon today that we can actually fulfill the needs off public sector employers, entrepreneurs, governments throughout the region. And that's the exciting thing >> for us. I mean, let's just take a minute to explain the two components. One's a four year degree, one when you just give a little quick DT on ongoing questions. >> So I need a four year back to the program is gonna be delivered in a very different wave in the traditional academic program is gonna be heavily integrated with the needs of employers, so employees are gonna be really involved in curriculum design. We like them to be part of a teacher faculty as well. The way that the program will be delivered will be very much in a kind of project based way. So it's about developing not just knowledge, but the skills, competency values mindset required to be successful in the 21st century. That's exciting. Think about it, and of course, you know, looking at some of the detail behind the curriculum you're looking at networking, security, machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data. So the fact that this cloud base is actually just a small component to what it opens up in terms of broader skill sets >> I mean, one of the things that we always comment here on the Cube as we cover Amazons reinvent their big annual conference. And the joke is how many more announcement's gonna make this year a tsunami of new things coming. So certainly it's tough to keep up. Many people say that, but for the young people in school, this is relevant stuff. This is like pathway to success. Yeah, job making some cash, making some money, get that's what the purpose of education is. >> Well, I think I think there's a couple of That's a great point. The first thing is, education systems now need to live in the future. Living in a current or in many cases, the past is no acceptable. So it means it means taking some sort of calculated risk. But we're very clear in terms of the direction of travel with regard to technology in the future, jobs The reality is today. But 2/3 of the world's population already needs re Skilling. Those are the challenges we face today. Young people are purpose driven. They know where the where jobs are gonna be. They want to work for themselves. You know, they understand far better than anyone else where the way the future is unraveling do they >> understand how relevant this is? I mean, that's pretty obvious. We're in the industry. Yeah, we kind of obviously known you've been part of you are getting that This is wave. This wave is not gonna end for a while. This is gonna be a great upward migration for opportunity. You know, it's still learning on the young kids part. >> I think I think I think sometimes in education we do a disservice to young people. They're so well informed they understand the market, the trends, the way the technology shaping the future on reality is that what student learns in year one of the university, 50% and acknowledge will be obsolete by the time they graduate. So the focus is no just around giving him a degree. This is also about Skillet Re Skilling and upscaling. People have graduated people in the workforce. So this is a far wider opportunity, even just young people. Well, >> I'll tell you, one thing that gets my attention is that this reminds me of theeighties glider science because I got a degree. I was a freshman. 1983 was just at the beginning of the operating systems movement. Lennox was even around yet Units was just emerging on the scene and was interesting what we learned as building blocks with operating systems and that becoming obsolete in the sense that we don't use it anymore. But coding still happen. So this is had scaled to it with Amazon. You got okay. Easy to industry. Yeah. Now you got He's mentioned machine learning at Lambda Functions server lists. Yep. I'm so much more stuff there for a variety of jobs. >> I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. And I think for us, the way that education is evolving is that we we really believe that education will be more modular, as you say, credentials based, um lifelong on the channel. So some of it will be hands on. Some would be through other channels on competency base, and I think that's the thing. I think competency for us is about the kind of mobilization of the knowledge, your skills, the values attributes. And that's the bit it's gonna add. Value Thio economies throughout >> the world. So had a strategy. You gotta look at the chessboard in the future. You mentioned I live in the future. Yeah. What are some of the feedback you've gotten as you talk to folks in the industry when you roll this out? Um, doing some press interviews? I know you've had some feedback. What's the what's the general sentiment right now? >> Really excited. I think that we talk to employees all the time. We talked to sm easy. You talk to big players like Amazon. I think that in the in the region, I think when we talk about the scale of disruption, I think well, the way we talk about it in U. S. Or Europe is very different to the way we talk about it. I think the Middle East region, like Mellie developing parts of the world still playing catch up on old there. But what you'll find is once they've caught up, the adoption rates go through the roof and then that's that's the challenge for us. Because you know what? We see the uptake. Now we see the update every year growing and growing. And now the next challenge is moving into government, moving into the private sector on upscaling and re Skilling, though. So we're just at the start of this kind of huge opportunity. John and I see it being, you know, exponentially over the next five years. You >> know, it's interesting. I live in San Francisco, Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Invalid. We'll tow you. See what Berkeley's doing. Stand up for you. If you look at Berkeley in particular, number one classes are the data science class and the CS intro. Yeah, I mean, they're kind of hybrids, basically, is all cloudy? Do anything with coding. It's gonna be cloud based, right? Um, and seal, who's the deputy Group CEO? Banky, ABC. I just interviewed earlier today. He said, Aye, aye. He thinks is the biggest thing that's gonna happen. So it's not just racking and stacking standing up infrastructure with Amazon, although great to learn that it will be nerds. Geeks do that. There's a huge machine learning a I field. Yeah, I think that's gonna be something. Is head of strategy. You gotta keep your eye on the prize. They're absolutely What's your view on that? How do you see that happening? >> I think you're right. I think only CD of recently released some doctor to say that over 20% of jobs will be automated as a result of their arrive in the next few years. I think our role is to prepare young people regardless of what they're studying. Fool. Aye, aye. On the impact of machine learning. So I'll give an example. Medicine. You can make a diagnosis now for a patient diagnosis in a fraction of a second compared to what we used to be able to buy using I. Now the reality is that although I all I can give you that information you as a patient, one a robot to give you that diagnosis, right? So our job, I think, is to look at the skills that will define what defines us as human beings away from robots. And that's empathy. That's the stuff around building, building connections around team, working around collaboration. And actually those are the things the education systems of a designed not to deliver. So our job now is by embracing these types of new program is it is. It is to start to work on those softer skills on Prepare this generation of shooting for the for the A. I will that we're moving into >> camera, and I was so excited for your opportunity. Computer science cloud >> all kind, bundle >> together and software is powering this new job. As we say, it's the keys to the kingdom. In this case, it could be the keys to the kingdom. >> Well, I think for us as the national university on for many Ah, not just Bahrain. But for many developing an emerging countries around the world, this is far greater than just technology. Or create Jarvis's about sovereignty. Because if you look at many countries, they import talent. They have to import hardware, software, computers and things imported. This is a great opportunity to help create a workforce but actually flips it on its head. Becomes the innovators, becomes the job creators. So that's the exciting thing for us. It really is >> a generational accident. This is an opportunity for the younger generation to literally take the keys to the kingdom. Absolutely absolutely thanks so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Telling cube coverage here by rain Middle East AWS Summit. I'm John Feehery Stables for more coverage after this short break.

