>> Narrator: From the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, it's theCUBE. On the ground with Accenture Labs 30th anniversary celebration. >> Okay welcome back everyone. We're here for a special on the ground presentation, our Accenture Labs 30th year celebration of being in business at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. I'm John Furrier. Our next guest is Yvonne Wassenaar, who's the CEO of Airwave. Good to see you, Cube alumni, welcome back. >> Thank you so much, I'm happy to be here. >> So your integral executive at this event here. You've worked at VMware, you've worked at New Relic. You're now at Airware. What do you guys do? First explain what Airware is because this is fascinating. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Airware is the most fun and impactful company on the planet. I'm a bit biased, but fundamentally I explain it as commercial drone software analytics. And the reason I say that is commercial drone is important because it's not just hobbyists, it's businesses using drones to collect data, but ultimately the important part is what do you do with the data? And we provide cloud based software analytics machine learning AI to derive business insights from what they collect. >> And drones are very practical, other than my kids loving them, put the Go Pro on it, but you can go, instead of saying go drive out and check that meter or you know, go out and take those trash out of the power lines, there's all kind of applications that drones could do with not only technical, but also getting data, visual data. So what is that looking like these days because it sounds very magical and fantasy like? What are some of the applications? >> It's a great question, and I want to start with what are some of the changes that have enabled drones to go from personal use to commercial use? The first thing is the technology, and so if you think about the drones, it's kind of like the cell phones 10 years ago when the iPhone came out. It didn't do that much compared to today, but the advancement has been amazing. So we actually had an innovator, one of our customers, duct tape a cell phone to the bottom of a drone like four or five years ago to get the visual imagery that he needed to drive insights. Now you can just buy from DJI or senseFly, really powerful drones, so you're seeing a huge uptake in what drones can do, and then on the other side, you're seeing the ability with cloud based analytics to get insights in things such as, think about it, insurance, rooftop inspection. You don't have to climb a two story steep on a ladder. You can fly a drone up, less time, more safe, and you get the historical information. Mining and quarrying, we do a lot in that space. Stockpile measurement. It's really fascinating all the things you can do. It's almost what do you not do. >> So I've been fascinated with drones ever since two years ago when Amazon had that big hype announcement where packages will be delivered to your home, and everyone can relate to that because they know Amazon delivers packages, but who's going to deliver, how does that work? I mean is there like a name space for like airspace? That's a hard compute challenge, so how will you guys deal with the spacial imagery aspect of it because this is fascinating because a new set of companies are redefining what was an old, established, boring, static industry. I mean Hoover remaps New York City every five weeks, or some number. >> Well I was going to say, what's important is you have the geo spacial coordinates, and so what we do is to actually align the images we take to geo spatially where they are. We use GCPs to do that, and then we know exactly, to the pinpoint, how to stitch images together, how to relate images over time, so actually that piece is quite easy. The harder part is when you're doing like large quarries or commercial inspections, just the volume of data you're collecting and being thoughtful on how you can upload that, process that, that's the more interesting and challenging part. >> And certainly data ingestion's huge, so given that, I've got to ask you the internet of things questions. Internet of things, the intelligent edge. Drones are moving, so they're real time. They're going to the edge of the network, they are the network, and they're pushing the edge out. How are you looking at the IOT? What's your perspective of the current IOT landscape? Intelligent, dumb, not yet defined, hasn't been to school yet? This is a big topic. Microsoft's talking about it, we've been talking about it on a research side, an intelligent edge. >> Yeah, I think we are just on the cusp of what is possible, and to me, I think about the true power being of marrying that visual data that comes from the drone with the other internet of things data. So for example, if you think about, in the aggregate space, in quarries and mining, where we play a lot. You have a lot of big equipment that has a tremendous number of sensors around, fuel efficiency and what's going on with the machine. You can map that against the hull roads that they're driving and other elements, you know that you can see from the sky. You can start to redesign your roads, you can start to get huge fuel efficiencies and other benefits, so to me the magic is really in marrying the different data sources, which is now becoming more possible as like broader technologies in the cloud and analytics of all. >> So I've got to ask you some technical, kind of high level questions. You don't have to go deep under the hood, but because you worked at VMware, you know the federation which is EMC. You guys are helping the storage guys out big time because there's a lot of data coming in. So two questions. How do you move all that big data, big fat data, through little pipes called the airwaves into the storage? What's the strategy? Is there any kind of emerging trends you see with respect to architecture? >> Yeah, so we actually spent a lot of time thinking about how you pull the huge, vast amounts of data and get it into the cloud. I'm not going to give away all of our secrets there, but what I will fundamentally say is we are big users of the cloud, so we're taking advantage of somebody else building up big data centers and their ongoing reduction in cost. Storage only gets cheaper and cheaper, and so for us, what we're really focused