(upbeat music) >> Hello, everyone. Welcome to theCUBE's special presentation of International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Jenni Troutman is here, Director of Products and Services, and Training and Certification at AWS, and Heather Ruden, Director of Education Programs, Training and Certification. Thanks for coming on theCUBE and for the International Women's Day special program. >> Thanks so much for having us. >> So, I'll just get it out of the way. I'm a big fan of what you guys do. I've been shouting at the top of my lungs, "It's free. Get cloud training and you'll have a six figure job." Pretty much. I'm over amplifying. But this is really a big opportunity in the industry, education and the skills gap, and the skill velocities that's changing. New roles are coming on around cloud native, cloud native operators, cybersecurity. There's so much excitement going on around the industry, and all these open positions, and they need new talent. So you can't get a degree for some of these things. So, nope, it doesn't matter what school you went to, everyone's kind of level. This is a really big deal. So, Heather, share with us your thoughts as well on this topic. Jenni, you too. Like, where are you guys at? 'Cause this is a big opportunity for women and anyone to level up in the industry. >> Absolutely. So I'll jump in and then I'll hand it over to Jenni. We're your dream team here. We can talk about both sides of this. So I run a set of programs here at AWS that are really intended to help build the next generation of cloud builders. And we do that with a variety of programs, whether it is targeting young learners from kind of 12 and up. We have AWS GetIT that is designed to get women ambassadors or women mentors in front of girls 12 to 14 and get them curious about a career in STEM. We also have a program that is all digital online. It's available in 11 languages. It's got hundreds of courses. That's called AWS Educate that is designed to do exactly what you just talked about, expose the opportunities and start building cloud skills for learners at age 13 and up. They can go online and register with an email and start learning. We want them to understand not only what the opportunity is for them, but the ways that they can help influence and bring more diversity and more inclusion and into the cloud technology space, and just keep building all those amazing builders that we need here for our customers and partners. And those are the programs that I manage, but Jenni also has an amazing program, a set of programs. And so I'll hand it over to her as you get into the professional side of this things. >> So Jenni, you're on the product side. You've got the keys to the kingdom on all the materials and shaping it. What's your view on this? 'Cause this is a huge opportunity and it's always changing. What's the latest and greatest? >> It is a massive opportunity and to give you a sense, there was a study in '21 where IT executives said that talent availability is the biggest challenge to emerging tech adoption. 64% of IT executives said that up from only 4% the year before. So the challenge is growing really fast, which for everyone that's ready to go out there and learn and try something new is a massive opportunity. And that's really why I'm here. We provide all kinds of learning experiences for people across different cloud technologies to be able to not only gain the knowledge around cloud, but also the confidence to be able to build in the cloud. And so we look across different learner levels, different roles, different opportunities, and we provide those experiences where people can actually get hands-on in a totally risk-free environment and practice building in the cloud so they can go and be ready to get their certifications, their AWS certifications, give them the credentials to be able to show an employer they can do it, and then go out and get these jobs. It's really exciting. And we go kind of end to end from the very beginning. What is cloud? I want to know what it is all the way through to I can prove that I can build in the cloud and I'm ready for a job. >> So Jenni, you nailed that confidence word. I think I want to double click on that. And Heather, you talked about you're the dream team. You guys, you're the go to market, you bring this to the marketplace. Jenni, you get the products. This is the key, but to me the the international women days angle is, is that what I hear over and over again is that, "It's too technical. I'm not qualified." It can be scary. We had a guest on who has two double E degrees in robotics and aerospace and she's hard charging. She almost lost her confidence twice she said in her career. But she was hard charging. It can get scary, but also the ability to level up fast is just as good. So if you can break through that confidence and keep the curiosity and be a builder, talk about that dynamic 'cause you guys are in the middle of it, you're in the industry, how do you handle that? 'Cause I think that's a big thing that comes up over and over again. And confidence is not just women, it's men too. But women can always, that comes up as a theme. >> It is. It is a big challenge. I mean, I've struggled with it personally and I mentor a lot of women and that is the number one challenge that is holding women back from really being able to advance is the confidence to step out there and show what they can do. And what I love about some of the products we've put out recently is we have AWS Skill Builder. You can go online, you can get all kinds of free core training and if you want to go deeper, you can go deeper. And there's a lot of different options on there. But what it does is not only gives you that based knowledge, but you can actually go in. We have something called AWS Labs. You can go in and you can actually practice on the AWS console with the services that people are using in their jobs every day without any risk of doing something that is going to blow up in your face. You're not going to suddenly get this big AWS bill. You're not going to break something that's out there running. You just go in. It's your own little environment that gets wiped when you're done and you can practice. And there's lots of different ways to learn as well. So if you go in there and you're watching a video and to your point you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is too technical. I can't understand it. I don't know what I'm going to go do." You can go another route. There's something called AWS Cloud Quest. It's a game. You go in and it's like you're gaming and it walks you through. You're actually in a virtual world. You're walking through and it's telling you, "Hey, go build this and if you need help, here's hints and here's tips." And it continues to build on itself. So you're learning and you're applying practical skills and it's at your own pace. You don't have to watch somebody else talking that is going at a pace that maybe accelerates beyond what you're ready. You can do it at your own pace, you can redo it, you can try it again until you feel confident that you know it and you're really ready to move on to the next thing. Personally, I find that hugely valuable. I go in and do these myself and I sit there and I have a lot of engineers on my team, very smart people. And I have my own imposter syndrome. I get nervous to go talk to them. Like, are they going to think I'm totally lost? And so I go in and I learn some of this myself by experiment. And then I feel like, okay, now