>>mhm. Hello and welcome to the Cubes presentation of Women in text. Global Event Celebrating International Women's Day I'm John for your host of the Cube here in Palo Alto, California and we had a great remote guests coming in from Bahrain in the Middle East. Cather Allegheny, general manager of 9 73 Labs. Uh, thanks for coming in and and being part of the Cube our International Women's Day. You can't get any more international in Bahrain. Thank you for coming on. >>It's my great pleasure and honour to be here. John, thank you so much for this opportunity. >>Well, I'm super excited to chat with you because in our two visits with the Cube in Bahrain covering the summit there the past few years, we notice of surgeon entrepreneurship. Um, it's almost as if the region of AWS has create this revitalization and energy and vitality and and momentum around entrepreneurship. Can you >>share? What's >>the scene down there? What's the What's it like? >>Well, uh, when it comes to my country, we're lucky to have a small population. It's not that large, but we have so many creative people who is eager to try the entrepreneurial journey, and having Amazon as a data centre in Bahrain is a privilege. And they are pushing, uh, to have more entrepreneurial ideas and innovation and solutions within the ecosystem of rain. So definitely with their support, I can I can see that so many youths, they are eager to come in and contribute. >>I noticed that you're also the general manager of, uh, 9 73 labs, but also the founder of a company. So you've got two things going on here. You've got the entrepreneurial thing happening. Um, this seems to be normal. People got entrepreneurial activity and the job doing both. They're both entrepreneurial. Is that normal? >>Yes, Absolutely. Well, I started my entrepreneurial journey back in, uh, four years and I've been appointed as a general manager of 97 3 labs, which is I'm leading on digital innovation. So that compliments my passion of being an entrepreneur. And while we can acquire talented people and support them to create their own solutions the best way they can So basically, uh, following the main pillars of the lab that I'm working on, which is conducting appropriate research and data analytics, innovation and sustainability. So, uh, for my two founded cos it's not only one I've worked in Fintech and also in property as well. >>What inspired you to be an entrepreneur and technology? >>Well, I would say that my inspiration was to think outside the box, and I see problems and gaps as an opportunity. So that helps me to figure out and come up with solutions that can be beneficial for everyone. So analysing detail as well as something that I would really love. And also, um, enhancing my skills and being more creative is my inspiration. >>I know this is a lot of entrepreneur activity in Bahrain. A lot of investors are now coming into the market. Um, what are some of the things that are going on there? Can you share what the entrepreneurial scene is like there what people are working on has cloud computing accelerated that? What's what are some of the things happening there on the ground? >>Um, I would see that there is multiple competitions or hackathons run by multiple financial institutions. Uh, and also, uh, there are so many NGO s as I am a board member and technology and business society and also a member of women empowerment in the field of cheque, we are trying to motivate and accelerate the desire to be within this ecosystem of entrepreneurial journey. So, basically, uh, we have the Supreme Council of Women who is pushing as well women and ladies to be in this, uh, sector, uh, from early age from, uh, university or even high school graduates that they should start on working on their ideas and come up with solutions. So you can see that everyone is up to, uh, being part of the ecosystem by putting in their ideas. >>And the government wants to be digitally completely transformed, and >>by certain >>they're pushing it hard to >>Absolutely. Yes, we have the governmental sector trying to migrate from legacy infrastructure to the cloud. I would say, uh and it's it's more efficient for government and also to the private sector as well. >>You know, one of the things that jumped out at me when I was in my rain visiting was there was a lunch. Uh, I'm sorry. Breakfast for women in tech. And I went there because I always go to those breakfast cause I really want to see and meet people. I had to get kicked out because it wasn't a table space. So I was for all the people that were there, Um, because I was the guy that was spot for women, it was sold out, was lying and lying to get in. So there's a huge interest of women in tech. I saw that firsthand. There are more and more people want to come in. So motivating women to consider Korean tech is really the focus. What steps do you see to make that happen? How do we take that to the next level? What's your view on motivating women to get into tech? How would you talk about that? >>Well, absolutely. I think it's really crucial to have a woman contribution within the field of cheque. But I believe there is some challenges, given our cultural norms of how man perceived woman working in the field of cheque, sometimes society burden woman from, you know, pursuing her passion to be in because it's a demanding field. I would say that it's, uh, equal to the medical field. You have to keep on updating and to be aware about what's going on. Um, so basically, that might create a bit of a burden for specifically married women of looking after her husband or their families. So I think, uh, this is one of the challenges. But the steps to overcome those challenge challenges is why, uh, you know, trying to shift and change the way, uh, society think about where women should position herself and what kind of job should she should be. And, uh, So I think the other thing is by having educational curriculum that we taught in schools, teaching both genders about the importance