(click) >> I'm Lisa Martin with theCUBE on the ground at Google for the sixth annual CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud Award Event and we're very excited to be joined by one of the award winners, Neha Jain, Engineering Manager at LinkedIn. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Hi, thank you, Lisa. >> And, second of all, congratulations on the award. We'll talk about that in a second, but one of the things that I found very inspiring when I was doing some research about you is how you describe yourself on LinkedIn. A lot of us use LinkedIn, of course. I love that you said that you love to work on technology that empowers users and uplifts the society. What a beautiful statement. >> Thank you so much. >> Tell me a little bit more about what you mean about that. >> Growing up, I always wanted to be in a space where I was doing something for the community. A little bit about myself is I'm an only child and my father passed away when I was barely a year old. So my mom, who's also disabled, raised me literally single-handedly and we had a lot of help on the way. So the thing that always kept me going and inspired is if I could do it, then anyone can. And I have to make that happen, and that is an obligation or a responsibility that I have toward the world. That's basically what I did. Initially I wanted to become a doctor and help the patients get the best of their health but I couldn't deal with blood. >> That's kind of a key. That was a good decision. >> I was really interested in math as a child, so I was like, "Yeah, let's try this engineering thing. "It also sounds pretty fun." And then that's how I started in the engineering field. Initially I joined a company directly from college, but the work didn't inspire me as much. And then I found out about SlideShare. It was a company in the user-generated space, user-generated content space, and they had a female CEO and I was like, "Oh my God, this is just perfect, "and I have to get there." So I joined SlideShare, and six months later it got acquired by LinkedIn. Interesting turn of events. And then now at LinkedIn, we are in the process of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. And that's a mission I can live for. That's something that inspires me every single day and gets me up in the morning, gets me to work, where we are trying to get the right talent matched with the right job, get the companies the right hire. That's very inspiring work to do. >> As an, and I would say, inspiring female in technology, what are some of the things that once you finished your education, you said your first job, you realized, "This isn't quite what I want." But you have the drive, it sounds like probably innately for you that, "I want something else." You kind of knew what you were looking for. Or maybe you knew, "I know when I get there." >> Yeah, you could say that. It's something that, ah, what I was doing was interesting work, but in terms of impact, it wasn't very clear. So I'm sort of a person who's driven more by results, by metrics or something like that. There should be something tangible that's coming out of it, that I can measure. >> Right, yes, validating, right? >> So then I was like, at that time, internet was taking off, and it was all very -- People were all over the place and there were so many things getting shared. And then Facebook came around and then there was Arab Spring and so many other things that were happening. People were taking ownership of their own lives and their own values. I thought that something in the internet space would be an interesting place to be where you could make the change and empower people, empower your users. And I wasn't willing to move out of India at that point, so it was like, "Let's just join SlideShare." I'd been using SlideShare when I was in college doing researches and working for Google Summer of Code. So then I saw that they had a banner that they were hiring, and I'm like, "Okay, yeah, let's just interview for them." >> And here you are. Within the last couple of minutes here, I want to talk about the Top Women in Cloud Award that you're being honored with tonight. And also something that I thought was really, really honest that you wrote on LinkedIn was your experience with imposter syndrome, which I've had for many years and didn't even know what it was until I read about it. And I think that's so, it's such a strong message, knowing that you've had that, but also seeing how accomplished you are, what does this CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud Award mean to you? >> That's a very good question. That's something that I'd been asking myself as well when I first got nominated for it. So my friend, who is the co-founder of Haliburton School, Silmar, he nominated me for the award. I got the email and I was very excited that okay, this is really interesting. How could I become this person? And then I read the application form. There were five questions and I'm like, "I'm not good enough. "I'll not be selected. "I'll just spend a lot of time filling out "this application form, and it will all be futile." So I thought, "Let's just not do it." But then Silmar, he just didn't nominate me for the award, he pushed me to apply, to fill out the application. >> Because he knew how accomplished you were. >> And I am so grateful to him for that. He started a Google Doc where he copied all the questions, and he started listing all the things that I'd done. >> That's fantastic, Neha. >> He is the