on is the processing power and what you can do in the clouds you put your data into. >> So cloud helps you? >> Totally, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> What would life be like without the cloud? Would you be in business? >> It would be really hard, and it would be hard on two fronts. One because it takes a lot to build and scale up your own data centers as a company today, particularly as a startup, but I think even more importantly, the ability to do, you know, training of these AI algorithms on large datasets. You want to be able to look across datasets, and that's most easily done aggregating the cloud. >> So you guys are cloud native? >> Yes. >> So what's your advice to CIOs as they look at their hybrid or private cloud, or on premise IT that's not even private cloud? What, these guys are trying to transform fast. Accenture Labs and others are helping them. What does a CIO have to do to get to the benefits of being that agile? >> Yeah, I think it's a great question, and when I was at New Relic, I was the CIO, so I have a little bit of experience in it. >> John: Trick question. >> What I would say is it is hard and I feel the pain. You have a lot to do to run the day to day business, but ultimately I think being really strategic and carving out the time and the big initiatives, and fundamentally it comes down to, all your new stuff should be in the cloud. The stuff that's really critical that's on prem that you can convert, you should do it, and the rest you got to get rid of it. You can't be held back by legacy because it will only prevent you from innovating and somebody else will. >> And do you see CIOs ultimately going to an operating model that looks like cloud even though it might be on prem? >> It does, particularly some of the larger companies, and for certain applications where you have to have, for whatever reason, data within the company, but it will be more utility based, it will be more burst capacity. You'll see more sharing as the tools and monitoring gets better. >> So I got to get your take. So as AI comes down the pipe, you're in analytics, it's a big part of your business. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> You understand analytics across your career. As jobs get automated away, we have a survey, and Market Size and Wikimon just did that says that by 2025, 150 billion dollars of non differentiated IT labor is going to go away and shift to other high value activities. So automation is going to replace those non differentiating jobs, labor. Okay, that means some other things are going to happen. So you can almost connect the dots and say software, analytics, some sort of new model. How does a company do analytics? Because what are those new value creation, you started a company on drone trend, real application, analytics is a differentiator. How does a company use analytics to help them figure out a differentiating strategy for their future? >> So I think it's a couple things. One is how to use analytics and automation to do what you currently do better, faster, cheaper. The more interesting thing is what you were talking about is if machines are doing that for you, if software's doing that for you, you have more time to think about well what's that next set of more advanced analytics I might do? Or how might I translate into better customer service? Or what's that new business model? So I think rather than jobs going away, it's really you know kind of like in the banks. The ATMs didn't get rid of the bank employees. It just gave them the ability to be personal advisors and take other. >> And they open up more branches. >> Exactly. >> And it's more people. It's actually helped create jobs. >> Exactly. >> Kind of that fallacy kind of goes away. Okay, we've got a little bit of time left. Do a quick commercial on what you guys are doing. Give a plug for Airware. How many employees do you guys have, what stage you're at, what are you guys looking to do? You're hiring, what do your customers look like, who is your customer? Take a minute to talk about your company. >> Yeah, so like I said, Airware's an amazing company. We're about six years old. We're Series C. We've got great investors and backers with Andreessen, Kleiner, Perkins, John Chambers is on our board. We're about 100 people. We've got global operations, both in EMEA and in the US. The beautiful city of Paris as well as San Francisco, so hard to beat that, and fundamentally what we're focused on is global enterprise commercial drone software analytics. And I call it an enterprise because part of the reason I ended up at Airware is I spent 17 years at Accenture. I understand what it takes to sell into enterprise. I know what they're looking for in terms of security, in terms of scalability, deployment, ease of use, and so bringing that, not just fun innovative experiments and innovation departments, but scaled deployments, and we predominantly focus on insurance and agriculture, mining, and construction right now, but we're building a platform that can be leveraged across industries, and so the real value add is how we reassemble the components to quickly innovate for other industries as well. >> I know we got time to break here, but one final question. We're going to be at the Grace Hopper celebration this year for our fourth year as part of our women in tech celebration. With all the recent Silicon Valley scandals around women in tech, I got to ask you. You've been in the business for a long time. You know, you've seen a lot of stories. I'm not going to ask you to share any specifics. What does the future have to look like to get through this novel of the generational shift that's happening, a new generation's coming on board. What kinds of norms and practices would you like to see, and any comment or color you can share on what is the preferred outcome of the current situation? >> Yeah, so I deeply believe that for companies to be competitive, you have to be diverse in perspective skillset and your employee base, and this war for talent, if you're only going after a certain profile, you're going to lose. So I think the winning companies will diversify. I'm on the board at Harvey Mudd, who's done amazing work increasing the number of women in STEM. They had more than 50% of their computer science majors were female last year, so it's definitely doable. I think we all have a lot of unconscious bias, and fundamentally what's going to shift is having more role models, and quite frankly having more white male sponsors. I mean John Chambers is a huge sponsor of mine and that makes a big difference, and so I think we need. >> And including men in the conversation. >> Totally. >> Is a really important part of it. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm 100%. My best sponsors have been men, and that's what we need is that community to make a difference. >> Yvonne, thanks so much for sharing your insight and data here. Accenture Labs celebration. Your role at Accenture, you're working with them, you've worked with them. >> Yeah. >> What's the take here? >> I'm super excited to be here. I was at Accenture for 17 years starting in 1990, so I'm old, and I got to grow up with the labs, and so. >> Were they Arthur Anderson or were they Accenture Consulting at that point? >> It was Anderson Consulting. >> Anderson Consulting. >> I'm that old, it was Anderson Consulting. But I'd say the value of the labs is it's hard when you're a big enterprise company to reimagine the future, and so having places like Accenture Labs where you can see what the possible is and you have somebody experimenting with you is really powerful, so. >> And you've got a good team of people with you. The cloud, really good timing to have a cloud operation too. >> Yeah, yeah I'm excited to be here. >> Yvonne, thanks so much. Cube coverage here at the Computer History Museum. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, on the ground for Accenture Labs, 30 years. The next 30 years ahead of us. A lot of exciting things, AI, new workforce, great action happening, drones. First of all, the drone racing leak, by the way, is really popular in my household. We're going to have drones in theCUBE >> Yvonne: Maybe we can connect you. >> With Cube coverage with drone cameras, coming soon. Thanks for watching, we'll be right back. (upbeat instrumental music)

>> Announcer: From the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, it's the Cube. On the ground with Accenture Labs 30th Anniversary Celebration. >> Hello and welcome back to our special on the ground coverage of Accenture Labs 30 year celebration. Here's to the next 30 years is their slogan and I'm John Ferry with the Cube and I'm here with Marc Carrel-Billiard who's the Senior Manger that runs R&D Global for Accenture Labs. Welcome to the Cube conversation. Thanks for joining me. >> Marc: Thanks, John. >> So, I got to ask you, Accenture 30 years, they weren't called Accenture back then, it was called Arthur Anderson or Anderson Consulting and then it became Accenture, now you got Accenture Lab. But you have had labs all throughout. >> You're right. I mean, it's pretty amazing. And I think this is absolutely right. So we had this organization for 30 years, believe it or not. And that organization is doing applied research. So what we do is we leverage new technology innovations and everything to really solve business challenges or societal pacts and social changes and everything. >> State of the art back then, if I remember correctly my history was converting an S&A gateway to a technet to a TCP/IP network. >> Yeah we just improved a little bit. We went to quantum computing, to Blockchain, to different type of things like that. >> What a magical time it is right now >> It is magic. >> Share some color on today's culture, the convergence of all this awesomeness happening. Open source, booming. Cloud, unlimited compute. You have now more developers than ever, Enterprise is looking more and more like consumers. So a lot of action. What's the excitement? Share the cutting edge lab's activity. I think you said something absolutely right. I mean, I think there's a combinatorial effect of two different technology working very well together, and is a compression on time, all those technology waves that are maturing very fast. So one thing that we been doing is a great example for that, is quantum computing. You heard about quantum computing, you know? >> Of course. >> That's the new Paradigm of computing power. Leveraging like, quantum mechanics, you know? I mean it's really amazing stuff. And believe it or not, we've been working with D-Wave, they have a quantum computer in Vancouver, and a companies called 1QBit, it's a software company, and we've built, on top of that, an algorithm that has molecule comparison. And we worked with Biogen, a pharmaceutical company, to work on this. Now, the really staggering thing about it, is that we talked about it like six months ago, we build the pilot in two months time. Done. And then now, I mean, it's already made. >> Well, this is amazing. This is what highlights to me what's exciting. What you just described is a time frame that's really short. >> That's right! >> Back in the old days, it was these projects were months and months, and potentially years. >> Absolutely. >> What is the catalyst for that? Is it the technology leverage? Is it the people? Is it the process? All three? What's the take? >> I think it's all three. I would say that definitely the technology, as I said, get combined faster. You said very right, there's a lot of capability in term of high performance computing we can get through the Cloud, the storage as well. The data that we're going to be accessing, and then I think the beauty is that, putting all the people together for the quantum work. We had mathematicians, we have from Biogen, we have our own labs, and all people together, they make the magic happen. >> 30 years ago, just a little history 'cause I'm old enough to actually talk about 30 years ago, the Big Six Accounting Firms, accounting firms, ran all the big software projects. How ironic is that, that today Blockchain disrupts the even need for an accounting firm, because with Smart Contracts, Blockchain is turning out to be a very, very disruptive operation in technology, because you don't need an accounting firm to clear out contracts. Blockchain is very disruptive. What are you guys doing on Blockchain? >> You're absolutely right, John. And you know, the first thing. So, we have seven labs in Accenture Labs. And we have one lab didn't get it on Blockchain, and it's Sophia Antipolis inside of France, where I'm from, by the way. We're doing a lot of things with Blockchain. A lot of people are