of, uh, how we are equal and how we can complement each other in that field because the future is in technology. So the young generation should understand this very well. >>How is the women, um, entrepreneurship going? Are they being finance for their ventures out there? What's the what's the What's the momentum and progress on women starting ventures? >>Yes, absolutely. We're lucky to have our first lady, the wife of the king who is heading the Supreme Council of Women who is pushing women to create their own businesses or to come to become an entrepreneur. Also, we have financings becoming through the government with an entity called Temkin will provide different plants and support all through, not financials only, but it covers other areas of businesses as well. So financing is not a problem again for an entrepreneur. Uh, woman. As an entrepreneur, you can always seek multiple options for financing, not necessarily inside. It can be international as well. >>So a lot of good capital there also, this fellowship opportunities. I noticed you were a Halsey in, uh, fellow. The fellowship with the Halsey in organisation. Talk about that. That experience? >>Well, I really loved the experience. We started in fact, last year, and we flew to Washington in July, and we've met with Amazon people who were really supportive. We got solution architects supporting us of how to build the solution that we want to deliver. And I got my CTO to get trained by the Amazon as well. So we found so much value and the courses and the mentorship they provided, uh, and I'm really glad to be part of that family and their CEO. She said, Now, uh, for a lifetime, you are part of our family, and, you know, it's all the support that we needed to get. >>It's a great community. What advice would you give to people who are out there who want to learn and get into cloud computing and take that step towards creating value on whether it's entrepreneurial or within a company. What's the secret formula that you would say our secrets to success? >>Absolutely. I think a cloud is a a massive, and it's a brilliant opportunity for any technology to be built on myself. I believe in the cloud. Most or all of my solutions is built on cloud. And now even me leading the digital lab on building infrastructure on cloud and basically it will give you more room. Uh, identify more gaps. You do assessment. You can utilise the tools that is within cloud, which is artificial intelligence machine learning. Uh, you call it so you can seize the opportunity to the maximum, and you can skill faster. So basically, you're not limited to your, uh, country. You can go across countries as well utilising cloud >>Catherine to talk about what's next for you. What's the next step? >>Well, uh, the next step in my new role or a new job leading on a digital innovation in 973 Labs is to finalise my strategy and also to acquire talented young people And, uh, you know, go through a programme, which is I designed where they get the mentorship, the support till they get a final product that will be invested in. And they can guarantee themselves a carrier, uh, within the digital love that I'm trying to lead on. Uh, and I think the projects that will be covering not specifically only infant IQ, it could be in any other industry. So, uh, we're trying to follow the recent trends, Uh, thanks to Amazon and Google and the other companies that we can extract data and create our own reporting. So to, uh, come up where we should be investing our time. >>That's great. I wanna ask you about the demographics of the folks in Bahrain. I noticed that they're very a lot of young entrepreneurs coming up and learn a lot of them. Um, is that true? >>Yes, Uh, our population, the majority of our youth, uh and I would say, um uh, the average age is in thirties until 35 or 36. So, relatively, we have so many young people or youth who was eager to learn. But again, we need the expertise. We need older people to also mentor and coach the young generation of how they should calculate the risk and come up with a proper business models and brilliant ideas. >>Well, I'm very impressed with the folks down there, I said before the pandemic. Unfortunately, the pandemic it, But we really wanted to have a cube location there, a lot of vitality out of action, a lot of good stuff going on. Certainly with the NWS region in there, it's really create a lot of value. And so we're looking forward to hearing more. And, uh, thanks for coming on and sharing your storey with us and for the folks out there watching. What advice would you give to women who are watching around the world around entrepreneurship? What's going on from your experience? What should we be doing and talking about? What's the Storey? I'll see this theme is bias, uh, inherent bias and in the culture, um, what would you share your thoughts on to the world? >>Well, I think the only advice I can give to all of the women out there just try something new to try to solve a problem. There are so many gaps we have around. Just look around. You just take one step forward and try it. At least once in your life, you can come up with a brilliant, uh, solution that serves all humankind, not only the people of your country. So even if the road is bumpy, just be have the courage, be resilient and go for it. >>And we're all connected on the Internet. So of course, we can communicate with each other and have a good time and and grow the community. Thanks so much for coming on the Cube and celebrating International Women's Day with us as part of our special presentation. Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. >>Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much. >>Okay, this is the cubes presentation of women in text. Global event Celebrating International Women's Day. I'm John for a host of the Cube. Thanks for watching. Yeah,