>> from Bahrain. It's the Q covering AWS Public sector Bahrain brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> over and welcome back to the Cube. Special coverage here in by rain in the Middle East for Amazon Web service is eight of US Summit. I'm John for the Cube our second year, where cloud computing has changed in the landscape. It's changing the entrepreneur equation. It's changing the money equation, and Fintech is very popular. Next guest. Special guests. Ideal worrying. Who's the Deputy Group? CEO Bank, ABC. A legend in the industry. Also the founder. The Fintech Forum Coming up on your fourth big event, But you're keynoting here at Teresa Carlson and A W s Summit car on digital only bank. Welcome to the Cube. Thank you, John. Thank you. Pleasure to speak to you today, so I got a lot to talk about, but digital only bank. This is a really special time in history. Now we're living in a digital error and the digital is driving business change and digital business is on the on the plate of every major executive in the world. How are you enabling digital business, >> John? The way, The way I look at things that two years ago I have went to my board. I said, I wanna disrupt the bank. I want to develop a business digital strategy. And to do that, we have three pictures. We have to run the band first and transform the back. To do that, we have to continue investing on modernizing the bank. Then you evolve the bank investment by creating new product. And finally you just hop the back and how you disrupt the bank. And she's using the digital highway and introducing the cloud computing on bringing a new tools wishes changed the framework and changed the mechanics of the bank. So we created way are not a digital only bank which will be going live in two months time. We launch a wallet on all that sitting on our eco systems it in the cloud the very brave and bold move. But I can tell you, without that you will lose the transformation. Banking today is different than they're gonna be banking of tomorrow. Yeah, we have to start getting into the journey of transformation. >> Bold moves require bold leadership obscenity. You are that this is hard. It sounds easy on paper. You got people to convince. I agree. Changes hard people. Cultural change. How did you do it? What >> was the great question? John are started that in December 2016 I went to my board when the frantic start moving heating our partnership. Look, I want to be on the transformation. Jr and I worked for about 6 to 9 months in greeting our niche with the board unit. Explain to them frantic abroad. Them actually a special fintech speakers guidelines. So I invested heavily. I would always take holder board level people, groups Vo and tell him about the impact of digitization. New cannot afford distant idea. Feel distant. I didn't do nothing. He parked the chain was moved. We'll go without you. So what you're saying is that investment is awareness. You have to explain to him why you cannot treat fintech with the threat. You have to embrace it. >> I love that. I love that leadership. It takes time to nurture and unset the table. Absolutely. And then understand the cloud only strategy. And then you got to sell it and then you gotta implement. These are the new dynamic >> fears fears. John is that most of the stakeholder. They think of cloud as secure and the spending of times They're not security. Instead, he was spending the time questioning spend their time to improve the security with Amazon. We are partners Now we sit with them and doing a demon years. And I tell you, I'm putting all my critical banking system on the ground. >> When you talk to Amazon, you're a bank. Thanks. Have money. Thanks can be act. There were people who worried about all this. Trust is important opportunity. What made you decide to go a W s? >> There's a very first of all. When I decided to individuals with my decision, I looked at you guys, the investment you made it in security, the investment you make or not. Indeed, I looked you committed to the region. I was someone my neighbor you guys have invested that made a bold move to be in Bahrain That did a lot, picked a lot of boxes for me and that was an important move from AWS. And I tell you many regulators today they were going to cloud eventually. So it's very important that anybody is Bridget himself in the >> region. But we love a W s because we covered them. And in depth is part of our media business. And we look at disruptions to and I want to get your thoughts on fintech disruption. We were talking before we came on camera about some key times in history where disruption happened in trade. That is a tale sign for what's happening in that. Tell the story. >> All right, let me tell you the story. In 1953 the first word cargo ship sent from New York to Houston. That chip change the word made history. Why? Because it has the container. So you could supplier trade, sending through the container to different destinations. You know, before how you used to be put them in the trade through It was a nightmare. That disruption have actually improved the globalization of increased trade business. Today all this equipment here comes Chicago comes through container and each container is labelled through computer. So we re vision today Fintech made the same making same disruption in banking on my notions, everything >> and wears a similarity. Scale >> matter, united disruption. This came a volume betrayed should become disrupted. Everybody start using your container. The business the globalization fintech, globalization, skin awareness. So what? The way I see similar to that we had a disruption. Trade become more familiar. Lifestyle has improved. You can now put your house. Your TV is coming From where? From? Your Maybe >> all the cargo containers have changed. Shipping fintech is changing banking, banking >> and lifestyle. You got it. You got a job. >> And so now, well, ironically, two containers or changing the cloud Because containers and kubernetes and frustration, This is about software. That's right. Software money has been a term kicked around. When you hear the word software defined currency software to find money, what do you think of? >> Look, at the end of the day, who writes software people? Human. So basically, the thinking has become from you and I for the people that sit and think about the codes. Yeah, programmer the corner. But there's somebody behind it thinking So you have a thinker on this thing? Got Arjun you the word not the coda. >> Big moves and Finn ticker happening. I want to get your thoughts on leadership in this world where cloud has pretty much instant benefits if you execute properly. Absolutely. There's also architectural thinking. So the word business architecture is not something that they teach in business school or sometimes has to be learned over time to operate a business and go have a growth strategy in changing technological landscapes requires a business. Architecture has to have a ballistic systems thinking this is hard. You've done that for multiple years. What if you learned what were some of the challenges that you came? >> You have to look at when you're running a big enterprise. You have a lot of investment around the world, and a lot of duplication are out of inefficiency at the leader. Money to show my steak stakeholder efficiency. I want our own better shop. Now, if technology can help me to do that, why not? You'll have to jump onto the wagon? Yeah, yeah, I cannot sit idle, and I see a better efficient shop but bank running more efficiently. So I looked with technology addition to disrupt the way I work, but positive disruption. Yeah. The main thing is that the disruption should be a catalyst for a positive change. So what I learned I learned efficiency would the digital disruption with the cloud today and instead of putting 25,000 servants to serve my 18 countries. I put in the cloud. You done it. You know the economy is Ken Jordan and the shaving >> the flywheels. Amazing. The operational efficiency are amazing. As an executive, you managed to results at the end of the day. Business is business. Results matter. How are your results? You gotta make money >> at the bank. It I have a good show. Uh, results. >> Got to make some money. How do you see that? Evolving digital only business. What's your strategy? What's your roadmap? For? How you see the money making kicking >> in, John, that our clients becoming sophisticated. My corporate client today if I don't deliver in a digital solution through his statement, give the payment, Foster. He's gonna go for a fintech company because today, front companies are competing with me eating my lunch. So I have to prove, if my client becoming digital Chevy more sophisticated, I cannot sit and watch. So I have to invest heavily. You make sure my client is satisfied giving the right cash management to transaction banking. All this the book payments or this have to be alternated. So I have to be continue looking after my client. That's where the money >> are you happy where you are, Where you're at right now? Are you happy with work? >> There's always room for improvement. I will continue. Invest on Are we innovate because you cannot stop. I mean, look, I'm a zone today. Would they stop? >> No, no, they're not stopping >> way. We need to continue. >> What's your areas that you think about for the next five years? Fintech. What are an important area? >> You know what? I think Joe's gonna affect our lifestyle. A I artificial intel. I feel way only seen the beginning. We have seen nothing out of the way. A bank, ABC. We just lost our first digital employees. Uh, her name is Fatima, and we will be coming live in November. I tell you, this is the beginning. I feel artificial intelligence is gonna affect our work force in the world. >> Tell me more about this digital employees concept. >> Well, that until passionate about what we worked with a company called So machine in you Zeeland on there are the