thinking about Blockchain as a system that's going to regulate, basically, transfer a transaction, financial transaction. We want to take Blockchain to the next level. And one thing we're doing, for example, We're using Blockchain for Angels. How we're track, basically, donation you're going to do. We going to use Blockchain for-- >> Well that's because people want to know their money's actually going to good. >> That's right! That's right! >> Not to scams that have been out there. >> You got it. >> We going to use Blockchain as a DRM system, Digital Rights Management system. We're going to use that in manufacturing industry, in many industry, and it goes on and on and on. >> What is the big buzz right now with Cryptocurrency? You're seeing a lot of these ICOs out there. Are those legit? In your mind, is it just a bubble? Is it just a normalization's going to come, what's your take on Initial Coin Offerings? >> I think, to be honest with you, I think this is a progress with thing. I mean, we discuss about Blockchain and everything. We see some trains going there. I think it's accelerating as well, because it's got a lot of take up and everything. We see, also, the world changing, and I think we need to look at the geo-political context of the world and what could happen. So I think those kind of new regulation, the way it's going to work. I mean, it's coming on time, people's going to leverage it, so I think it's not some fad stuff. This is something that's going to stay. >> It's just a Wild West. >> But it was, exactly. Right now, we need to work on the right standard, we need to figure out how it's going to work and everything. >> What is the exciting things that you see out there right now? I mean, Blockchain just kind of gets us excited 'cause you can imagine different new things happening. But the clients that I talk to, customers, your clients, or CIOs, they have to reimagine the future. >> That's right. >> With preexisting conditions called legacy infrastructure. >> Exactly >> Legacy software. How do they get the best of the magic and manage the preexisting conditions? >> So, there's a lot of innovation in term of software development. You take energy in everything that we have, basically, to connect to your legacy, and leverage it as much as you can. You know, there's a big progress in artificial intelligence today. I mean, I've live a lot of winters of artificial intelligence. I think finally, maybe there's going to be some spring. Why? Because of what we talk about. The iPad from one's computing the data available, and then also, some new type of algorithm like deep learning and everything. That data that is somewhere into this company called the Dark Data, people is going to be able to leverage it, and then make those artificial intelligence systems even more intelligence, smarter, and everything. So, legacy's here, but we're going to leverage it, and we're going to give a second life to those legacy environment. So those technology like artificial intelligence, new analytics and all those different things. >> So I got to ask you a kind of politically hot question, which is the digital transformation. >> Yes. >> So there's doubt we're in a digital transformation. No brainer. Yet, I go to conferences over and over again, and I see Gartner Magic Quadrant. I'm number one on the Magic Quadrant, and everybody's number one in the Magic Quadrant. So, the question is, what's the scoreboard of the new environment? Because, if you use the old scoreboard, and the world's horizontally scalable, you're going to have a blending of Magic Quadrants. So there's going to be a disruption, and that's causing confusion to the CIOs and CXOs because you got Chief Data Officer, Chief Security Officer, you got no perimeter for security, you have quantum computing, you have Cloud. So, people are trying to squint through all the nonsense and saying, how do you measure success? >> Yeah. >> Certainly customers is a good one. >> I think this is the typical question. I mean, this whole digital transformation, I understand that is important, and we need to understand. I mean, Accenture, and especially the lab, it's all about result. And you know what? The mission of the lab is new, it's applied, is now. New technology applied for real challenges, and I want to deliver it now, and I want to work for six months. So my word is that our research is outcome driven, and that's exactly what we're seeing. So, I told you about the quantum computing, and I have other example where we are really laser-focused on making an outcome. I think that's where-- >> So, to your point, people shouldn't buy promises. >> No. >> They should buy results. >> That's right. >> So, Peter Barris, who runs our research, said to me, and I asked him the question, he goes, ah, that's just a bunch of BS. The ultimate metric is how many customers you have. So, someone should be touting their customers. >> Sorry? >> They should be touting their customers, not some survey. >> No, absolutely. And I'm really for that. >> I want to tell you something, that I'm a very pragmatic person. I'm coming from the field, where I was serving 400 clients doing, every day, project delivery, you know? >> John: God bless you. >> And I've always been doing innovation at the same time, but my view was that innovation needs to be scalable, it needs to be tangible, it needs to be outcome driven. So again, this is really the matter of the lab, and if you look at how the lab works with the rest of the organization of Accenture, this is exactly what we're doing. We connect with our studio, where we can do prototyping front of the eyes of our client. We connect with Open Innovation, where we connect with the best start ups in the world. I think, you remember when I told you combinatorial effect. There's a combinatorial effect with technology that is a combinatorial effect with people. If you put the people from start up, the best guys from the lab, the best guys from the studios and everything, that's where the magic happens. >> So this is a new configuration? >> We collect the innovation architecture. >> So this is a scalable model for being agile, and the results are what? Faster performance? >> Faster performance, innovative performance, and tangible outcome. >> Okay Marc, you're an excitable guy, I like talkin' with you, what are you most excited about right now