I can go ask them some intelligent questions and they're not going to be like, "Oh gosh, my leader is totally unaware of what we're doing." And so I think that we all struggle with confidence. I think everybody does, but I see it especially in women as I mentor them. And that's what I encourage them to do is go and on your own time, practice a bit, get a little bit of experience and once you feel like you can throw a couple words out there that you know what they mean and suddenly other people look at you like, "Oh, she knows what she's talking about." And you can kind of get past that feeling. >> Well Jenni, you nailed it. Heather, she just mentioned she's in the job and she's going and she's still leveling up. That's the end when you're in, but it's also the barriers to entry are lowering. You guys are doing a good job of getting people in, but also growing fast too. So there's two dynamics at play here. How do people do this? What's the playbook? Because I think that's really key, easy to get in. And then once you're in, you can level up fast at your own pace to ride the wave. And then there's new stuff coming. I mean, every re:Invent there's 5,000 announcements. So it's like zillion new things and AI taught now. >> re:Invent is a perfect example of that ongoing imposter syndrome or confidence check for all of us. I think something that that Jenni said too is we really try and meet learners where they are and make sure that we have the support, whether it's accessibility requirements or we have the content that is built for the age that we're talking to, or we have a workforce development program called re/Start that is for people that have very little tech experience and really want to talk about a career in cloud, but they need a little bit more handholding. They need a combination of instructor-led and digital. But then we have AWS educators, I mentioned. If you want to be more self-directed, all of these tools are intended to work well together and to be complimentary and to take you on a journey as a learner. And the more skills you have, the more you increase your knowledge, the more you can take on more. But meeting folks where they are with a variety of programs, tools, languages, and accessibility really helps ensure that we can do that for learners throughout the world. >> That's awesome. Let's get into it. Let's get into the roadmaps of people and their personas. And you guys can share the programs that you have and where people could fit in. 'Cause this comes up a lot when I talk to folks. There's the young person who's I'm a gamer or whatever, I want to get a job. I'm in high school or an elementary or I want to tinker around or I'm in college or I'm learning, I'm an entry level kind of entry. Then you have the re-skilling. I'm going to change my careers, I'm kind of bored, I want to do something compelling. How do I get into the cloud game? And then the advanced re-skill is I want to get into cyber and AI and then there's other. Could you break down? Did I get that right or did I miss anything? And then what's available for those kind of lanes? So those persona lanes? >> Well, let's see, I could start with maybe the high schooler stuff and then we can bring Jenni in as well. I would say a great place to start for anyone is aws.amazon.com/training. That's going to give them the full suite of options that they could take on. If you're in high school, you can go onto AWS Educate. All you need is an email. And if you're 13 years and older, you can start exploring the types of jobs that are available in the cloud and you could start taking some introductory classes. You can do some of those labs in a safe environment that Jenni mentioned. That's a great place to start. If you are in an environment where you have an educator that is willing to go on this with you, this journey with you, we have this AWS GetIT program that is, again, educator-led. So it's an afterschool or it's an a program where we match mentors and students up with cloud professionals and they do some real-time experimentation. They build an app, they work on things together, and do a presentation at the end. The other thing I would say too is that if you are in a university, I would double check and see if the AWS Academy curriculum is already in your university. And if so, explore some of those classes there. We have instructor-led, educator-ready. course curriculum that we've designed that help people get to those certifications and get closer to those jobs and as well as hopefully then lead people right into skill builder and all the things that Jenni talked about to help them as they start out in a professional environment. >> So is the GetIT, is that an instructor-led that the person has to find someone for? Or is this available for them? >> It is through teachers. It's through educators. We are in, we've reached over 19,000 students. We're available in eight countries. There are ways for educators to lead this, but we want to make sure that we are helping the kids be successful and giving them an educator environment to do that. If they want to do it on their own, then they can absolutely go through AWS Educate or even and to explore where they want to get started. >> So what about someone who's educated in their middle of their career, might want to switch from being a biologist to a cloud cybersecurity guru or a cloud native operator? >> Yeah, so in that case, AWS re/Start is one of the great program for them to explore. We run that program with collaborating organizations in 160 cities in 80 countries throughout the world. That is a multi-week cohort-based program where we do take folks through a very clear path towards certification and job skilling that will help them get into those opportunities. Over 98% of the cohorts, the graduates of those cohorts get an interview and are hopefully on their path to getting a job. So that really has global reach. The partnership with collaborating organizations helps us ensure that we find communities that are often unreached by cloud skills training and we really work to keep a diverse focus on those cohorts and bring those folks into the cloud. >> Okay. Jenni, you've got the Skill Builder action here. What's going on on your side? Because you must have to manage all the change. I mean, AI is hot right now. I'm sure you're cranking away on curriculum and content for SageMaker, large language models, computer vision, cybersecurity. >> We do. There are a lot of options. >> How is your world? Tell us about what people can take out of way from your side. >> Yeah. So a great way to think about it is if they're already out in the workforce or they're entering the workforce, but they are technical, have technical skills is what are the roles that are interesting in the technologies that are interesting. Because the way we put out our training and our certifications is aligned to paths. So if you're look interested in a specific role. If you're interested in architecting a cloud environment or in security as you mentioned, and you want to go deep in security, there are AWS certifications that give you that. If you achieve them, they're very difficult. But if you work to them and achieve them, they give you the credential that you can take to an employer and say, "Look, I can do this job." And they are in very high demand. In fact that's where if you look at some of the publications that have come out, they talk about, what are people making if they have different certifications? What are the most in-demand certifications that are out there? And those are what help people get jobs. And so you identify what is that role or that technology area I want to learn. And then you have multiple options for how you build those skills depending on how you want to learn. And again, that's really our focus, is on providing experiences based on how people learn and making it accessible to them. 