kind of mentor or the kind of friend, the kind of force that I guess if all the females and all the people had, the world would be a different place. So that's the kind of inspiration, the kind of support that you want from people. >> Absolutely. >> Then I was talking to my husband and my husband was like, he's a very logical person, he wouldn't give you direct prescriptions that, "Okay, no, you should do it, "you should do that," or this or that. He would ask you questions and then make you decide what you want to do, but in those questions will steer you in the direction. >> Right. >> Which is very clever of him. Very few people have the kind of smartness to do that where you don't even realize that you are being pushed into some of the things. >> It sounds like he helps you think through, and you realize, "I have accomplished a lot. "I am deserving of this award." And here you are, being honored tonight. >> Yeah, so it's like, maybe that's not what I thought. What I thought is that there are things, and I should probably apply for it and not wait, not give up because of the result. So that's something that I've also learned in my life. My mom always tells me, "Don't bind yourself to the result. "Just give your best shot. "That's all which is in your control, "so just do that." And that's basically also what my husband also ended up pointing out to me. So then I was like, "Okay, fine, I'll apply." And it was basically like just three days before the application deadline. So I filled out the application form, sent it out to the LinkedIn's comps team for review, my manager reviewed the entire work-related stuff, and I'm so grateful that they were able to do the review process in time so that I could apply right before the deadline. I don't know what the CloudNOW award will mean for me, and I hope that we are able to drive real change in the tech field and bring more women and more diversity and inclusion and belonging in the community. So today, Vint Cerf was the keynote speaker. And he was saying that when he joined the tech industry there were 50 percent women, and there were women who were programming. And if you've seen the movie Hidden Figures, >> Oh, yes. >> There were women who figured out how to program. >> A very long time ago. >> Yeah, a long time ago. And we've had people like Grace Hopper and all these other women leaders. And now just 20 years later, you would think the situation would get better, but it has actually gotten worse. >> Right. >> So why is it? The thing that falls on us as a responsibility is to figure out why would we change direction for the worse. And, people have gotten smarter, not lesser intelligent, right? So why would women not opt into computer science and give up? There is something that we aren't doing right. And I think a lot of companies have started asking the right question. Like in LinkedIn, we have the diversity, inclusion and belonging initiative. And we try to make these differences in real time. When I joined LinkedIn, when I moved to the United States, I couldn't recognize people because of the variety of facial structures. And I had a lot of difficulty. I had always grown up seeing Indian faces. And I could easy tell that you were Calcutta or you're from Bangalore. And I could tell it from their faces. But that wasn't something here. And I would always confuse people, and that bothered me a lot. But at LinkedIn, all the things that we had, all the initiatives that we had, the culture and the values, they help me feel belonged. And not a single day has passed where I don't feel that I am not the right person for this job. >> You're making a contribution. >> Yeah. >> Well, congratulations Neha on the award. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much for stopping by, and I think you're quite inspirational. >> Thank you so much. >> And we want to thank you for watching. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at Google. Thanks for watching.

>> Narrator: Live from Dublin, Ireland. It's theCUBE, covering Hadoop Summit Europe 2016. Brought to you by Hortonworks. Now your host, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. >> Okay, welcome back here, we are here live in Dublin, Ireland, it's theCUBE SiliconANGLEs flagship program where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise, I'm John Furrier, my cohost Dave Vellante, our next guest is Emer Coleman who's with Disruption Limited, Open Data Governance Board in Ireland and Transport API, a growing startup built self-sustainable, growing business, open data, love that keynote here at Hadoop Summit, very compelling discussion around digital goods, digital future. Emer, welcome to theCUBE. >> It's great to be here. >> So what was your keynote? Let's just quickly talk about what you talked about, and then we can get in some awesome conversation. >> Sure. So the topic yesterday was we need to talk about techno ethics. So basically, over the last couple of months, I've been doing quite a lot of research on ethics and technology, and many people have different interpretations of that, but yesterday I said it's basically about three things. It's about people, it's about privacy, and it's about profits. So it's asking questions about how do we look at holistic technology development that moves away from a pure technocratic play and looks at the deep societal impacts that technology has. >> One of the things that we're super excited about and passionate about is this new era of openness going to a whole another