in this world that you're living in? So, I told you about the technology, and there's one thing that the lab is doing, and we'll be launching that this year, and we'll continue expanding. It's what we call Tech For Good. Tech For Good is how we're going to apply technology to change society. What we're going to do for fighting hunger in India. How we're going to give situational awareness to blind people using augmented reality immersion learning. That keeps me awake at night, because this is technology for best usage, it allows for our people to sleep well at night. My kids are proud of me, and I think we can-- >> Change the world! >> That's right! We can attract great people. >> Alright, final question. Here at the celebration, at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, what's the big scene here? Share with the folks who are watching, who aren't here, what's happening. >> I think, first of all, the venue is amazing. Computer Historic Museum is probably one of my favorite museum here in Silicon Valley. I mean, you need to understand that, 15 years old I started to work on a IBM 360 of my uncle, so the machine over there, I know it. I worked on it. And when I see the completed progress where we are today, when we see the Cray, when we see the quantum and everything, I feel so lucky that we're celebrating 30 years. Now I'd to go for the next 30 years of the lab. That's what I want to do. >> Let's get that on our next interview. Marc, thanks for sharing, here's to the next 30 years. This is the Cube coverage of Accenture Lab's 30 year celebration. The Computer History Museum, I'm John Ferry. Thanks for watching.

>> Narrator: From the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, it's The Cube, on the ground with Accenture Labs' 30th anniversary celebration. >> Hello, everyone, welcome to the special coverage of The Cube, on the ground here at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. It's The Cube's coverage of Accenture Labs' 30th year celebration. I'm here with Paul Dougherty, the chief technology and innovation officer at Accenture Labs. Welcome to The Cube conversation. Thanks for joining me. >> It's great to be here. >> So first I want to toast you guys to 30 years from turning to an accounting firm, Arthur Anderson, to Accenture Labs Consulting. Guys are really changed. Congratulations to all your success. Thanks for having us. >> Yeah, thanks, it's been an incredible journey. If you think back in the 30 years, it's the 30th anniversary of Accenture Labs, and the transformation of our company to now be an innovation-led company, leading in IT services and IT innovation, and with the amazing innovations that are happening in technology, it's a great time to be doing what we're doing. >> So the theme here at the party is magic. There's a magic show going on. We can't get coverage. It's a little private event, probably some G-rated, probably ... >> Lots of magic. >> A lot of magic. But there's magic right now. We were commenting earlier, before you came on, about, you know at my age, I love this innovation cycle, but if I was 20 years old, I'd really be excited. There's so much going on. It's really magical. You've got the convergence of infrastructure, cloud, software. You guys have been on all sides of innovation, from the mini-computer boom, all the way now through now, where AI and software and now data science is coming together. What's the exciting thing for you right now? Because it's beyond software eating the world, it's beyond data eating software. This is real applications. >> Yeah, this is ... We're at an era where technology is the driving force behind every business. There was a survey recently of CEOs, and they asked CEOs how do they view their business, and 81% of CEOs, 81%, said their company's a technology company. And that was a cross-industry survey. And that's why it's an exciting time, because the option we have as Accenture is to work with any company, and every company, and help them transform, change their business, and lead them through the transformation to deliver technology-enabled digital products and services. And that's why it's an exciting time. >> What I find exciting about these global system integrators, as they're now called, is that you guys have always been a consultative organization to customers, helping them through their journey of that generational shift. Now it's interesting, with cloud computing, you guys are not only just advising, you're delivering services. A mindset transformation as well as talent, technology, process, and people. How are you doing it? What's the secret formula? >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what we found, the reason we've driven our business model in that direction, is our clients need help throughout the cycle. So we help with Accenture strategy, with advising our clients. We help with Accenture consulting, on helping our clients transform. Accenture digital, bring the digital capabilities in. Accenture technology, building the solutions in. Accenture operations, providing business process, infrastructure, and cloud operations. So, we've found that our clients, they need help with it all. They want to understand where to take their business, they want to understand how to get there, and they want somebody to help them manage their business as they do. And that's why we've taken the business in that direction. >> Not to give you guys a lot of props, but I do want to give you guys kudos, Accenture, Accenture Labs, is that all of folks might not know, or some, you guys probably do know, you've accumulated a lot of data scientists over the years. You've got thousands of data scientists, a lot of talent coming in. Accenture Labs is a booming operation, it's not just a throwaway lip-service kind of operation for customers, to say "Hey, we got some smart people." You guys have actually have a real organization. What are some of the cool things that you guys are doing? Can you give some examples? >> Yeah, let's just step back and talk about Labs a bit, and then I'll give some examples. We've been at Labs now for 30 years, hence the celebration we're talking about, and it's thousands of patents, it's billions of dollars of impact on the revenue of our business. And really, you're driving innovation that sets us ahead in the marketplace. And it's a fabric of a