same people who actually invented you've seen the movie of it all. Yeah. So the same people actually design movie and avatar work. We work with them to create a footman. Fatma is already being trained. Do help a new Crying Toe Bank, ABC. The Tissue Bank Open account. Two shoes. A correct credit cards for you Help you and also to be able to have a chat with her to be able to ask you a question. Jerry. A question about the Bahrain about the population but banking. It's a journey on. The journey's so far being successful, and I continue. If you ask me the question in a year's time, I would tell you probably thought it would be somebody else. >> This is helping augment the experience for your customers. That's the goal, >> absolutely. And from experience with my consumer. >> Okay, I want to change the subject and talk about the fact you're the founder of the Fintech Forum. You've had your third edition for the coming up. Talk about the event. What's the purpose? >> Uh, in in about 2016 December, I went to them sentimental by rain Governor and I said, We want to sponsor a frantic conference so self like impressed that immediately and British idea. And then I went back to my board my good CEO, I said, We want to sponsor the fish interconference on my papers at the time, the warning Because at that time in nearly 2017 we hear different around the region. Nobody actually sat there and say, Was the interactive printed on banking? You see, other victim. So I launched the first winter conference Was its success 2nd 1 also a sex. And the 3rd 1 was a kook because we put the top speaker on the world. And now people are judging me for the 4th 1 event business Now. No way about Responsive Bank. NBC's was the sole sponsor. >> That's exciting. And I think these events are changing, too. The fact that you're getting into events, you're contributing your knowledge, your also sponsoring providing some working capital >> contribution as a bank. International bank. At least I can do to support my reign infrastructure in the vision in a fintech. Sorry, >> no problem. Think out of the water. I want to say I want to get your thoughts on something. I feels important. I said this last year and the year before, when Amazon launches a new region, yeah, it creates a revitalisation. It has computing power has all those things. It's a center point of innovation. How do you see that same thing? And what's, um, things that people might not know about the Amazon relationship to the area? Because all this innovation and enablement fintech societal change the government ministries are coming online here by rain. Entrepreneurs are creating value. They're getting funded this liquidity banks, air going fintech A modernization wave is happening with a new generation of young people and existing businesses. This is a digital complete modernisation. Your thoughts on on all this digital transformation Societal at a societal level with Amazon >> Amazon already contributed to the digital economy was in it in the world. And I've seen already the impact this part of the world. The fact that this conference is summer today I can't answer your question. Look at the contribution. You have about 2000 people here look the excitement of what to bring into the region. I have seen people today from Chaudhary from Kuwait, from Morocco, from Amman, from Egypt here. So you are actually building the knowledge excitement and you also have been people to understand the ecosystem and what was missing. So what you doing any bill Us now actually investing heavily on educating awareness of the digital destruction and digital economy. You are participating in the digital economy. I mean, also today I heard from Malaysia. Very good. Exactly. Sponsoring a program a degree with University of Bahrain doesn't pass just free. So this is basically you Continue doing that. And you find AWS is already effective. Life like the clock is gonna be so I think it's body is already contributing the digital economy worldwide. >> You know, I'm fascinated. I'd love to have more conversations with you on this, Maybe at your forum. But one thing I want to get your thoughts on is with digital collaboration is not just face to face. You meet people here from different countries, but then we go back to our place is but we're still together digitally. So the scale of cloud computing and digital is impacting not just money collaboration. What's your vision on how collaboration and the role of people are going to play in this new dynamic? John, >> if you have asked me three years ago our video I was a threat with winter company with your banker. They're gonna eat my lunch. But today you realize with time the only way you can move on trust through collaborating with the company. That's why today I'm sitting with AWS sitting with other victim basically breaking people. I know my banks, but I don't know how to build a clock ticking. So I caught a break. I don't know how to move on a new Sophia or so I go with. I want to use it to get that. You see what I mean? >> Yeah, I think you have another good point that we reported on many times. And that is that when you collaborate with these technologies, it makes the domain expertise and the data that you >> have >> more intellectual, more emotional property because, you know, banking intimately. You have data, you have customers. That's your intellectual property. You could use that faster with the resource. This is a new competitive advantage >> with analytics would get the science. The data is the new order, if you should, but you need the tours. You need another unique data scientist. And when you have the distant scientist dental become than yours. >> So he'll thank you for sharing your awesome insights here and let you hear about rain. Really appreciated. Congratulations. Tino speaking. Bank, ABC. Thank you. Going all digital. Bold moves. Bold leadership. Thank you. Thank you very much. We're here in the Cube. We're live broadcasting here and by rain. 80. This summit. I'm John Ferrier. Thanks for watching.

>> from Bahrain. It's the Q covering AWS Public sector Bahrain brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> love Run. Welcome back. This two cubes coverage here for a diverse Emmet. We're in by rain in the Middle East Cloud Computing Changing the game telling all the top stories Cloud computing decreasing now being offered Amazons Regions now operational. Our next guest is a maze. Rihan, Chief Technology Officer Arum X, Big global provider of logistics and transportation. Service is welcome to the Cube. >> Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. >> So you're on a panel this morning? We powertech. It's a women in tech panel graduations. But you're also the CTO of a really big logistics and transportation company. Going to the cloud? Yes. Tell us a story. >> So s O. I work for Allah mix, and Adam makes is a global leader in transportation logistics. Uh, we have we're proud to have a diverse culture, and we have 30% of our management's are females. So, uh, it's only natural to have ah female city. Or but for amex, uh, the whole dish transformation journey and the cloud adoption it started. Ah, like all other enterprises with the whole cloud we've started and we found ourselves competing with corporate, But, uh, not competing with the classical competitors for from the logistic industry but rather competing with innovators are are on companies that are really consuming the best out of the cloud in terms of speed and agility. So we had to transform on there. We created this transformation Lord map on. We fired multiple problems on, uh, this is how it started on. Now we're proud to have Ah, big Italy on AWS on dhe removed a lot of our business processes. Did I from from our machine learning logic that's there. We're modernizing our landscape and moving. >> So you guys are big logistics. A lot of compute powers needed a lot of I t now moving to AWS, which also religious expensive things, a lot of packages around of their business, a lot of compute, a lot of storage lot of I t. Why the shift to the cloud? What was the reason? >> Agility is the most important thing and being able to to create M v P's for for all the ideas that were might have what that we might have to support the business but also ah furthermore, because we needed ah ah, massive computer power. Because whenever you're in the service sector, the number of transactions that you process and the speed of processing Boston's action needs to be a tremendous. And that's the power of the cloud scaling up by then, at the end of the month, when you want to invoice voices with 100 K items, this is what we were looking >> for. So digital transformations complex for you. You have I t. You have your back office, you have a huge organization. I o t must be a big part of it, too, because you've got to keep track of everything. How big is the I O. T or industrial? I ot component of it? >> Well, for our industrial city is very, very relevant. It's going to be transformational on the shipment tracking, handling, uh, and it will shift the way we do business. The one of the main drivers off Beating our big date on AWS was the fact that we want to feed Ah, i ot findings and sensors reading to the club. This is something that we're very serious about, where we're actually I wouldn't I wouldn't say that way. Haven't seen most of the innovations that are related to that. Andi, I think we had some success stories, but for certain sectors, like pharmaceuticals and so on. But the minute those sensors would be commercialized and visible enough to be attached to each and every package, we will be the first. You >> know, we love talking about about two point. Oh, a whole new generation is coming. Yeah, you have compute, you got storage. It's either on premise or it's gonna be in the cloud Network now is important because we've got five g and other you know, radio frequency capabilities, tracking real time data. Do you move? Compute to the data. So an