level. Obviously, open source tier one software development environment, cloud computing allows for instant access to resources, almost limitless at this point, as you can project it forward with Moore's Law and whatnot. But the notion that digital assets are not just content, it's data, it's people, it's the things you mentioned about, create a whole new operating environment or user experience, user expectations with mobile phones and Internet of Things and Transport API which you have, if it moves, you capture it, and you're providing value there. So a whole new economy is developing around digital capital. Share your thoughts around this, because this is an area that you're passionate about, you've just done work here, what's your thoughts on this new digital economy, digital capital, digital asset opportunity? >> I think there's huge excitement about the digital economy, isn't there? And I think one of the things I'm concerned about is that that excitement will lead us to the same place that we are now, where we're not really thinking through what are the equitable distribution in that economy, because it seems to me that the spoils are going to a very tiny elite at the tops. So if you look at Instagram, 13 employees when it was purchased by Facebook for a billion dollars, but that's all our stuff, so I'm not getting any shares in the billion, those 13 people are. That's fantastic that you can build a business, build it to that stage and sell, but you have to think about two things, really: what are we looking at in terms of sustainable businesses into the future that create ethical products, and also the demands from citizens to get some value for their data back, because we're becoming shadow employees, we're shadow employees of Google, so when we email, we're not just corresponding, we're creating value for that company. >> And Facebook is a great example. >> And Facebook, and the thing is, when we were at the beginning of that digital journey, it was quite naive. So we were very seduced by free, and we thought, "This is great," and so we're happy with the service. And then the next stage of that, we realize what if we're not paying for the service, we're the product? >> John: Yeah. >> But we were too embedded in the platform to extricate ourselves. But now, I think, when we look at the future of work and great uncertainty that people are facing, when their labor's not going to be required to the same degree, are we going to slavishly keep producing capital and value for companies like Google, and ask for nothing more than the service in return? I don't think so. >> And certainly, the future will be impacted, and one of the things we see now in our business of online media and online open data, is that the data's very valuable. We see that, I'll say data is the new capital, new oil, whatever phrases of the day is used, and the brand marketers are the first ones to react to it, 'cause they're very data driven. Who are you, how do I sell stuff to you? And so what we're seeing is, brand marketers are saying, "Hey, I'm going to money to try to reach out to people, "and I'm going to activate that base and connect with, "engage with them on Facebook or other platform. "I'm going to add value to your Facebook or Google platform, "but yet I'm parasitic to your platform for the data. "Why just don't I get it directly?" So again, you're starting to see that thinking where I don't want to be a parasite or parasitic to a network that the value's coming from. The users have not yet gotten there, and you're teasing that out. What's your thoughts there, progression, where we're at, have people realized this? Have you seen any movement in the industry around this topic? >> No, I think there's a silence around... Technology companies want to get all the data they can. They're not going to really declare as much as they should, because it bends their service model a bit. Also, the data is emergent. Zuckerberg didn't start Facebook as something that was going to be a utility for a billion people, he started it as a social network for a university. And what grew out of that, we learned as we went along. So I'm thinking, now that we have that experience, we know that happens, so let's start the thinking now. And also, this notion of just taking data because you can, almost speculatively getting data at the point of source, without even knowing what you want it for but thinking, "I'm going to monetize this in the end." Jaron Lanier in his book Who Owns The Future talks about micro licensing back content. And I think that's what we need to do. We start, at the very beginning, we need to start baking in two things: privacy by design and different business models where it's not a winner takes all. It's a dialog between the user and the service, and that's iterated together. >> This idea that it's not a zero sum game is very important, and I want to go back to your Instagram and Facebook example. At its peak, I think Eastman Kodak had hundreds of thousands of employees, maybe four or five hundred, 450,000 employees, huge. Facebook has many many more photos, but maybe a few thousand employees? Wow, so all the jobs are gone, but at the same time, we don't want to be protecting the past from the future, so how do you square that circle? >> Correct, but I think what we know is that the rise of robotics and software is going to eat jobs, and basically, there's going to be a hollowing out of the middle class. You know, for sure, whether it's medicine, journalism, retail, exactly. >> Dave: It's not future, it's now. (laughs) >> Exactly. So we maybe come into a point where large swaths of people don't have work. Now, what do you do in a world where your labor is no longer required? Think about the public policy implications of that. Do we say you either fit in this economy or you die? Are we going to look at ideas which they are looking at in Europe, which is like a universal wage? And all of these things are a challenge to government, because they're going to have a citizenry who are not included in this brave new world. So some public policy thinking has to go into what happens when our kids can't get jobs. When the jobs that used to be done by people like us are done by machines. I'm not against the movement of technology, what I'm saying is there are deep societal implications that need some thinking, because if we get to a point where we suddenly realize, if all of these people who are unemployed and can't get work, this isn't a future we envisioned where robots would take all the crap jobs and we would go off to do wonderful things, like how are we going to bring the bacon home? >> It seems like in a digital world that the gap is creativity to combine technologies and knowledge. I find that it's scary when you talk about maybe micromanaging wages and things like that, education is the answer, but that's... How do you just transfer that knowledge? That's sort of the discussion that we're having in the United States anyway. >> I think some of the issue is that the technology is so, we're kind of seduced by simplicity. So we don't see the complexity underneath, and that's the ultimate aim of a technology, is to make something so simple, that complexity is masked. That's what the iPhone did wonderfully. But that's actually how society is looking now. So we're seduced by this simplicity, we're not seeing the complexity underneath, and that complexity would be about what do we do in a world where our labor is no longer required? >> And one of the things that's interesting about the hollowing of the middle class is the assumption is there's no replacements, so one of the things that could be counter argued is that, okay, as the digital natives, my daughter, she's a freshman in high school, my youngest son's eighth grade, they're natives now, so they're going to commit. So what is the replacement capital and value for companies that can be sustained in the new economy versus the decay and the darwinism of the old? So the digital darwinism aspect's interesting, that's one dilemma. The other one is business models, and I want to get your thoughts on this 'cause this is something we were teasing out with this whole value extraction and company platform issue. A company like Twitter. Highly valuable company, it's a global network of people tweeting and sharing, but yet is under constant pressure from Wall Street and investors that they basically suck. And they don't, they're good, people love Twitter, so they're being forced to behave differently against their mission because their profit motive doesn't really match maybe something like Facebook, so therefore they're instantly devalued, yet the future of someone connecting on Twitter is significantly high. That being said, I want to get your thoughts on that and your advice to Twitter management, given the fact it is a global network. What should they do? >> It's the same old capitalism, just it's digital, it's a digital company, it's a digital asset. It's the same approach, right? Twitter has been a wonderful thing. I've been a Twitter user for years. How amazing, it's played a role in the Arab Spring, all sorts of things. So they're really good, but I think you need as a company, so for example, in our company, in Transport API, we're not really looking to build to this massive IPO, we're trying to build a sustainable company in a traditional way using digital. So I think if you let yourself be seduced by the idea of phenomenal IPO, you kind of take your eye off the ball. >> Or in case this, in case you got IPOed, now you're under pressure to produce-- >> Emer: Absolutely, yeah. >> Which changes your behavior. But in Twitter's management defense, they see the value of their product. Now, they got there by accident and everyone loves it, but now they're not taking the bait to try to craft a short term solution to essentially what is already a valuable product, but not on the books. >> Yes, and also I think where the danger is, we know that their generation shifts across channel. So teenagers probably look at Facebook, I think one of them said, like an awkward family dinner they can't quite leave. But for next gen, they're just not going to go there, 'cause that's where your grandmother is. So the same is true of Twitter and Snapchat, these platforms come and go. It's an interesting phenomenon then to see Wall Street putting that much money into something which is essentially quite ephemeral. I'm not saying that Twitter won't be around for years, it may be, but that's the thing about digital, isn't it? Something else comes in and it's well, that becomes the platform of choice. >> Well, it's interesting, right? Everybody, us included, we criticize the... Michael Dell calls it the 90 day shock clock. But it's actually worked out pretty well, I mean, economically, for the United States companies. Maybe it doesn't in the future. What are your thoughts on that, particularly from a European perspective? Where you're reporting maybe twice a year, there's not as much pressure, but yet from