global organizations. We have labs here in Silicon Valley. We have labs in Washington, DC, that focus on security and other things. We have labs in Dublin, Ireland, in Tel Aviv, in Bangalore, India, in Beijing, in Sophia Antipolis in France. And it's that global infrastructure that allows us to tap into the innovation, I think in the key hot spots where it's happening. The kinds of innovation that we've driven are, think back to the early days of the cloud, we were doing R&D in patents and research in the cloud before the term "cloud" existed. And once the cloud phenomena took off, we had assets and architectures that we turned into the Accenture cloud platform, which has made us a leader in the multi-billion dollar ... Built a multi-billion dollar business in the cloud market. So that's an example of research and idea in early patents going to scale business for Accenture. That's the research to results that we talk about and what makes a difference in our business. >> So, talk about AI. AI's a hot trend, it's a great buzzword. I love AI because it gets young people excited about software. IOT is a little bit more boring than AI. But AI is augmented intelligence, also a little bit of artificial intelligence. Look no further than a test load, look no further than some of these cool things. How's AI impacting your world? >> AI's massive. I would say AI is the biggest single innovation and the most disruptive innovation of the information age to date. And probably, the biggest impact on how we work and live since the industrial revolution a couple hundred years ago. That started a couple hundred years ago. So AI is a big impact, and we're just at the start of it. That's kind of a paradox, though, because AI has been around for 60 years. The term was coined 60 years ago in 1956 at Dartmouth. And it just did it kind of slowly, but now we're at the inflection point where we have the computing hardware and the data and the processing power to make it really happen. So for the next five to 10 and 20 years, it's all about applying intelligence to augment the way we as people work and live and really create new opportunities to improve the productivity and creativity of humans. That's why we're excited. >> It's a perfect innovation storm. You've got great compute capability, almost unlimited capacity, software, new developer, open source is booming, and now you have STEM. >> Well, before you get to STEM, let me just make one comment on that. I think the other exciting thing about AI is we've been working with dumb technology up until this point. Think about the way we interact with our thumbs on a mobile phone. Think about the way you use traditional software in an enterprise on your PC or your screen. We're slaves to dumb technology, and the power and potential of AI is to make technology smarter, more human-like, and really enhance our ability as humans to use it. And that's why it's an exciting era. >> That's a great perspective from someone who has been in the process business. The classic example is, does the process work for you? Do you work for the process? >> Dougherty: Yeah. That's what technology ... >> And technology, we don't work for technology. They should work for us. >> And that's what's changing. That's the inflection point. >> So now, 30 years now, a lot's changed, certainly in Silicon Valley lately. Women and the role of women in the industry is certainly important. We're going to be at Grace Hopper for the fourth year this year as part of our women in tech celebration, in California this year covering women in tech. STEM is huge, but also, the gender gap is still there. You guys have a pledge to be 50% by 2025, Accenture as an organization. Labs, in particular, getting STEM in the technical roles is also a challenge. What are you guys doing to address that, and what's your personal philosophy? What's your comment about STEM and women in tech? >> Well, look, the technology industry in general has a gender diversity problem, and we believe at Accenture, we can really set the standard for how to really get to gender equality in the workforce. And that's the commitment we've got with our 50/50 gender diversity pledge by 2025. We're well along the path to getting there, right about 36% or so. Now, with the actions we're taking, the formula we've got, I'm confident that we'll get to the 50/50 pledge that we set out there. And it's an imperative for the technology industry, not just for Accenture, because we won't innovate to the potential of the industry, and we won't create the right opportunity if we don't have the right gender balance in the workforce. That's what will lead to the right innovations. In this new era where the humanity of how we apply technology, as you were saying earlier, flipping the lens on a people-centric view, we need all the perspectives and an equal representation of the population going into the way we develop solutions. That's why it's a priority for us. And we think we can really set a standard for how to apply to the technology industry. >> It's certainly a topic near and dear to my heart and our company's heart. I want to ask one more question on that as a follow-up. Computer science was always kind of narrow, I'm not saying super narrow, but now it's broadened, with analytics, the tech science side is opening up, for all the reasons you were just talking about, the AI stuff. It's a broad landscape now for many diverse roles. Can you share your thoughts on where the entry points could be for women, where it's not a man-led culture or new opportunities or new areas, new opportunities to engage, learn? Certainly digital will help that, in terms of acquiring knowledge. But in terms of getting into the business, what is the surface area of opportunities? >> The surface, it's the whole surface area. I think the wrong approach is to think that there are certain roles that are better for women or better for any group to do. There's equal opportunity in all the roles. One stat that's striking to me is the fact that, when I graduated from college in 1986, 35% of the graduates were women. 