entire paradigm of computing is shifting. >> Yeah, we know it shifting from from the traditional way of doing things where you have your own data centers on the whole communication and work networking setup is built to service. Ah, this architecture off local data centers introducing the cloud. Uh, it would be a challenge. How do you connect both of them? But the way we did it because we were very serious about the cloud moves we prepared right from the beginning So we knew the locations that we selected for our data centers on how close and how we're going to connect him with our own that the centers for for the hybrid set up when we're on both. We were We took it very seriously, and we changed the whole ecosystem that comes around. >> So you got your data lake now? So analytics are important. >> Yes. The lake. We moved our data lake and remove our B I as well. Reporting toe aws on, we created a layer off logic that science logic to derive business processes like your last month delivery G, according address prediction, as well as the understanding, market trends and everything. >> So how's it going with Amazon so far? Good. >> It's going doing very, very well. We've had this data for so long. And Andi. It's a wealth of knowledge of the Indus specific. All our industry. We want to bring the best out of it. Andi could do that. >> And you have in house developers. You talk a little bit. The damage is it? Mostly you've had that for a while, right? Mostly developers. >> Yes, we do have for years. Actually, we've been an in House Development Company. We were building our own applications, like on a very wide range with very good on strict Ah, production and Dev Ops processes. Ah, well, now we're shifting our development towards the clog. We're very open toe to start developing, uh, aws and to adopt even local platforms. Whatever makes us move faster and more flexible. Way. >> Mays, You're on the panel with the Powertech. Limited tech promote diversity. How is diversity changed with the technology innovation? >> Actually, the diversity within the workplace is ah very significant and important driver for innovation on dhe, we at ceramics were very proud on. Did you consider it a differentiator and dynamics edge toe To be a diverse culture, we have more than 80. Nationality is 30%. I told you off our management team are females. Ah, that that gives you a lot off knowledge on also allows you to bring in different age groups off different formats of thinking acknowledge on backgrounds that that really makes change management easier on. You don't really feel any resistance to progress. >> Well, you're an inspiration. What advice would you give women out there watching young girls to professional women looking at their careers. What's your advice? >> Everything. Is this doable? We understand that you come from a region where there there has been a cultural challenges. However, I don't see them anymore, Especially when you work with big enterprises. If you create a balance at home and gender balance will review within your family, then you're OK. >> You do that. You do anything you can tell my wife or kids she could be CEO. Thank you so much for coming on such an insight. Great stuff. Think reporting here in by range. The Cube coverage on John Ferrier. Thanks for watching. We'll be back with more coverage at this rate break.

>> from Bahrain. It's the Q covering AWS Public sector Bahrain brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> Okay Welcome back, everyone to the cube coverage We are hearing by rain for a W s summit where cloud computing is changing the games. The Fintech panel discussion Yasmine el Sharif, head of Fintech Innovation Unit, Central Bank of Rain Thank you for joining >> us. Thank you for having me >> Elmo Yacht. Whose founder and CEO of Ammonia Technologies Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having so We're very robust Conversation before they turn on the cameras Fit in tech is hot. I'll see in global fintech Everyone knows what that is, but it's interesting because entrepreneurship and innovation is not just for start ups. It's for countries and hearing by rain, this ecosystem and the mandate to go cloud first has had a ripple effect. We were talking about open banking, mandate, open banking versus regulation, chasing innovation, holding it back. You guys here taking a different approach. Take a minute to explain the philosophy. >> Yeah, I think there's there's benefits to being late adopters to the game. I think in the case of behind it's been a very interesting journey. I think the we started with the whole AWS. But if you look at the prerequisites of technical adoption and creating Data Pool's for analytics to run on, I think the what's interesting about Bahrain is it's really led by regulation. If you look at the prerequisites of creating a digital economy, what's happening in financial service is, or the digitization or openness of financial service. Is it really one context off the bigger picture of Bahrain's digitization plan or the economic strategy? And really, what happens here is if you look at first built the data fools and or the data centers bring a W. A s in and create the data centers. Number two is creator data or cloud First policy. Move the entire government onto the cloud and then give the ownership of the data to the people by implementing the Bahrain personal data protection laws. Once you've done that, then you've given the ownership to the people and you've created what we have is we started with a unique identifies. So the citizens of the country or the residents of the country have a unique identify our number where they're known by once you've done that and then you start mandating certain sectors to open up with a P I integrations. You're creating a very, very interesting value proposition. It creates a much faster you leap frog, a generation of technology. You're going from the classic screen scraping technologies or whatever to a very a completely open infrastructure and open a P I. Where things air cryptographic Lee signed. People are in control of their data, people can control the mobility of their date, and you're really creating a very robust data pool for a lot of algorithms to sit on. >> You know what I love about this has me were talking before he came on cameras that you guys are thinking holistically as a knocking operating system is being in a geek that I am. I love that. But it's not just one thing you're doing, it's a it's a system and it's it's a modernization view. Now we all know that financial systems, power economies and fin tech innovation unit, but you're in. This is important. You gotta have that. That leg of the stool, that pillar that's working absolutely sandbox. You have technology mechanisms to roll in tech, move things quickly moving fast. What's the strategy? What if some of the key things What's the sandbox? >> Let me start by saying The Kingdom of Bahrain has always been considered as a centre of excellence as a financial centre of excellence. And we do realize at the Central Bank in order for us to maintain that position, we have to innovate. We have to remain dynamic and agile enough to make the necessary reforms within our regulations to meet the dynamics off the digital economy. Technology is changing the paradigm off the financial system on the changes happening extremely fast. Regulators have had to come up with a mechanism whereby they can harness and test the feasibility of these innovations whilst putting the risks in a controlled environments as regulators were not typically assigned to host incubators to host startups. However, because of all this change in technology, it has become extremely essential that we come up with a regulatory approach to enable startups as well as existing financial institutions to test out their innovative financial solutions in a controlled environment. So a sandbox is really a controlled live bounds time bounds environment, enabling startups as well as existing financial institutions to test out their innovative solutions under the strict supervision off the regulator, without being required to abide by full regulatory requirements directly with volunteer customers. >> You have to put this trick standards now but means sandboxes. What developers? No, it's a collaborative approach, absolutely not being an incubator. But you're setting up a rules of engagement, Senator startups to take what they know how to do >> exactly >> end up sandboxes in the cloud. That's what everyone does >> absolutely, and our journey with the sandbox has been very successful. We've launched our sandbox back in 2000 and 17. Up to date, we have 35 companies that have been admitted into the sun box. We have been able to graduate to companies successfully. One of them has been licensed as a crypto acid provider, the other as an open biking service provider. We have four other companies in the pipeline ready to graduates. I think all in all, our experience with Sun Box has enabled us to grow and develop his regulators. It has enabled us to maintain open communication with animators, to come tea, to learn the needs of innovators and to enable innovators to live, get familiar realized. With the regulatory environment of the Kingdom of Bahrain, >> you know, you guys are doing some really pioneering work. I wouldn't want to say it's really commendable. I know it's fast and new, but if you look at the United States with Facebook there now asking to be regulated regulation if it comes too late is bad because you know things got out of control and if you're too early, you can put a clamp down and stifle innovation. So the balance between regulation and innovation has always been an art, if you will. >> Exactly. >> What do you guys, How do you view that? What's the philosophy? >> So from a regular perspective, we think that regulation and innovation goes hand in hand, and we have to embrace innovation open heartedly. However, having said that, regulators have to