a technology industry standpoint, companies outside the Silicon Valley in particular seem to be less competitive, why? >> For example, in our company, in Transport API, we've got some pretty heavyweight clients, we have a wonderful angel investor who has given us two rounds of investment. And it isn't that kind of avaricious absolutely built this super price. And that's allowed us to build from starting off with 2, now to a team of 10, and we're just about coming into break even, so it's doable. But I think it's a philosophy. We didn't want necessarily to build something huge, although we want to go global, but it was let's do this in a sustainable way with reasonable wages, and we've all put our own soul and money into it, but it's a different cultural proposition, I think. >> Well, the valuations always drive the markets. It's interesting too, to your point about things come and go channels, kind of reminds me, Dave and I used to joke about social networks like nightclubs, they're hot and then it's just too crowded and nobody goes there, as Yogi Bear would say. And then they shift and they go out of business, some don't open with fanfare, no one goes 'cause it's got different context. You have a contextual challenge in the world now. Technology can change things, so I want to ask you about identity 'cause there was a great article posted by the founder of the company called Secret which is one of these anonymous apps like Yik Yak and whatnot, and he shut it down. And he wrote a post, kind of a postmortem, saying, "These things come and go, they don't work, "they're not sustainable because there's no identity." So the role of identity in a social global virtual world, virtual being not just virtual reality, is interesting. You live in a world, and your company, Transport API, provides data which enables stuff and the role of identity. So anonymous versus identity, thoughts there, and that impact to the future of work? If you know who you're dealing with, and if they're present, these are concepts that are now important, presence, identity, attention. >> And that's the interesting thing, isn't it? Who controls that identity? Mark Zuckerberg said, "You only have one identity," which is what he said when he set up Facebook. You think, really? No, that's what a young person thinks. When we're older, we know. >> He also said that young people are smarter than older people. >> Yeah, right, okay. (John laughs) He could be right there, he could be right there, but we all have different identities in different parts of our lives. Who we are here, the Hadoop summit is different from what we're at home to when we're with friends. So identity is a multifaceted thing. But also, who gets to determine your identity? So I have 16 years of my search life and Google. Now, who am I in that server, compared to who I am? I am the sum total of my searches. But I'm not just the sum total of my searches, am I? Or even that contextualized, so I'll give you an example. A number of years ago I was searching for a large, very large waterproof plastic bag. And I typed it in, and I thought, "Oh my god, that sounds like I'm going to murder my husband "and try to bury him." (John and Dave laugh) It was actually-- >> John: Into the compost. >> Right, right. And I thought, "Oh my god, what does this look like "on the other side?" Now, it was actually for my summer garden furniture. But the point is, if you looked at that in an analytic way, who would I be? And so I think identity is very, you know-- >> John: Mistaken. >> Yeah, and also this idea of what Frank Pasquale calls the black box society. These secret algorithms that are controlling flows of money and information. How do they decide what my identity is? What are the moral decisions that they make around that? What does it say if I search for one thing over another? If I search constantly for expensive shoes, does that make me shallow? What do these things say? If I search for certain things around health. >> And there's a value judgment now associated with that that you're talking about, that you do not control. >> Absolutely, and which is probably linked to other things which will determine things like whether I get credit or not, but these can almost be arbitrary decisions, 'cause I have no oversight of the logic that's creating that decision making algorithm. So I think it's not just about identity, it's about who's deciding what that identity is. >> And it's also the reality that you're in, context, situations. Dark side, bright side of technology in this future where this new digital asset economy, digital capital. There's going to be good and bad, education can be consumed non-linear, new forms of consumptions, metadata, as you're pointing out, with the algorithms. Where do you see some bright spots and where do you see the danger areas? >> I think the great thing is, when you were saying software is the future. It's our present, but it's going to be even more so in our future. Some of the brightest brains in the world are involved in the creation of new technology. I just think they need to be focusing a bit more of that intellectual rigor towards the impact they're having on society and how they could do it better. 