'Cause not everybody wants to learn in the same way. And so there is AWS Skill Builder where people can go learn on their own that is really great particularly for people who maybe are already working and have to learn in the evenings, on the weekends. People who like to learn at their own pace, who just want to be hands-on, but are self-starters. And they can get those whole learning plans through there all the way aligned to the certification and then they can go get their certification. There's also classroom training. So a lot of people maybe want to do continuous learning through an online, but want to go really deep with an expert in the room and maybe have a more focused period of time if they can go for a couple days. And so they can do classroom training. We provide a lot of classroom training. We have partners all over the globe who provide classroom training. And so there's that and what we find to be the most powerful is when you couple the two. If you can really get deep, you have an expert, you can ask questions, but first before you go do that, you get some of that foundational that you've kind of learned on your own. And then after you go back and reinforce, you go back online, you try out things that maybe you learned in the classroom, but you didn't quite, you hadn't used it enough yet to quite know how to do it. Now you can go back and actually use it, experiment and play around. And so we really encourage that kind of, figure out what are some areas you're interested in, go learn it and then go get a job and continue to learn because then once you learn that first area, you start to build confidence in it. Suddenly other areas become interesting. 'Cause as you said, cloud is changing fast. And once you learn a space, first of all you have to keep going back to stay up on it as it changes. But you quickly find that there are other areas that are really interesting too. >> I've observed that the training side, it's just like cloud itself, it's very agile. You can get hands-on quickly, you don't need to take a class, and then get in weeks later. You're in it like it's real time. So you're immersed in gamification and all kinds of ways to funnel into the either advanced tracks and certification. So you guys do a great job and I want to give you props for that and a shout out. The question I have for you guys is can you scope the opportunity for these certifications and opportunities for women in particular? What are some of the top jobs pulling down? Scope out the opportunity because I think when people hear that they really fall out of their chair, they go, "Wow, I didn't know I could make $200,000 doing cybersecurity." Well, yeah or maybe more. I just made the number, I don't actually know, but like I know people do make that much in cyber, but there are huge financial opportunities with certifications and education. Can you scope that order of magnitude? Can you share any data? >> Yeah, so in the US they certainly are. Certifications on average aligned to six digit type jobs. And if you go out and do a search, there are research studies out there that are refreshed every year that say what are the top IT industry certifications and how much money do they make? And the reason I don't put a number out there is because it's constantly changing and in fact it keeps going up, >> It's going up, not going down. >> But I would encourage people to do that quick search. What are the top IT industry certifications. Again, based on the country you're in, it makes a difference. But if you're US, there's a lot of data out there for the US and then there is some for other countries as well around how much on average people make. >> Do you list like the higher level certifications, stack rank them in terms of order? Like say, I'm a type A personnel, I want to climb Mount Everest, I want to get the highest level certification. How do I know that? Is it like laddered up or is like how do you guys present that? >> Yeah, so we have different types of certifications. There is a foundational, which we call the cloud practitioner. That one is more about just showing that you know something about cloud. It's not aligned to a specific job role. But then we have what we call associate level certifications, which are aligned to roles. So there's the solutions architect, cloud developer, so developer operations. And so you can tell by the role and associate is kind of that next level. And then the roles often have a professional level, which is even more advanced. And basically that's saying you're kind of an Uber expert at that point. And then there are technology specialties, which are less about a specific role, although some would argue a security technology specialty might align very well to a security role, but they're more about showing the technology. And so typically, it goes foundational, advanced, professional, and then the specialties are more on the side. They're not aligned, but they're deep. They're deep within that area. >> So you can go dig and pick your deep dive and jump into where you're comfortable. Heather, talk about the commitment in terms of dollars. I know Amazon's flaunted some numbers like 30 million or something, people they want to have trained, hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. This is key, obviously, more people trained on cloud, more operators, more cloud usage, obviously. I see the business connection. What's the women relationship to the numbers? Or what the experience is? How do you guys see that? Obviously International Women's Day, get the confidence, got the curiosity. You're a builder, you're in. It's that easy. >> It doesn't always feel that way, I'm sure to everybody, but we'd like to think that it is. Amazon and AWS do invest hundreds of millions of dollars in free training every year that is accessible to everyone out there. I think that sometimes the hardest obstacles to get overcome are getting started and we try and make it as easy as possible to get started with the tools that we've talked about already today. We run into plenty of cohorts of women as part of our re/Start program that are really grateful for the opportunity to see something, see a new way of thinking, see a new opportunity for them. We don't necessarily break out our funding by women versus men. We want to make sure that we are open and diverse for everybody to come in and get the training that they need to. But we definitely want to make sure that we are accessible and available to women and all genders outside of the US and inside the US. >> Well, I know the number's a lot lower than they should be and that's obviously why we're promoting this heavily. There's a lot more interest I see in tech. So digital transformation is gender neutral. I mean, it's like the world eats software and uses software, uses the cloud. So it has to get 50/50 in my opinion. So you guys do a great job. Now that we're done kind of promoting Amazon, which I wanted to do 'cause I think it's super important. Let's talk about you guys. What got you guys involved in tech? What was the inspiration and share some stories about your experiences and advice for folks watching? >> So I've