run all common sense checks, meaning that we don't accept an innovation that will potentially pulls more harm to the financial stability of the economy as opposed to the advantages that puzzles. We've passed the number of different regulations to support innovation in the financial services sector dating back to 2014 when we first issued our payment service provider licenses allowing more competition and innovation within the payments sector. We've issued CROWDFUNDING regulations. We've issued robo advisory regulations. We've issued insurance aggregator regulations, crypto asset service provider regulations, open banking regulations, Justin in a few. And I think that each of the regulations that we have issued solves a specific pain point, whether it's to enhance financial inclusion, whether it's to empower customers by retaining ownership back, uh, of their financial information and data, Whether it's too also empower startups and to enable them to get it gain access to funding through digital platforms. >> Have dual. I want to get you in here because as an entrepreneur, like I love all that great, I just wanna get funded. I want my product to market. I need a capital market that's going to be robust. And I need to have that's capital providers state venture capital for private equity supporting their limited partners. So I want to see that I don't wanna be standing there when I need gas for my car. I need fuel. I got to get to the next level. This is what I want And he bought >> on. I think, the one thing John that is very important that people look at in the context of fintech today. Raising money investing into fintech Regulatory uncertainty is one that defines scalability today. Once your technology is proven, where you go next really is dependent on the regulator that you'll be dealing with in the context of that specific activity that you'll be performing. In the case of Bahrain, I must say we were blown away by the receptiveness. We in what way? Yes, yes, mean mentioned open banking, for example. We got into the regulatory sandbox, which you hear a lot about sandboxes all around the world. We got into the sandbox. We got into the sandbox with contact with with with an idea of building and accounts aggregator direct FBI integration to these banks. And we got into the sandbox. We There were no regulations at the time. They like the idea. We started bouncing ideas back and forth on how to develop it. We developed the technology. We started piloting the technology. We integrated to 15 banks in the country on a sandbox environment. The consul, the white paper on open banking, was listed. They sent it out for consultation. We integrated on a production environment to more than 70% of the banks in it in the country. The central Bank of Bahrain mandated open banking across the entire nation. With every retail bank all in a period of less than 18 months. That's insane. That's the kind of context. So as a no Vester exactly so as an investor or as an entrepreneur that looks at the sector. The question is here. If anything, I think the regulator in Bahrain is the one that's leading the innovation and these air the benefits of being late adopters. We get to test out and see what's going on in the rest of the world and really develop great regulations that will embrace and and foster innovation. >> You know, I love the liquidity conversation because this neck goes to the next level. Liquidity is a wonderful thing started. Wanna go public? If that's what happens in the U. S. Mergers and acquisitions, we have an incubator that we're gonna interview here flat Six labs just had to come. One of their companies got sold to match dot com. So you're seeing a lot of cross border liquidity. Yeah, this is a new dynamic. It's only gonna get stronger, more come. He's gonna come out of my reign in the region. Liquid is important. Absent. So how do you guys want to foster that? What's the strategy? Continue to do the same. >> So from a regular perspective again, we don't really holds. Thank you. Beaters are actually two accelerators, but what we do as we refined our regulations to support startups to gain access to liquidity, for example, are crowdfunding regulations that have been passed in 2017 and they support both. Equity is one of financing crowdfunding, including conventional as well as Sharia compliant. Crowdfunding transactions were also currently working on refining our regulations for enabling venture capitalists to take roots and marine and to support these startups. >> Yeah, I think John, you mentioned two things you mentioned regulation leading. When you mandate something like open banking, you are ultimately pushing the entire sector forward, saying you better innovators fastest possible. And there's a gap that you need to you need to basically bridge, and that really loosens up a lot of liquidity when it comes to partnerships. When it comes to acquisitions, when it comes to these banks ultimately looking for better solutions, so they that's the role of the regulator. Here we are seeing a lot of VC activity come to the region right now, the region is only starting to open up. AWS just went live a few months ago. We're seeing the cloud adoption start to really take effect, and this is where you'll start seeing real scalability. But I think the most compelling thing here is Previously people would look at the Middle East with a boot with a bit of skepticism. How much innovation can really take place and the reality is here. There are a few prerequisites that have been put in place. Foreign ownership is at 100% cloud. First policy. There's a lot of things that can really foster innovation. And we're, I mean, where as an entrepreneur, where living proof off this whole Team Bahrain initiative of the fact that you can get in you can build in accounts aggregator in a country that never even had the regulations to adopted to mandate it and to be Ultimately, I think Bahrain will become the global reference point for open banking very soon because it has mandated a regulation of open AP eyes with cryptographic signatures ultimate security frameworks with a robust infrastructure across an entire nation. And don't forget, we still have a population of below the age of 30 70% of our population below. So it gives a very compelling story t test your technology. And then what we end up saying is, once you're on AWS or any cloud for that matter than the scalability of the technology just depends on where you want to go in there. >> No doubt the demographics are solid here, and I love the announcement here. The bachelor's degree. Yeah, cloud computing. We've seen some data science degrees, so new skills are coming on. My vision is interesting. I think that would interest me about the region of Amazon. Being here is these regions create revitalisation? >> Yeah, you >> guys are in perfect position with this Modernization trend is beautiful, not only to be a template for the world but a center for global banking. So I think to me, is that, you know is I'm trying to put together and connect the dots of where this goes in the next two decades. I mean, if crypto currency market continues to get matured and stabilized, that's still flowing with a lot of money. A lot of money in the relay >> absolutely >> was not just the region business to do here for couples to come here. It's you guys playing a role in global financial system. That's of interest to me. What's your vision? >> Absolutely. I think that regulators around the world are starting to realize the importance of collaborating together, to try and work on policy challenges in line with innovation within the financial service of sector and to share experiences to share lessons learned at the Central Bank of Bahrain were a member of the Global Financial Innovation Network, which is an initiative that has Bean passed by the F C A in the UK Again, we're also a member of the authentic working group of the GCC and through these two different initiatives, we work alongside other regulators to collaborate on solving policy issues, to solve, to share experiences and knowledge and to try and harmonize our regulations. Because of the end of the day, startups and innovators ultimately will want to scale up and want to serve customers across the friend jurisdictions. So it's important to have that kind of harmonization in terms of regulations to foster innovation as well as to safeguard the overall security of the international financial. Um, >> keep partnerships. Do you guys need to do to kind of go global on this 20 year vision? Is there other things they have to fall into place? That needs to happen? >> I think >> 20 years is a long time, I say in the next. Let's take five years, for example. If you say in the next five years and where I see this going, the question is, what do entrepreneurs and startups need to look at a jurisdiction and say That's where I want to test my technology. You need a robust infrastructure. You need a regulator than embraces you. You need technical subsidies and financial subsidies that are available, and then you need an independent arm that can really hand hold you and take you to that >> thrust. Its critical trust, money making absolutely ability. >> Just add to that and Byron, we take great pride in our human capital, which we believe is one of our biggest assets. And today, with having your Amazon web service is in Bahrain, this has enabled training of young Bahrainis for the data and knowledge economies which is expected Thio greet around 5000 jobs within becoming five years through different schemes such as Amazon education. For example. >> This is super exciting, which we had more time. Congratulations. Love the vision again. Occupiers like to make money. They wanted environments could be trustworthy and some scalability on behind it. So good luck. We're behind you. We'll keep following up. Thanks for having a cube coverage here and by rain for AWS. I'm John Ferrier. Stay tuned for more after this short break.