'Cause I think it's too much of a technocratic solution. Technologists say, "We can do this." The questions is, should they? So I think what we need to do is to loop them back into the more social and philosophical side of the discussion. And of course it's a wonderful thing, hopefully technology is going to do amazing things around health. We can't even predict how amazing it's going to be. But all I'm saying is that, if we don't ask the hard questions now about the downsides, we're going to be in a difficult societal position. But I'm hoping that we will, and I'm hoping that raising issues like techno ethics will get more of that discussion going. >> Well, transparency and open data make a big difference. >> Emer: Absolutely. >> Well, and public policy, as you said earlier, can play a huge role here. I wonder if you could give us your perspective on... Public policy, we're in the US most of the time, but it's interesting when we talk to customers here. To hear about the emphasis, obviously, on privacy, data location and so forth, so in the digital world, do you see Europe's emphasis and, I think, leading on those types of topics as an advantage in a digital world, or does it create friction from an economic standpoint? >> Yeah, but it's not all about economics. Friction is a good thing. There are some times when friction is a good thing. Most technologists think all friction is bad. >> Sure, and I'm not implying that it's necessarily good or bad, I'm curious though, is it potentially an economic advantage to have thought through and have policy on some of those issues? >> Well, what we're seeing here-- >> Because I feel like the US is a ticking time bomb on a lot of these issues. >> I was talking to VCs, some VC friends of mine here in the UK, and what they said they're seeing more and more, VCs asking what we call SMEs, small to medium enterprises, about their data policies, and SMEs not being able to answer those questions, and VCs getting nervous. So I think over time it's going to be a competitive advantage that we've done that homework, that we're basically not just rushing to get more users, but that we're looking at it across the piece. Because, fundamentally, that's more sustainable in the longer term. People will not be dumb too forever. They will not, and so doing that thinking now, where we work with people as we create our technology products, I think it's more sustainable in the long term. When you look at economics, sustainability is really important. >> I want to ask you about the Transport API business, 'cause in the US, same thing, we've seen some great openness of data and amazing innovations that have come out of nowhere. In some cases, unheard of entrepreneurs and/or organizations that better society for the betterment of people, from delivering healthcare to poor areas and whatnot. What has been the coolest thing, or of things you've seen come out of your enablement of the transport data. Use cases, have you seen any things that surprised you? >> It's quite interesting, because when I worked for the mayor of London as his director of digital projects, my job was to set up the London data store, which was to open all of London's public sector data. So I was kind of there from the beginning as a lobbyist, and when I was asking agencies to open up their data, they'd go, "What's the ROI?" And I'd just say, "I don't know." Because government's one and oh, I'm saying that was a chicken and egg, you got to put it out there. And we had a funny incident where some of the IT staff in transport for London accidentally let out this link, which is to the tracker net feed, and that powers the tube notice boards that says, "Your next tube is in a minute," whatever. And so the developer community went, "Ooh, this is interesting." >> John: Candy! >> Yeah, and of course, we had no documentation with it because it kind of went out under the radar. And one developer called Mathew Somerville made this map which showed the tubes on a map in real time. And it was like surfacing the underground. And people just thought, "Oh my god, that is amazing." >> John: It's illuminating. >> Yeah. It didn't do anything, but it showed the possibility. The newspapers picked it up, it was absolutely brilliant example, and the guy made it in half a day. And that was the first time people saw their transport system kind of differently. So that was amazing, and then we've seen hundreds of different applications that are being built all the time. And what we're also seeing is integration of transport data with other things, so one of our clients in Transport API is called Toothpick, and they're an online dental booking agency. And so you can go online, you can book your dental appointment with your NHS dentist, and then they bake in transport information to tell you how to get there. So we have pubs using them, and screens so people can order their dinner, and then they say, "You've got 10 minutes till the next bus." So all sorts of cross-platform applications. >> That you never could've envisioned. >> Emer: Never. >> And it's just your point earlier about it's not a zero sum game, you're giving so many ways to create value. >> Emer: Right, right. >> Again, I come back to this notion of education and creativity in the United States education system, so unattainable for so many people, and that's a real concern, and you're seeing the middle class get hollowed out. I think the stat is, the average wage in the United States was 55,000 in 1999, it's 50,000 today. The political campaigns are obviously picking at that scab. What's the climate like in Europe from that standpoint? >> In terms of education? >> No, just in terms of, yes, the education, middle class getting hollowed out, the sentiment around that. >> I don't think people are up to speed with that yet, I really