always been in traditionally male dominated roles. I actually started in aviation and then moved to tech. And what I found was I got a mentor early on, a woman who was senior to me and who was kind of who I saw as the smartest person out there. She was incredibly smart, she was incredibly kind, and she was always lifting women up. And I kind of latched onto her and followed her around and she was such an amazing mentor. She brought me from throughout tech, from company to company, job to job, was always positioning me in front of other people as the go-to person. And I realized, "Wow, I want to be like her." And so that's been my focus as well in tech is you can be deeply technical in tech or you can be not deeply technical and be in tech and you can be successful both ways, but the way you're going to be most successful is if you find other people, build them up and help put them out in front. And so I personally love to mentor women and to put them in places where they can feel comfortable being out in front of people. And that's really been my career. I have tried to model her approach as much as I can. >> That's a really interesting observation. It's the pattern we've been seeing in all these interviews for the past two years of doing the International Women's Day is that networking, mentoring and sponsorship are one thing. So it's all one thing. It's not just mentoring. It's like people think, "Oh, just mentoring. What does that mean? Advice?" No, it's sponsorship, it's lifting people up, creating a keiretsu, creating networks. Really important. Heather, what's your experience? >> Yeah, I'm sort of the example of somebody who never thought they'd be in tech, but I happened to graduate from college in the Silicon Valley in the early nineties and next thing you know, it's more than a couple years later and I'm deeply in tech and I think it when we were having the conversation about confidence and willingness to learn and try that really spoke to me as well. I think I had to get out of my own way sometimes and just be willing to not be the smartest person in the room and just be willing to ask a lot of questions. And with every opportunity to ask questions, I think somebody, I ended up with good mentors, male and female, that saw the willingness to ask questions and the willingness to be humble in my approach to learning. And that really helped. I'm also very aware that nobody's journey is the same and I need to create an environment on my team and I need to be a role model within AWS and Amazon for allowing people to show up in the way that they're going to be most successful. And sometimes that will mean giving them learning opportunities. Sometimes that will be hooking them up with a mentor. Sometimes that will be giving them the freedom to do what they need for their family or their personal life. And modeling that behavior regardless of gender has always been how I choose to show up and what I ask my leaders to do. And the more we can do that, I've seen the team been able to grow and flourish in that way and support our entire team. >> I love that story. You also have a great leader, Maureen Lonergan, who I've met many conversations with, but also it starts at the top. Andy Jassy who can come across, he's kind of technical, he's dirty, he's a builder mentality. He has first principles and you're bringing up this first principles concept and whether that's passing it forward, what you've learned, having first principles helps in an organization. Can you guys talk about what that's like at your company? 'Cause everyone's different. And sometimes whether, and I sometimes I worry about what I say, but I also have my first principles. So talk about how principles matter in how you guys interface with others and letting people be their authentic self. >> Yeah, I'll jump in Jenni and then you can. The Amazon leadership principles are super important to how we interact with each other and it really does provide a set of guidelines for how we work with each other and how we work for our customers and with our partners. But most of all it gives us a common language and a common set of expectations. And I will be honest, they're not always easy. When you come from an environment that tends to be less open to feedback and less open to direct conversations than you find at Amazon, it could take a while to get used to that, but for me at least, it was extremely empowering to have those tools and those principles as guidance for how to operate and to gain the confidence in using them. I've also been able to participate in hundreds and hundreds of interviews in the time that I've been here as part of an interview team of bar raisers. I think that really helps us understand whether or not folks are going to be successful at AWS and at Amazon and helps them understand if they're going to be able to be successful. >> Bar raising is an Amazon term and it's gender neutral, right Jenni? >> It is gender neutral. >> Bar is a bar, it raises. >> That's right. And it's funny, we say that our culture here is peculiar. And when I started, I had been in consulting for several years, so I worked with a lot of different companies in tech and so I thought I'd seen everything and I came here and I went, "Hmm." I see what they mean by peculiar. It is very different environment. >> In the fullness of time, it'll all work out. >> That's right, that's right. Well and it's funny because when you first started, it's a lot to figure out to how to operate in an environment where people do use a 16 leadership principles. I've worked at a lot of companies with three or four core values and nobody can state those. We could state all 16 leadership principles and we use them in our regular everyday dialogue. That is an awkward thing when you first come to have people saying, "Oh, I'm going to use bias for action in this situation and I'm going to go move fast. And they're actually used in everyday conversations. But after a couple years suddenly you realize, "Oh, I'm doing that." And maybe even sometimes at the dinner table I'm doing that, which can get to be a bit much. But it creates an environment where we can all be different. We can all think differently. We can all have different ways of doing things, but we have a common overall approach to what we're trying to achieve. And that's really, it gives us a good framework for that. >> Jenni, it's great insight. Heather, thank you so much for sharing your stories. We're going to do this not once a year. We're going to continue this Women in Tech program every quarter. We'll check in with you guys and find out what's new. And thank you for what you do. We appreciate that getting the word out and really is an opportunity for everyone with education and cloud and it's only going to get more opportunities at the edge in AI and so much more tech. Thank you for coming on the program. >> Thank you for having us. >> Thanks, John. >> Thank you. That's the International Women's Day segment here with leaders from AWS. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. (upbeat musiC)