35% in 1986. Today that number is about 18%. We've gone backwards in the percentage of women graduates from computer science programs. That's a problem that we need to address. We need to get more women into technology careers. It's about sponsorship, it's about mentorship, it's about having the right role models, and it's about painting the right picture of the opportunity in technology. One of the organizations I'm involved with is Girls Who Code, where I'm on the board of directors because of our Accenture involvement because I believe that we need that kind of early involvement with girls to get them on the right paths and make them aware of the right opportunities that we can get them into the pipeline earlier. >> Congratulations. Thanks for doing that; it's great stuff. Personal question. 30 years, you've been in Accenture for a long time, 30 years of labs now, celebrating. What's the coolest thing you've done? >> You know, the coolest thing, the coolest thing is building the fabric of innovation of the company, so what we've done with the labs, creating Accenture Ventures, which is our tool for investing in companies, formalizing our Accenture research capabilities, that we now have an innovation fabric that goes from research to our ventures into our labs and the rest of Accenture's business. So we can take innovations like quantum computing and scale it and ramp it right into our business like we're doing today. So that's what's exciting to me, is to have created a funnel that we can use to take the early-stage innovations and pump them into real impact on our business. >> Awesome, and quick, what's happening here tonight? We're here at the 30th, labs here in Silicon Valley, Computer History Museum, historic event, magic. What's the show about today? >> Yeah, it's all about the past, the present, and the future. The past is how we got here with tremendous leaders of Accenture Labs, who built the organization to where it is today. The present is what I was just talking about, all the opportunity we have. And the future is more exciting that it's ever been. The next 30 years ... My only regret is that I'm not 20 years old right now. So the next 30 years are going to be even more exciting than the 30 years that I've lived through. And we're in a great place. Computer History Museum isn't just about the past. It's about the future. I'm on the board of trustees here at the Computer History Museum, and I love the mission of the museum in the way it brings the stories of innovation to light and sets us on the course for the future as well. >> Well, since you have so much influence, we're going to have to get our genes edited for sequencing so we can actually live longer because that's coming around the corner, too. >> I think that's the right idea. >> Cheers. Congratulations. >> Paul: Cheers. >> We'll be back with more coverage here live in The Cube. Accenture Labs' 30-year anniversary. I'm John Furrier with Paul Daugherty, chief technology and information officer, great work, innovation officer, great work. Congratulations. More coverage after this short break. Thanks for watching.

>> Narrator: From the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, it's The CUBE. On the ground with Accenture Labs 30th Anniversary Celebration. (techy music) >> Hello everyone, welcome to the special CUBE coverage of Accenture Labs 30th years of celebration here at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. I'm John Furrier with The CUBE. Our next guest is John Walsh who is the Northern California Office Managing Director as well as the General Manager of the P&L of Telecom, High Tech, and Media Entertainment. Three big P&Ls, plus running the whole territory. You got a big celebration here, thanks for joining me. >> Thanks for coming, John. It's great to have you. >> So first of all, Northern California, you got The Warriors in the backyard. I'm sure Accenture's got a box, schmoozing customers, you guys working with them at all? >> Well, ya know, it's funny you bring that up, John. We are working, we're pretty close with The Warriors as it turns out. As you know, The Warriors are building out their new stadium, right down at the Dogpatch in San Francisco, and so we've been working with them to really design the fan experience. Before, during, and after the game, what that experience is going to look like. Being here in Northern California, you can imagine that's going to be a very, very tech forward experience. Hopefully it's going to kind of define the state of the industry. We're proud to be a partner of The Warriors, and part of that design. >> What better topic to kind of, as a backdrop to the Labs, Accenture Labs, 30 years here, looking forward to the next 30 years. I mean, The Warriors are the poster child, kind of like The Patriots are in football, with respect to a culture, but they're innovative, tech geeks too. They understand how to use technology for an outcome, not trying to get an outcome out of their technology. They really understand that, and that's really kind of the ethos, of the Labs. >> I think that's exactly right, and obviously, ya know, we can talk about The Warriors as much as you want (John Furrier laughs) I'm a huge fan, but ya know, the way they've thought about actually changing the game through technology, and embedding it in part of the way they actually build that experience out, is one of the reasons why we partner well with them. Obviously, we'll leverage our Labs' capabilities and a lot of our Lab practitioners in order to actually co-innovate with The Warriors. I think all of us here in the Bay Area, are going to be able to appreciate that in the coming years. >> Well, when the NDAs are expired, or maybe even sooner, we'll have to come up to your office and get a deeper dive on The Warriors situation. >> Let's do a double click on that. >> It's worth a bigger feature. But here at the Labs and Computer History Museum, better place to kind of talk about where the industry's come from, where Accenture Labs has come from, and where it's going. So I got to ask you, Arthur Anderson back at a big six accounting firm 30 plus years ago, to Anderson Consulting to Accenture, really kind of was the ways of innovation that everyone talks about. Now, the next 30 years, we're looking down the throat of AI, blockchain, internet of things, using data at scale, cloud computing, quantum computing, really changing how companies are executing their business architecture, not just IT. >> For sure. >> I mean, it's a complete transformation, disruption. >> For sure. >> Well, I mean, Accenture, you went through the history. I actually