>> from Bahrain. It's the Q recovery AWS public sector Bahrain, brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> hello and welcome to the cube coverage here for a W s summit in by rain in the Middle East. I'm John for the host of the Cube, where here's our second year covering the evolution of cloud computing in the region. Changing the landscape of entrepreneurship Government society actually, data is the new oil so excited to have our next guest, Abdula Elmo, I kill who's the co founder and partner at rain hot. Start up with some seed funding, I think has cracked the code on the crypto money making aspect of crypto currency. Welcome to the Cube. Thank you. Thank you. So let's get started. You guys have a small team, get some seed funding. Interesting strategy on crypt. Everyone. When I see oh, kind of a fraudulent markets international, we all come and watch in the I c e o u s cramping down on it. Ah, lot of entrepreneurs love this market. A lot of innovation. You guys had a different approach and do some very innovative taking me explain what rain is doing because you've cracked the code on Crypto to Fiat. That's right, which has been the legit use case for making this all this >> Absolutely so all of the founders, the four founders? Yeah, Badawi, A. J. Nelson, Joseph Lago and I We've been in this industry for quite a while. We've been here 56 years, and we've seen all the hype cycles come and go about sometimes about Blockchain technology itself sometimes about the i c e o craze. Uh, and we've really just bought came down to what is the bit viable business model? We all were all entrepreneurs and we had looking for a new opportunity. Does with a lot of people coming into this industry with those with any innovation, lots of opportunities arise. And we've looked at the world and the world had many exchanges that were the most successful businesses in this industry. The exchanges facilitating the trade that was the most interest. That was the highest demand. That was the real use case. And we found that, um, there were exchanges popping up from around the world, but they weren't here any in the in the Middle East yet, And perhaps it was due to a regulatory, uncertain see or other difficulties of coming into this market. But Bahrain really opened up for us and we met with the Central Bank of Bahrain about three or four years ago and things really got started from there. >> And being a marketplace, you gotta have a lot of, you know, governance. It's all a lot of regulatory pressures from the folks that started. People who watch the Cube know that we've been very bullish on Krypton. We love Blockchain as an underlying technology. Yeah, that's, um, sustainability issues around Bitcoin and others. We recognize that, but in general this is a wave that cannot be denied. The moneys flow, right? So money's flowing in Kryptos, you scripted a crypto. You guys have the Fiat piece of it. So this brings on the first kind of liquidity opportunity in crypto thio. Real money? >> Yeah, absolutely. So that's our main goal is we're serving both retail and institutions and we believe there's going to be a lot of traffic from the traditional finance world, from institutions and individual investors into the crypt, a world and the opposite as well. A lot of people had challenges with taking the profits out of exchanges and withdrawing them to their bank in a regulatory compliant way. And that's really what we're solving here for the lowest fees in the region. >> But rain, once the blubbering, was to be modern society. They're going all in on cloud computing. They want to be a cloud country. They're open to new ideas. What attracted you, these guys? What made them different as it was that their vision was their posture on oversight? What was some of the things that make makes it work here? >> Well, at first it was the reception The behind central bank had a fintech unit already in in 2000 I think set a release 2017. So that was great. I think other central banks around the region and the world we're just starting. Then there was the behind fintech beh ah, dedicated working space for fintech companies here. So the ecosystem and the reception was really what attracted us at the beginning, other than knowing that Bahrain was a good financial hub for quite some time for the region. So we joined the Bahrain, um, Central banks regulatory sandbox which allowed us to experiment and test whether we can do this in a safe and secure way. And about a year and 1/2 later, uh, central bank drafted the regulations. Four crypto asset exchanges, brokerages s. So now that the regulation have got drafted and published, we graduated from the sandbox. Thankfully, and we were allowed to apply for the license shortly after we applied. We we earned the license. Thankfully. >> So what's next? What's goes on now? You do a lot of get a lot of work, A lot of coding. Gotta make sure the fintech compliance a lot of hurdles there. Yeah, I can understand that. What's now next? Got the regulation place? Yep. You'd expand. What's the plan? >> Well, we announced the license and Ah, a tte the same time, we also announced closing our seed round. So with that, we were able to grow our team the past month from, um, 8 to 9 people to 15 to 17 people now, and just more and more joining on board every day and are really our focus is growth. Now we're out of the sandbox. We don't have the limitations of the sandbox we had before, and we have banking relationships already made with different Banks s. So now we're just trying to reach out for the market. So we have grown our customer support team growing our engineering team hiring and comply a compliance officer, um, and other growth aspect. Just moving forward, >> getting up the basics of the business. That's right. What's your target audience gonna be? The inside solutions at first retail. What's the target audience? It's >> really both. It depends on what the market is providing. We've see institutional demand that has always relied on. When we spoke with institutions, they always relied on getting the license first because they don't want to operate with anyone unlike since, which makes it ah, you know, really interesting, because that means they haven't been able to get into the digital asset of crypto asset world the past few years while it's going up and down. So we we see ah, 50 50 divide most likely and what's going to be similar ratio than the rest of the world. But right now it's a lot of retail. Customers >> feel great to get your perspective here. It's even in the space. For a while, we saw the fire hype cycle go up, then the wet blanket Crypto Winter hit? Yeah, in the United States. Certainly it put a clamp down on most I CEOs. The SEC is right looking at a bunch of stars behavior, you know, Pretty Wild West is they call it, but an internationally still been pretty active even in the crypt A winter Go back, say 2018 Go back Last year on March it kind of stopped, got cold and then frosted over. Now it's been a block of ice. If you descript a winter, what's your take on it? What's the vibe? Internationally, I'll see Still money still flowing Bitcoins over 10,000 I think this morning, but still a lot of activity. Yes, some tokens have fallen away. Some are staying around. What's your assessment? >> So we've seen a lot of ah cycles. If you've been in this industry for 567 years, you'll see that we've had multiple of these winters, some of them lost, lasting longer than others on dhe. This late last one didn't didn't last as long as the one before. So what we really every time we see a ah boom, we have ah lot of media and a lot of people coming in brand new, trying to educate themselves about What is this? So we see just on everlasting cycle of just expansion on dhe. The price right now is not at the all time high, but it's still considered pretty significant at the beginning of the year was only about three or $4000. Right now it's about 10,000 and $100 for for a Bitcoin a cz with the eye CEOs. There have been a lot of concerns, rightfully so, because anyone can whip out a token and start selling it almost a security. But the central banker behind has a list of acceptable crypto assets that they will allow us to list. So right now we only have four crypto currencies are assets Bitcoin like coin ethereum and X R P. But nothing more than that at the time. And we hope to add more in the future. >> Ripples been taken some hits lately in the U. S. What about Eos and some of the other ones around the coin gets a corner, get some growth, you seeing some new things. How you guys gonna be evaluating some of these other new currencies? Is there a formula, you keep an eye on them. What's the consisted of concensus? What's that >> right? So we are agnostic to choosing the crypto asset that the color customers want to invest in it. If the central bank of behind accept this as secure liquid enough and, um, essentially time tested