>>from around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of AWS Public sector online brought to you by Amazon Web services. >>Everyone welcome back to the Cube's coverage of AWS Public sector summit. Virtual, of course, is the Cube virtual. We're here sheltered in place in our quarantine studio. I'm John Furrier, host of the Cube. Got a great guest here? Cube Alumni. Can Eisner, Who's the director of worldwide education programs for AWS Amazon Web services? Ken, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. This could be a great segment. Looking forward to chatting. >>Thanks so much, John. Great to talk to you again. >>You know, I'll say, Cube Virtual public sector summit Virtual. We've been virtualized as a society. I'll see the pandemic and all the things that is going on around has been pretty crazy. And one of the things that's most notable is the impact on Education. New York Times This morning and many published reports around the impact College education. Not only economics on the campus aside, the state of the people in the society and Covert 19 is pushed schooling online for the foreseeable future. What's your reaction is you're in charge you've done a lot of work on the foundational level to get Amazon educational programs out there. Take a minute to explain how how this has impacted you guys and your ability to bring that educational stuff to the to the foreseeable future. >>Yeah, the first thing I'd say is this This truly is an absolutely unprecedented time There. Move from virtual instruction. Excuse me from in person classroom instruction into the virtual world at such amazing scale, rapidity is something that educational institutions weren't ready for that couldn't be ready for at this time. We had to enter it with amazing lump levels of empathy for what was going on on the ground in K 12 schools and higher ed schools with our educational technology and publisher providers. So I think the first thing was we had or for the speed at which it happened, we did have to step back and look at what was going on. There are some changes that are happening in the immediacy, and there are some things that Corbett, 19 is has sped educational institutions around the world to look at. An AWS is working with those K 12 providers, higher educational providers teachers and so on on that switch, whether it's providing infrastructure that move into online learning, helping teachers as they prepare for this sort of new normal you some of examples of what has happen. We've been working with the University of Arizona. Help them stand up contact centers with the onset of of cove it and students and teachers. It's being pushed into their home environment or into virtual environments to give instruction to receive instruction. There have been a lot of calls that happen in virtual environments to staff to help them support this. And so we stood up with the University of Arizona and Amazon Amazon Connect help staff provide mobile solutions through the cell phone or computer for for students. >>I want to get your thoughts. Absolutely. I talked to Andy Jassy about this as well as well about agility. This is the Amazon wheelhouse, and you guys have gone into the I T world now developers. You went cloud native, you in that market. He won the enterprise I t market. But the reason why is that you took an old school outdated, antiquated system of I t and made it agile. That seems enough This is the country with Teresa and Andy about education in public sector. The modernization is happening, but there's also the triage and you guys have to do now in terms of getting people online. So what specifically are you doing to help education customers continue their instruction online? Because they still got to execute. They still need to provide this discussion around the fall window Coming up. You got to have the foundational things. I know you've done that, but it is hard. So what's the downstream triage when you come out of this mode of Okay, here you go. And how do you get people set up and then how they transform and re invent? >>Yeah, at this time, the disaster recovery from how do you get in that phase one with this immediate move was so prominent. And we're trying to work through that phase one and sort into sort of phase two delivery of education, which is you're moving with scale moving with agility into this world, speed and agility are really going to be the new normal for education. There were some advances that just weren't happening quick enough. Students should always have access to 24 7 learning, um, and access into that mobile arena. And they weren't having that several things that we did was we looked at our infrastructure were some of those key infrastructure elements that helped with both learning and work remotely. There were things such as Amazon, your work Doc's, which enables thieves virtual our workspaces, which enable virtual desktop environments, and appstream, which enables it APs to be streamed through virtual arena onto your removal or your desktop. Yeah, Amazon connect as I. As I mentioned before, there were services that were vital in helping speed into the cloud that was quick burst into the cloud. And so we enabled some of those services to have special promotional free rates or a given time period, and we have actually now extended that offer a into the fall into September 30th. So first we have to help people really quickly with educators. So I run this program AWS Educate, which is Amazon's global program. To provide students and educators around the world with resource is needed, help them get into cloud learning. But what we saw was that teachers around the world we're not prepared for this massive shift what we did to help that preparedness is we looked at our educators. We found that we did a survey over the weekend and found that 68% of them had significant experience or enough experience in teaching distance or online virtual education, too. Potentially leverage that for other educators around the world. So we and the other thing is teachers are really eager to help other teachers in this move, especially as they saw and they empathize with With her was the panic. Our confusion are best practices and moving into that online arena. So we saw both that they had that experience in a mass willingness to help other people, and we immediately spun up a Siri's of educator and educator help tools, whether it was a Morris Valadez are No a gift, and Doug Berman providing webinars and office hours for other educators around the world. We also did a separate tech talks offering for students. So there were there was the helping scale, whether it's getting blackboard as they ramped up to over 50 x of their normal load in 24 hours to help them deliver on that scale, whether it waas the Egyptian ministry that was trying to had to understand. How could they help students access the information that they need it in speed? And they worked with thinkI, which is a net educational technology provider, to provide access to 22 million students who needed to get access online or whether it was the educator mobilization initiative that we ran. Threat US of AWS Educate Helps Teachers have the resource is that they need it with the speed that they needed to get online. This is we are working. We're learning from our customers. As this happens, this is a moving target. But when I move from this immediacy of pushing people into the virtual space into what's gonna happen this summer, as students need toe recapture, learning that they might have lost in the spring are depending where you are worldwide. There's getting to your point all K 12 higher ed and educational technology providers into the position where they can act with that agility and speed. And it's also helping those educators as they go through this. We're learning from our customers every day. >>Yeah, I want to get into those some of those lessons, but one of things that will say, You know, I'm really bullish about what you