>> Announcer: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico, it's the Cube, covering blockchain unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (upbeat Cuban music) >> Hello there, and welcome back to our exclusive coverage. This is the Cube's coverage in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound. We start week of variety of activities here on the island around blockchain, cryptocurrency, the decentralized internet, the future of work, the future of play, the future of society, all here, happening. My next guest is an entrepreneur. Steve Steward is the CEO and co-founder of that's V-E-Z-T. Really changing the game around music, relationship to fans, and using blockchain and tokens to enable that. Welcome to The Cube. >> Thank you so much John, it's great to be here. >> Thanks for coming on, so first talk a little bit about what your value proposition, what you guys are doing. Obviously, people who ever downloaded iTunes, and then said, "This sucks, let's go to Spotify." Now are going, "Hey, I'm on Instagram. "I have access to my artist directly." The internet is a response vehicle; one on one. Tell them about your opportunity. >> There's two value props. One for the consumer, right? So, if you're an artist fan, and you love a song. You love an artist. You want to be involved with that artist on a one to one basis, there's no way to do that right now. You can follow somebody on Twitter, you can like their YouTube, that doesn't connect you with them. Our platform let's you buy in, and by buy in I mean ownership. You own a piece of the IP with that artist in their song, so it's on a song by song basis. But if Ariana Grande's my favorite artist, I want to buy a little slice of her song for $10 or $100, I now have the opportunity to put that out there, and I can share in that royalty stream with her. And she and I will connect on a level. If she wants to take my information and send other things to me like concert tickets or backstage passes, that's possible now. So the value prop for the fan, is connection with the artist and ability to say, "I own a piece of that royalty stream. "I own a piece of that song." And on the artist side the value prop is, "I now get to actually share directly with my fans, "build that community directly. "There's no gate keeper like a label "or publishing company in the middle, "and I have the ability to reach out "and monetize directly based on demand and merit. "Then take that and do whatever I want "and build up my brand." >> So this is a great example where artists that have direct relationships, might be undervalued. Also, in a way there doing their own mini ICO, so to speak, with their fans by sharing in the future value of the success with the people that got 'em there. >> They are, we call it an ISO, Initial Song Offering. So just like a ticket on sale, it allows an artist to pick a time and date and say, "At noon on Thursday, I'm putting out 5% of my song "to raise $10,000." They pick the pricing, they pick the amount they want to put up, we admin the actual royalty stream for those people that put money into it, and the artist keeps the rest of it. >> I've seen a lot of pitches, I've seen a lot of stuff online, "Oh yeah, we're going to revolutionize "the new music industry, were going to use tokens." I've seen I feel pitches, but again, if you look at the smart money investors, they're looking at deals and saying, "Is there a network effect? "Is there a protocol of some sort in there?" Obviously you've identified a relationship that has tokenization or token economics built into the business model. Take a minute to explain that key tokenization. Why you're business is set for token economics? Why you, over someone else? >> So my backgrounds in the music business, I used to manage a band called Stone Temple Pilots for 20 years. Actually for 10 years, from 1990 to 2000. I had 20 other artist in that meantime. I understand the pain points from an artists perspective. I also know where the value is in the industry. It's in the publishing. Most of these entertainment businesses, the IP is where the real value is. Film, books, T.V., music, it's all in the underlying content. Not the distribution, not how many times I've downloaded it, but the actual ownership of the content. What we want to do, is put that in a basis so the artist can now take that on a fractional basis. We can use a tokenized product to let the fans buy in. The blockchain helps us track those rights, keep them secure, make them transparent, and allow the ownership to be shared between thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. >> And this also helps build community. I want to get your thoughts on something. I held a panel on Sundance this year, Sundance Film Festival, called The New Creative. What you're seeing emerging is a new artist. The new artists are digital native, their fan base is direct. Things we just talked about. But they're undervalued, because the gatekeepers, either the studios and or labels in your instance, are controlling distribution and they're also controlling the activities. So we all know what Apple's done with some of their artists, and artists have to go on the road and do all this work. Well digital changes all that, so from your perspective as a industry guru in music, how has digital changed that dynamic? And talk about this new artist breed, this new young upcoming digital generation of artists. >> There's two things. First, internet really hasn't delivered what it said it was going to the music community, right? When you had Napster come out, it's great for the fan base. The artist and the creators actually lost out. Music got valued from here to here. It went almost to zero. People were sharing files for free, so at some point we thought-- >> Regulatory tried to solve that legal-- >> Tried and tried, but once you build a generation on free, it's hard to change that. On the fan side it was great. There was a lot more distribution. On the artist and creator side, it wasn't so great. What we're trying to do is bring value back to that. We're going to use digital in a way that lets people share