don't think that they're aware of the scale. I think when they think robots or automation, they don't really think software. They think robots like there were in the movies, that would come, as I say, and do those jobs nobody wanted. But not like software. So when I say to them, look, E-discovery software, when it's applied retrospectively, what it shows is that human lawyers are only 60% accurate compared to it. Now, that's a no-brainer, right? If software is 100% accurate, I'm going to use the software. And the ratio difference is 1 to 500. Where you needed 500 lawyers before you need 1. So I don't think people are across the scale of change. >> But it's interesting, you're flying to Heathrow, you fly in and out, you're dealing with a kiosk. You drive out, the billboards are all electronic. There aren't guys doing this anymore. So it's tangible. >> And I think, to your point about education, I'm not as familiar with the education system in the US, but I certainly think, in Europe and in the UK, the education system is not capable of dealing even with the latest digital natives. They're still structuring their classrooms in the same way. These kids, you know-- >> John: They have missed the line with the technology. >> Absolutely. >> So reading, writing and arithmetic, fine. And the cost of education is maybe acceptable. But they may be teaching the wrong thing. >> Asynchronous non-linear, is the thing. >> There's a wonderful example of an Indian academic called Sugata Mitra, who has a fabulous project called a Hole in the Wall. And he goes to non-English speaking little Indian villages, and he builds a computer, and he puts a roof over it so only the children can do it. They don't speak English. And he came back, and he leaves a little bit of stuff they have to get around before they can play a game. And he came back six months later, and he said to them, "What did you think?" And one of the children said, "We need a faster CPU and a better mouse." Now, his point is self-learning, once you have access to technology, is amazing, and I think we have to start-- >> Same thing with the non-linear consumption, asynchronous, all this, the API economy enabling new kinds of expectation and opportunities. >> And it was interesting because the example, some UK schools tried to follow his example. And six months later, they rang him up and they said, "It's not working," and he said, "What did you do?" And they said, "Well, we got every kid a laptop." He said, "That's not the point." The point was putting a scarce resource that the children had to collaborate over. So in order to get to the game, they had figure out certain things. >> I think you're right on some of these (mumbles) that no one's talking about. And Dave and I are very passionate on this, and we're actually investing in a whole new e-learning concept. But it's not about doing that laptop thing or putting courseware online. That's old workflow in a new model. Come on, old wine in a new bottle. So that's interesting. I want to get your thoughts, so a personal question to end this segment. What are you passionate about now, what are you working, outside of the venture, which is exciting. You have a lot of background going back to technology entrepreneurship, public policy, and you're in the front lines now, thought leading on this whole new wide open sea of opportunity, confusion, enabling it. What are you passionate about, what are you working on? Share with the folks that are watching. >> So one of the main things we're trying to do. I work as an associate with Ernst & Young in London. And we've been having discussions over the past couple of months around techno ethics, and I've basically said, "Look, let's see if we can get EY "to build to build an EY good governance index." Like, what does good governance look like in this space, a massively complex area, but what I would love is if people would collaborate with us on that. If we could help to draw up an ethical framework that would convene the technology industry around some ethical good governance issues. So that's what I'm going to be working on as hard as I can over the next while, to try and get as much collaboration from the community, because I think we'd be so much more powerful if the technology industry was to say, "Yeah, let's try and do this better "rather than waiting for regulation," which will come, but will be too clunky and not fit for purpose. >> And which new technology that's emerging do you get most excited about? >> Hmm. Drones. (laughter) >> How about anything with bitcoin, block chains? >> Absolutely, absolutely, block chain. Yeah, block chain, you have to say, yeah. I think, 'cause bitcoin, you know, it's worth 20 p today, it's worth 200,000 tomorrow. >> Dave: Yeah, but block chain. >> Right, right. I mean, that is incredible potentiality. >> New terms like federated, that's not a new term, but federation, universal, unification. These are the themes right now. >> Emer: Well, it's like the road's been coated, isn't it? And we don't know where it's going to go. What a time we live in, right? >> Emer Coleman, thank you so much for spending your time and joining us on theCUBE here, we really appreciate the conversation. Thanks for sharing that great insight here on theCUBE, thank you. It's theCUBE, we are live here in Dublin, Ireland. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. We'll we right back with more SiliconANGLEs, theCUBE and extracting the signal from the noise after this short break. (bright music)