do. Getting cloud education, I think, is going to change the literacy and also job opportunities out there. I'm a huge believer that public sector is the next growth wave, just like I t was. And it's almost the same movie, right? You have inadequate systems. It's all outdated. You need these workloads, need to run and then run effectively, which you guys have done. But the interesting thing with Cove it is it essentially exposes the scabs and the uh out there because, you know, online has been an augmentation to the physical space. So when you pull that back, people like me go, wait a minute. I have kids. I'm trying to understand their learning impact. Everyone sees it now. It's almost like it's exposed. Whether it's under provisioned VP ends or black boys networking and everyone's pointing their fingers. It's your fault and its the end. So you brought this up. There's now stakeholders whose jobs depend upon something that's now primary that wasn't primary before. Whether it's the presenter, the content presented the teacher certainly high availability. I t. Um >>all these things >>are just under huge pressure. So I gotta ask you, what are the key lessons and learnings that you have seen over the past few months that you could share because people are shell shocked and they're trying to move faster? >>Yeah. So first of all is speed and agility and education are the new normal. They should have been here for a while. They need to be here now when you've got a 30 year textbook, your ruling over education when students need to get the skills of tomorrow. Today we need to be adapting quickly in order to give those students the skills to give educational institution those opportunities. Every institution needs to be enable virtual education. Every institution needs to have disaster recovery solutions and they weren't in place. These solutions need to be comprehensive. Students need access to devices. Teachers need access to professional development. We need contact centers. We worked with Los Angeles Unified School District not just to stand up a contact center, which we did with yeah, Amazon connect. But we also connected their high school seniors too, with headphones. I think we provide 132,000 students with headphones. We are helping to source with through our Amazon business relationship devices for everybody. Every student needs access in their home. Every student needs access to great learning and they needed on demand. Teachers need that readiness. I think the other thing that's happening is the whole world is again speeding through changes that probably should have happened to the system already that virtual learning is vital. Another thing that's vital is lifelong learning. We're finding that and we probably should have already seen. This is everybody needs to be a student throughout their entire life, and they need to be streaming in and out of education. The only way that this could be properly done is through virtual environments through the cloud and through an access to on demand learning. We believe that this that the work that's being done I was actually talking to some people in Australia the other day and they're saying, You know, the government is moving away from degree centrist city and moving into a more modular stackable education. We've been building AWS educate to stack to the job to stack to careers, and that type of move into education, I think, is also being spent So were you were seeing the that move Apple absolutely accelerate. We're also seeing the need to accelerate the speed to research. Obviously with what's going on going on with Kobe 19 there is a need for tools to connect our researchers two cures to diagnostic, um, opportunities. We worked with the University of British Columbia, Vancouver General Hospital and the Vancouver I Get this thing, the Vancouver Coastal Health Research UNE Institute to develop to use Amazon sage maker to speed ai diagnostic tool so that pushed towards research is absolutely vital as well. We just announced a $20 million investment in helping you speak that that research to market so education needs to operate at scale education needs to operate at speed, and education needs to deliver to a changing customer. And we've got to be partners on that journey. >>And I think I would just add reinvent a word. You guys name your conference after every year. This is a re invention opportunity. Clearly, um, and you know, I was talking to some other parents is like, I'm not going to send my kids to school online learning for zoom interview, zoom, zoom, zoom classes. I'm like, Hey, you know, get a cloud data engineering degree from Amazon educate because they'll have a job like that. Once you put on linked in the job skills are out there. The jobs are needed. Skills aren't so. I got to ask you, you know, with this whole re Skilling, whether it's a Gap year student in between semesters, while this takes care of our up Skilling people on the job, this is huge world economic form said by 2020 half of the employees will need to be re skilled up skilled. This is a huge impact and even more focus with covert 19. >>That's absolutely correct. Yeah, I think one thing that's happening is we're cloud computing has been the number one Lincoln skill for the past four or five years. The the skill. Whether it's software development in the cloud cloud architecture, your data world, our cyber security and other operational rules, those are going to be in the most demand. Those are the skills that are growing. We need to be able prepare people for rules in technology. The lifelong worker, the re skill up skill opportunities, absolutely vital Gap year is going to be available for some students. But we also got a look at you know how the this that how covert 19 can accelerate gaps between students. Every student needs access to high quality education. Every teacher needs to be equipped with the latest professional development. We've got focused like a laser, not just on. The people could afford a gap. Here are the people who who are going to be some schools who actually had solutions that could immediately push there kids into their their youth, their students in college or even employees. You need those re skills. We're all home. But it also needs to extend into the middle of the middle of Los Angeles and and you're into low income students. And in Egypt, I was really excited. We we've been working with Northern Virginia community colleges as I think you know, they were one of the lead institutions. On launching an associate degree in the cloud, they took their courses and offer what they call a jump year to 70,000 high school senior. Our high school students in Northern Virginia in the northern Virginia area, including enabling some of our cloud computing horses, are the work courses that we worked on with them to the students. So yeah, those new partnerships, that extension of college into high school and college into re skill up skills, absolutely vital. But institutions need to be able to move fast with the tools that the cloud provides you into those arena. >>Well, you know, I think you've got a really hard job to do there. It's foundational in love, what you're doing and you know me. I've been harping people who watch the Cube know that I'm always chirping and talking about how the learning is non linear. It's horizontally scalable. There's different application. You can have an application for education. It's a Siri's of different things. The workload of learning is completely different. I think to me what you