what they believe in, without these gatekeepers like you said; fully demand based. If I'm the small artist who plays banjo in Kentucky, but I've got a 100,000 fans who really love me, and they can show that by buying in, forget the labels. Forget the publishers. Forget the brands. I now have a direct connection. I'm earning a living directly from my fan base, which is how it should be. >> Kind of like we do open source content. We were talking about our business, you are enabling people to self-identify with the artist, letting the artist be open to that, make that handshake or if you will, digital handshake, and have a relationship beyond just being a fan. >> Most of the labels, in fact all the labels: Spotify, YouTube, Pandora. None of those platforms let the artist share directly with the consumer, right? If I say, "Look, I've got 20,000 streams today, "can you tell me who they were, no. "Can you show me where the downloads are, no." Why aren't they letting those people connect. The artist has a natural connection with their fans. >> That's because the tech platforms are optimized for a different business model. Look at Facebook, they're living in their own problem. Their success is almost killing them. They have this centralized data optimization for the wrong incentive. They're optimizing data for advertising, not user experience. In this case, you're saying, "Hey, lets use the infrastructure and crypto "to optimize the fan relationship and expand it." >> The reason artists get on stage, the reason they write a song, is to connect with people, right? We've disembodied that connection to the point where they're out there in the ether and the fans are over here. They're like, "How do we get together?" If we can bring that back, there's a very powerful connection there that we can take advantage of and let people actually make money from their craft. >> Well Steve, great to have you on The Cube because one, you have domain expertise, you're business model solid, and we've been saying yesterday and on The Cube that it's a reverse of the old stack model. The top of the stack is the business model. You nail the business model, the underlying plumbing will sort itself out. With that in mind, how are you guys looking at the plumbing? What are you doing here in Puerto Rico? Are you raising money? Are you doing an ICO? Take a little bit to explain your relationship to the plumbing under the hood, in the blockchain, crypto world. And then what you guys are doing here in Puerto Rico. >> We started building our platform the traditional way. We took traditional VC funding about a year ago. As we were building the platform, we understood the importance of a blockchain, some type of decentralized ledger that allows people to look transparently under the ownership stack. As we were building that, one of our engineers said, "hey, have you guys heard of an ICO?" we had no idea what this was. It was about a year ago. Got educated very quickly, dove deep on it, and realized there's an opportunity, not really for the fact that it's crypto, but to actually capitalize the company in a meaningful way. We want to scale this very quickly. We've got strategic partners in Asia, other parts of the world, that we need to grow very quickly into. We realized it was an opportunity to have. We did a raise close of December 1st; oron exchanges. >> An equity raise or a token raise? >> The token raise. We did a U.S. based PPM SAFT. >> So a security token. >> It's a utility token, but we followed a process that our legal advisors advised us. In the U.S., keep it as a PPM SAFT. If it's offshore, it's offshore. >> So accredited investors? >> Accredited investors only, small cap, try to keep it reasonable, because we don't need 100 billion dollars to build this platform right now. We're looking to get this in a traditional business sense, so we're building a real platform with a real team. We took advantage of that. We got listed on an exchange January 12th. At this point, we're head down in product. We're looking to launch this in 45 days at Coachella. We had an event two nights ago at South by Southwest. We came up here from Austin, so we're going back to California tomorrow. >> John: You're on a plane. >> Yeah, we're on a roadshow. We've got artist brand partners now. We're signing people, two or three artists a week that come in. We've got publishing catalogs that are coming on board realizing that there's a B to be played, because publishers only monetize the top two or 3% of their catalogs. The other 98% get no love. If they can put that on a retail platform like us, and allow consumers to buy directly into it, it's a whole windfall for them. >> Everyone's a media company these days. We've been saying it, and that's the new media model. You got a great formula, good luck. We'd love to keep in touch. >> Absolutely. >> What are you guys looking to do next six months as you get the product out the door? Ecosystem, you got to recruit more artists? What's the plan? >> My goal is 100,000 songs in the platform by the end of summer. Like I said, we're doing a lot of brand activations at music festivals. We see people, you know, exponential growth. Each song comes with an artist fan base. This builds into it. We're also supporting producers, co-writers, performers, the other guys that aren't on the stage. We realize this platforms for them, because the own live ownership in these songs, but have never had a way to monetize it. We're growing this very quickly. >> Steve Steward, CEO/co-founder of that's V-E-Z-T. Check 'em out. If you like music, this is a great way to actually take part in being a fan and owner of the actual property; great business model. We'll keep in touch. Thanks for sharing on The Cube. More live coverage here on The Cube, bringing you all the action, and extracting the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. We'll be right back with more coverage after this break. >> Thanks guys, thanks John. (electronic instrumental music)