as well, For if it's been around for, let's say, 3 to 5 years with no network issues, then maybe retail customers can invest in it. But if it if it is just came up a brand new, we might come up. It's not time tested. Security wise, um, it hasn't gone through some certain pressures that are necessary for a network for payments are storing of value. >> So the central bank makes the decision on what they're gonna accept. What they >> listed in viable. That's right. But we we take customer input all the time. We started with just three, and then we had a lot of demand for exactly here in the region, and way listed it after getting improved. >> So we can't get Cube coin up there, can we? >> It defends the eyes that thinks he's coming. Okay, coming for two years in a row, knows >> what's coming. What's your final thoughts? The entrepreneurs out there because it's a lot of activity. This is one of those things where persistence really matters. No, your space Stay humble. Yeah, deal with these cycles because they are happening right? There is a There is a high velocity of cycles seasons, if you will, winter and summer. >> Well, I really think people should be should be more calculated to think long term with this technology. A lot of people are trying to make a quick buck or just make something, um, thinking that it's just a quick way to make money. But I really think people should educate themselves, both the entrepreneurs and the the retail investors that, uh, you know about the market about the technology so they can really see where the use cases might be of most need to the market. >> Talk about your, uh, your expansion plans. You have to to co founders in the US You're the co founders in Egypt. Is there gonna be a remote team? Is it going to be in by rain? What's the what's the hiring look like? Where's that where people will be located. >> So most of our if not all, of our customer support. Our client service agents are here in the in Bahrain. Um, we have the phone co founders now the to Joseph and a J from the Bay area there in behind as well here for the majority of the year there in the office. Now, um, the the engineering team, however, is a little scattered. Sometimes we we find we're security is a really high priority for us. It's the number one priority for us, as any Cryptocurrency exchange would be. So we re really scout talent and from the U. S. From Canada from other places around the world. Eso our engineering team is based in the Bay Area and other places in the U. S. Um, aside from Joseph, who leads it, who's the co founder here and behind. And the rest of the business and customer team is here behind. >> So really, the gating factor on hiring is making sure security's number one. So it's not so much. Get people filled in an office on the engineering front. >> No, it's definitely way. Look for high quality candidates, so that's our priority. We may be a small team, but they're all superstars. To be honest, >> what's been the biggest challenge that you guys have to overcome in this process because it's tough to get the license wasn't just being patient was. It's the diligence. What were some of the things that you overcame that were challenges? >> Well, it's it's definitely it definitely was a challenge to talk to. Ah, lot of regulators in the region. In general, Bahrain was by far the most cooperative. So right now the challenge is perhaps talking to other regulators when you talk expansion plans, we hoped we are serving the whole Middle East here from the from behind. But we'd idly, ideally want to also set up banking in Kuwait or youe or Saudi just so we can have better, quicker, on and off ramps for the customers. They're >> one of the big stories out. See Amazon Web service. It has a region here, um, pretty important. Pretty big deal. What's your take on what you think is gonna do for the region having a Amazon region multiple availability zones? What's that going to do for the entrepreneurship equation? >> I mean, it's fantastic. You see a lot of excitement here from entrepreneurs in the region and especially with regulation. How about having customer data stored here in the region? Um, it's really going to help. A lot of entrepreneurs also mitigate, You know, any downtime from hosting it in other places? >> New generation of entrepreneurship Hitting the scene here, isn't it? >> Yeah, it's really exciting. Lots of funding going around. Lots of ideas. Pretty really, really exciting for all entrepreneurs. >> Fail fast. As we always say, No one likes failure, but it takes Takes guts to start a company course. Of course. You know, thanks for coming. I appreciate it and say congratulations on your success. Thank you. Coverage Here we are in by rain for AWS summit. We're back with more after this short break.

>> From Bahrain, it's the Cube. Covering AWS Public Sector, Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Everyone welcome to the Cube here in Bahrain, for AWS in the Middle East, Manama Summit. I'm John for the Cube coverage. It's cloud computing, new Amazon region, a lot of innovation. But two great guests we have, Huda Ahmed Mohsen, who's the Chief of Information Technology and the Ministry of Information and Authority. Welcome to the Cube. And Sameera Mohammed Al Atawi. You are the Information and Communication Technology Director at the American University in Bahrain. Thank you for coming on. >> Thank you so much for having me here. >> Great to have you on. The ministries are mandated to move to the cloud, Huda, so we know what's coming for you, 2020. The goal is cloud first in Bahrain. We covered this last year. How's that going? On plan? >> It is on plan and is in the process. We start in November 2017. We start our journey with the clouds. We start moving our load smoothly. We're planners. Face a lot of challenge in the beginning, of course, as all of the ministries. Then with help the IGA with our governments, we move smoothly. I think now we reach a good position that we can reach our vision in Salah. >> Well, it's great that the government in Bahrain has a mandate for all the ministries to move to the cloud. I have to ask you, share with the folks watching, why the move to the cloud? What was the big reason why the cloud first was in place? >> See, technology's moving fast now, and the speed and security and the availability is very important to us as a ministry, especially for ministry information. That's why we decide, and as a government, vision, of course, we did decide to move to the cloud. >> A lot of integration from the old way to the new way. What are some of your observations between the two? >> Of course, a lot of changing, a lot of difference, because if you need to just establish any projects in an a normal way, how much time you will have spent, and how much resources you will have spent? And a cloud, you can just imagine. It is with a click. >> Sameera, you're in a new role. Talk about your new role where you were before. This is not new to you, the cloud. You've had your toe in the water before. You've been playing around with the cloud. Now with the American University in Bahrain, full steam ahead, a lot of pressure, lot of need, desire? >> I think, yes, it is not new for me. I'm in the IT field like know for ages. I wouldn't say the years. But then, yes, it's not new, but in Bahrain polytechnic we are having the same journey, like migrating to the cloud. It's a new challenge in the American University of Bahrain. It's a new startup, entrepreneur university. But then the interesting thing that I have joined them like three weeks ago and now the IT is up and running within two weeks. So with the help of the cloud and AWS, our servers now all up and running. By the way, this is our first day in school. So our students there just taking their formal classes as per today. So this is a very proud moment. >> And the servers are on the cloud, powering everything? >> Yes, we have more data on the cloud at the moment, and we have also 5365, and we have our ERPC Stem, as well. It's all in the cloud. So within two weeks, that's an amazing story to be told. >> Versus the old way was months, years? >> Well, actually, it's for every institution there are some challenges and there are some pros and cons, but I think the most beautiful thing about Bahrain polytechnic that everybody was working as a team and we understand each others issues. So regardless the time, there always been a support and faith and trust in IT just to deliver the organization mission and vision. This is the same with the American University of Bahrain. There is a huge trust and faith in IT that they will derive the trust formation, or the change to the future. Ironically, the future's here. >> Yeah, and the cloud region is beautiful out here. The impact academic is something that we're going to be watching closely, because the training is coming too. We're seeing that in the announcements here around a cloud