guys are doing right now setting that basics foundation infrastructure. It's like the E. C two s three model. Then you got more on top of it platform, and I think ultimately the creativity is going to come from the marketplace. Whoever can build those workloads in a very agile, scalable way to meet the needs, because, let's face it, it can't be boring. Education is gonna be robust, resilient and got to deliver the payload and that's gonna be customized applications that have yet to be invented. Reinvented >>absolutely. Hopefully were jump starting that next wave of innovation spreading the opportunities Teoh all students. Hopefully we are really looking at those endemic issues and education and following leaders like University of Arizona. What the Ministry of Education, um in in Egypt has done and Northern Virginia community. Hopefully we are really taking this the opportunity of this disaster to invent on behalf of our students. Bring in you forward to the 21st century as opposed to yeah, just looking at this naval gazing way we do wrong and the past. This is an exciting opportunity, albeit a obviously scary one is we're all dealing with this with this and >>there's no doubt once we've retrenching and get some solid ground postcode 19. It's a reinvention and a reimagine growth market opportunity because you got changing technology, changing economics and changing expectations and experiences that are needed. These are three major things going down right now. >>Absolutely, absolutely. And to your point, the retraining of workers, the up skill that the great thing is that governments realize this imperative as do educational institutions and obviously yet students. This is, and we seem like what educators can do when they want to help. Yeah, other educators, this is This is an opportunity in our society to really look at every everybody is a constant learner were a constant learning from our customers. But everybody, there is no end to education. It cannot be terminal. And this is an opportunity to really provide the students learners with skills that they need in an on demand fashion at all times and re think re innovate, reinvent the way we look at education in general. >>Well, a man, Jeff Bezos says Day one. It's a new day, one, right? So you know that there is going to reinvent Ken. You doing great work. Director of worldwide education programs Ken Eisner with Amazon Web services, Certifications and degrees and cloud computing will be the norm. It's gonna happen again. If you're a cloud data engineer. Data says you're going to get a job. I mean, no doubt about it. So thanks so much for sharing your insights. Really appreciate it. Thank you, >>John. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. >>Can guys They're here Inside the Cube. Virtual coverage of AWS Public sector Online Summit. We've been virtualized. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. Yeah, >>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>>long from Las Vegas. It's the Q covering a ws re invent 2019. Brought to you by Amazon Web service is and in along with its ecosystem partners. >>Welcome back to the Cube. Here live in Las Vegas for aws reinvent I'm John for a devil on the ads, always extracting the signal from the noise. We're here for 1/7 reinvent of the eight years that they've had at what a wave. One of the biggest waves is the modernization of procurement, the modernization of business, commercial business and the rapid acceleration of public sector. We're here with the chief of public sector for AWS. Teresa Carlson, vice president publics that globally great to have you >>so great to have the Q begin this year. We appreciate you being here, >>so we're just seeing so much acceleration of modernization. Even in the commercial side, 80 talks about transformation. It's just a hard core on the public sector side. You have so many different areas transforming faster because they haven't transformed before. That's correct. This is a lot of change. What's changed the most for you in your business? >>Well, again, I'll be here 10 years this mad that A B s and my eighth reinvent, and what really changed, which was very exciting this year, is on Monday. We had 550 international government executives here from 40 countries who were talking about their modernization efforts at every level. Now again, think about that. 40 different governments, 550 executives. We had a fantastic day for them planned. It was really phenomenal because the way that these international governments or think about their budget, how much are they going to use that for maintaining? And they want to get that lesson last. Beckett for Modernization The Thin John It's a Beckett for innovation so that they continue not only modernized, but they're really looking at innovation cycles. So that's a big one. And then you heard from somewhere customers at the breakfast this morning morning from from a T. F. As part of the Department of Justice. What they're doing out. I'll call to back on firearms. They completely made you the cloud. They got rid of 20 years of technical debt thio the Veterans Administration on what they're digging for V A benefits to educational institutions like our mighty >>nose, and he had on stages Kino, Cerner, which the health care companies and what struck me about that? I think it relates to your because I want to get your reaction is that the health care is such an acute example that everyone can relate to rising costs. So cloud helping reduce costs increase the efficiencies and patient care is a triple win. The same thing happens in public sector. There's no place to hide anymore. You have a bona fide efficiencies that could come right out of the gate with cloud plus innovation. And it's happening in all the sectors within the public sector. >>So true. Well, Cerner is a great example because they won the award at V a Veteran's administration to do the whole entire medical records modernization. So you have a company on stage that's commercial as I met, commercial as they are public sector that are going into these large modernization efforts. And as you sit on these air, not easy. This takes focus and leadership and a real culture change to make these things happen. >>You know, the international expansion is impressive. We saw each other in London. We did the health care drill down at your office is, of course, a national health. And then you guys were in Bahrain, and what I deserve is it's not like these organizations. They're way behind. I mean, especially the ones that it moved to. The clouds are moving really fast. So well, >>they don't have as much technical debt internationally. It's what we see here in the U. S. So, like I was just in Africa and you know what we talked about digitizing paper. Well, there's no technology on that >>end >>there. It's kind of exciting because they can literally start from square one and get going. And there's a really hunger and the need to make that happen. So it's different for every country in terms of where they are in their cloud journey. >>So I want to ask you about some of the big deals. I'll see Jet eyes in the news, and you can't talk about it because it's in protest and little legal issues. But you have a lot of big deals that you've done. You share some color commentary on from the big deals and what it really means. >>Yeah, well, first of all, let me just say with Department of Defense, Jet are no jet. I We have a very significant business, you know, doing work at every part of different defense. Army, Navy, Air