joined Arthur Anderson, ya know, 30 some years ago. I think we've always prided ourselves on being on that leading edge, and sort of our objective was to actually incorporate those new technologies, apply them to our enterprise client base. Be able to do that, ya know kind of be there, and then be gone before our competitors get there. I think you'll see some of that tonight as we're sort of walking around the showcase here. You've heard this a hundred times, John. There's never been a better time to be in the tech world. To be able to actually look at the breadth of technology opportunity that's here. How to apply that to our global enterprise base to create advantage differentiation and change. Change is what drives our business model. >> Yeah, we were just talking with Mark, one of the Senior Directors of the Labs. Ya know, talking about accounting firms and those kinds of, way back in the day, they would instrument business. Now, as you guys are now in more, 30 years, plus years later, the instrumentation's all in the data. So literally, for the first time in the history of the world of business, you might not need accounting with blockchain, and everything's instrumented. So there's no more questions that can't be answered, some level! So this is going to be like a complete new generation. Next 30 years, pretty significant. Everything's instrumented, and all kind of disruptions around how a company organizes themselves. What is Accenture's vision? How do you guys talk to customers? Not only is it mind blowing, it also is fear. >> Yeah >> If I don't adapt and move on, I can't get there. >> Yeah, well I mean, and again that is, that's the nature of competition. That's always been the nature of technology. Right now, I think it's a combination of, the digital natives have been the ones that have kind of been pushing the envelope and putting pressure on every industry, every business model, and I think that they've been out in front. We're seeing, ya know, sort of our whole global client base adapt and respond and start to incorporate all of these, and re-engineer their processes with benefit of digital at every one of those layers. You mentioned it, analytics, sort of end data, is at the core of, I think, what will define success in the future for every enterprise, in every industry. That's really where we're spending our time with our customers. It's like, how do you take advantage of the data and the insight and the knowledge that you have, to run your business more efficiently and better serve customers? By empowering your employees to serve customers, and to allow customers to better serve themselves, with all these tools? >> We're here at the Computer History Museum, in your backyard, your territory, so you're obviously going to crash the party, but I find that really compelling, and rightfully so, to be in Silicon Valley. But the world's changing, and they're going to come up with the next 30 years, it's going to match your show here. So I got to ask you, someone who leads the business, who have been through the organization, how do you hire the next generation talent? You got to build out, you got to innovate. What's the profile, is there an algorithm? Is there a formula that you have as you build out and continue to scale out your people? Got the innovation DNA and the culture-- >> We do. >> We see that. We got the Labs pumping on all cylinders, we see that. What's the people strategy? Diversity's key, you're seeing more women coming into the workforce. Certainly in Silicon Valley, our territory, has been great news lately for women. >> Right. >> What are you guys doing? >> So, let me start last first, with the diversity comment. I think we've been pretty public in terms of communicating sort of, what the profile of our employee base looks like. All the statistics, top to bottom, from diversity, ethnic diversity and gender diversity. Our CEO has recently made a commitment to be at 50/50 gender diversity by 2025. I don't think there's any other company-- >> That's amazing-- >> of our size and scale, that's made that level of commitment >> That's a moon shot. That's a moon shot level, Mars shot, what do you want to call it. >> It's a moon shot, for sure, but the way we're looking at it, it's 50 percent of the IQ actually, ya know, is there, and we need to be able to be tapping into all of that. For those folks, they're in the marketplace, they're just not at Accenture, and we want to create an environment that actually brings all those folks in. Other than that, it's just, ya know, it's based-- >> More data scientists. >> More data scientists. >> More engineering. >> More engineers, more computer science, and more people that are good at problem solving, and naturally curious. We have a pretty rigorous recruiting process, and we also have a brand that I think, attracts talent. We build deep relationships with universities, which helps, kind of gives us early access. I was talking to a couple of our interns who are here tonight, like wow, this is awesome. That's always been the recipe for Accenture. >> What do you say to the young college grads that are graduating, undergraduate or Masters degree, man, I'm going to land a job at Accenture! It's a dream job at some level. What do you say to them? What do you look for? I'm looking for, fill in the blank. When you say, answer that question. >> For me, I'm looking for people that love problem solving, right. That are naturally curious. Working at Accenture's hard, right. So having that work ethic, that ability to be persistent. >> You got to be skilled, you got to be skilled. >> Well, you got to be skilled. You don't even get the interview if you don't have (John Furrier laughs) at least that much on your resume. But beyond that, ya know, it's how they interact. We're a client focused business as well, so having people that are actually able to to work as part of a team, and work with clients, is pretty critical. >> John, congratulations, and the event's starting. Thanks from all at the CUBE, we really appreciate it. John Walsh, who runs the California, Northern California Managing Director, as well as the P&L responsibility for Telecom, High Tech, and Media Entertainment. Here at the CUBE coverage of Accenture Labs 30 year celebration at the Computer History Museum. I'm John Furrier with the CUBE, thanks for watching. (techy music)