computing degree, more skill development. But I have to ask you from a business standpoint in the academic area, what's the main use cases for cloud? Is it the curriculum? Is it the operations? What is some of the key cloud areas you're innovating on? >> Very interesting question. I think we have like a blend of use cases. We have the operational use cases, and we have the academic use cases as well. I mean, the most important for us is in the university is the academic. Now how we can empower our students to face the challenges of the future and the market demand. So we are sensing a lot of interest about the artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, and this morning when I was just scrolling down the menu of AWS, I've been seeing this a lot. So how we can imbed this technology or the reading material like an AWS educate in our courses and material, versus the operational use cases, how we can deliver the business objective in an entire mode and in a most efficient way. You know, like in university, we have so much critical time that we don't afford losing IT, like exams, posting grades, even for our students graduation projects. It's become easier and easier for the business, however with the aid of IT. >> And the agility is very important because the expectation from the students is high. >> It's way high. I mean, the expectation and the use is already there. So, not like before, not like my age, you know, like students, they get to introduce technology when they got to the university. Now all of our students, they already know and use the technology before they join. >> Huda, talk about the ministry, because you guys on the government side, very progressive, doing new things. You got Amazon's region here, which is going to create a revitalization. You're in the middle of it. What are some of your observations on the things that are going on that are new for you guys that are a positive? >> Seeing now a cloud maybe as a ministries and as a government project, the most new thing that we get that the new environment. This is totally new environment. You know if you just have any new thing or any new environment, you have resistance from everyone, because it's a new thing. >> People fear change. >> Yes. >> They don't want to change. >> Of course. Even sometimes the change is good, but this is the mentality of people to resist a change. As a government because we have one vision, which is all the ministries working within this vision. We really plan it well, I think. And we do it well. As you see now in Bahrain, the time that they establish the cloud until now, you can see how many projects in the process, how many project already done. >> You know, cultural change, we cover this. We go to hundreds of events. We cover all around the world, mostly in the United States, but culture's number one. People always want to push back against change. However, the benefits that you were pointing out, Sameera, are undeniable. Two weeks, talk about standing up critical infrastructure for whether it's curriculum or for services for citizens. It's hard to debate, to justify the old way. It's pretty hard. (chuckles) Maybe some political in there, but, I mean, ultimately, the proof is there. That has to be factored in. How do you guys do that? Do you just show people the data? Look what we did. Is that how you get things through? Is it more cultural? >> I think we just discuss in a panel about even let's talk about only the part of the financially thing. Before I was in IT, if you want to just make anything, and data sent out on any projects, how much time you will have spent to bring the devices, to bring the servers, to connect it, to do it. How much time you will have spent, even in the financially procedures, as a government, of course? Now it is, if you have any problem or any projects, you just by click finish it and done. >> I'm very impressed with Iran, second year the Cube's been here. The things we've talked about last year have been executed. They're executing. The region's up and running. The cryptocurreny is in place. We covered that just now. We're going to hear about some curriculum for degrees. But last year, you mentioned the panel. You guys were just on the AWS We Power Tech. Last year, Teresa Cross hosted a big breakfast, and I was lucky enough to attend that. I actually got kicked out of my seat, because with so many women that wanted to sit down, I happily gave up my seat for that. It was a packed house. Women in tech is very real and growing. You guys were just on a great panel talking about this. What was going on in the panel? What was the key topic? >> Well, actually, the key topic is celebrating women in IT. And I think women now they are flourishing in the IT field. We're showing lots of power and strength. Also I think women in nature, we are dealing with problem solving like in a natural way, as well as team buildings. So it comes with our genes. On top of that, the technical power and the technical thinking and the experience in the IT field, of course it adds a lot of confidence when we are presenting our plans. And we see that society is welcoming the woman workforce in IT field more and more every day. So I think this is something that we should celebrate and we should put a lot of highlight on it. Knowing that the value of woman is really growing. >> You were just talking about the time change, how things are faster. Things are getting done much faster, so things are accelerating, and combined with more job openings, more roles are opening. It's not just coding. It's creative, design thinking. So you're seeing a surface area of opportunities. Huda, you're seeing this as well in the government. This is a bigger field now. Your thoughts on how you see the panel. >> Yes, but maybe Sameera will have more experience in this area. >> On the skill gaps question that comes up a lot, there's so many job openings coming. There's a region here, there's entrepreneurs and startups. What are some of the new skills that folks are trying to learn? What do you guys think? >> Well, actually on that, coming from an educational field, we know that cloud computing is like number one set of skills that is on demand for the coming few years. But again, knowing that, it will be as essential as we should not think about it. It just will be transforming as a very catalyst. The way that we're thinking of electricity. At the beginning it was a big deal. Later on, it just there, and it has to be there for us to move as a society, for us to move as an economy. Then we're moving to the real things as, for example, blockchains and we're talking about artificial intelligence. And the technology itself is just not as important unless it has some feed in the economy development or in the society change. So I think this is how we can see that happening. >> So overall, you both think that cloud computing is going to revitalize the area? >> Definitely. >> Of course. >> Definitely, in a big way. I mean, the market, the first skill set is looked at in the IT field and is how many training, how many certificates have you taken in cloud computing? On top of that, robotics, big data, but the most important thing, how to make the technology benefit the citizens. In our case, the students, how we can deliver our classes in a better way. How we can transform the business of university from on campus to study from anywhere. Though we have a very amazing campus in American University of Bahrain. >> Looking forward to covering you guys. Final question for you guys. What's next? What do you guys have coming up in this next year? A lot of activities? What are the goals? What are some of the things you're trying to accomplish? >> Our next thing that we are planning to complete on this cloud project, to shift all our environment to the cloud to success in this, and to implement it in a good way that we can really use it in a good way, because you know, sometimes you will see the cloud and do lose it, but you cannot use it and really benefit way that you can get all the benefit from it. So it show our religion now and our next step to use it inventory. >> I think for us and the American University of Bahrain, we had yesterday an amazing meeting with Teresa, and having our CEO, Dr. Susan in the meeting as well. And I think there is a lot of great anticipation of what we can do together. So something that is put on the table that we want to sort of strengthen this relationship in terms of integrating our courses with AWS, as well as looking forward for new opportunities like training and certificate in the field and so forth. >> This is super exciting, benefits the citizens, students, new educational opportunities, new jobs, new services, whole new oasis. >> I think this is all, it's all about... >> The cloud oasis. This is the Cube coverage. We are here in Bahrain for AWS Summit here. I'm John Furrier, be back with more after this short break.