Force in the intelligence community who has a mission for d o d terminus a t o N g eight in a row on And we are not slowing down in D. O d. We had, like, 250 people at a breakfast. Are Lantian yesterday giving ideas on what they're doing and sharing best practices around the fence. So we're not slowing down in D. O d. We're really excited. We have amazing partners. They're doing mission work with us. But in terms of some really kind of fend, things have happened. We did a press announcement today with Finn Rat, the financial regulatory authority here in the U. S. That regulates markets at this is the largest financial transactions you'll ever see being processed and run on the cloud. And the program is called Cat Consolidated Audit Trail. And if you remember the flash crash and the markets kind of going crazy from 2000 day in 2008 when it started, Finneran's started on a journey to try to understand why these market events were happening, and now they have once have been called CAT, which will do more than 100 billion market points a day that will be processed on the cloud. And this is what we know of right now, and they'll be looking for indicators of nefarious behavior within the markets. And we'll look for indicators on a continuous basis. Now what? We've talked about it. We don't even know what we don't know yet because we're getting so much data, we're going to start processing and crunching coming out of all kinds of groups that they're working with, that this is an important point even for Finn rep. They're gonna be retiring technical debt that they have. So they roll out Cat. They'll be retiring other systems, like oats and other programs that they >>just say so that flash crash is really important. Consolidated, honest, because the flash crash, we'll chalk it up to a glitch in the system. Translation. We don't really know what happened. Soto have a consolidated auto trail and having the data and the capabilities, I understand it is really, really important for transparency and confidence in the >>huge and by the way, thinner has been working with us since 2014. They're one of our best partners and are prolific users of the cloud. And I will tell you it's important that we have industries like thin red regulatory authorities, that air going in and saying, Look, we couldn't possibly do what we're doing without cloud computing. >>Tell me about the technical debt because I like this conversation is that we talk about in the commercial side and developer kind of thinking. Most businesses start ups, Whatever. What is technical debt meet in public sector? Can you be specific? >>Well, it's years and years of legacy applications that never had any modernization associated with them in public sector. You know now, because you've talked about these procurement, your very best of your very savvy now public sector >>like 1995 >>not for the faint of heart, for sure that when you do procurement over the years when they would do something they wouldn't build in at new innovations or modernizations. So if you think about if you build a data center today a traditional data center, it's outdated. Tomorrow, the same thing with the procurement. By the time that they delivered on those requirements. They were outdated. So technical debt then has been built up years of on years of not modernizing, just kind of maintaining a status quo with no new insides or analytics. You couldn't add any new tooling. So that is where you see agencies like a T F. That has said, Wow, if I'm gonna if I'm gonna have a modern agency that tracks things like forensics understands the machine learning of what's happening in justice and public safety, I need to have the most modern tools. And I can't do that on an outdated system. So that's what we kind of call technical death that just maintains that system without having anything new that you're adding to >>their capabilities lag. Everything's products bad. Okay, great. Thanks for definite. I gotta ask you about something that's near and dear to our heart collaboration. If you look at the big successes in the world and within Amazon Quantum Caltex partnering on the quantum side, you've done a lot of collaboration with Cal Cal Poly for ground station Amazon Educate. You've been very collaborative in your business, and that's a continuing to be a best practice you have now new things like the cloud innovation centers. Talk about that dynamic and how collaboration has become an important part of your business model. >>What we use their own principles from Amazon. We got building things in our plan. Innovation centers. We start out piloting those two to see, Could they work? And it's really a public private partnership between eight MPs and universities, but its universities that really want to do something. And Cal Poly's a great example. Arizona State University A great example. The number one most innovative university in the US for like, four years in a row. And what we do is we go in and we do these public sector challenges. So the collaboration happens. John, between the public sector Entity, university with students and us, and what we bring to the table is technical talent, air technology and our mechanisms and processes, like they're working backwards processes, and they were like, We want you to bring your best and brightest students. Let's bring public sector in the bowl. They bring challenges there, riel that we can take on, and then they can go back and absorb, and they're pretty exciting. I today I talked about we have over 44 today that we've documented were working at Cal Poly. The one in Arizona State University is about smart cities. And then you heard We're announcing new ones. We've got two in France, one in Germany now, one that we're doing on cybersecurity with our mighty in Australia to be sitting bata rain. So you're going to see us Add a lot more of these and we're getting the results out of them. So you know we won't do if we don't like him. But right now we really like these partnerships. >>Results are looking good. What's going on with >>you? All right. And I'll tell you why. That why they're different, where we are taking on riel public sector issues and challenges that are happening, they're not kind of pie in the sky. We might get there because those are good things to do. But what we want to do is let's tackle things that are really homelessness, opioid crisis, human sex trafficking, that we're seeing things that are really in these communities and those air kind of grand. But then we're taking on areas like farming where we talked about Can we get strawberries rotting on the vine out of the field into the market before you lose billions of dollars in California. So it's things like that that were so its challenges that are quick and riel. And the thing about Cloud is you can create an application and solution and test it out very rapidly without high cost of doing that. No technical Dan, >>you mentioned Smart Cities. I just attended a session. Marty Walsh, the mayor of Boston's, got this 50 50 years smart city plan, and it's pretty impressive, but it's a heavy lift. So what do you see going on in smart cities? And you really can't do it without the cloud, which was kind of my big input cloud. Where's the data? What do you say, >>cloud? I O. T is a big part at these. All the centers that Andy talked about yesterday in his keynote and why the five G partnerships are so important. These centers, they're gonna be everywhere, and you don't even know they really exist because they could be everywhere. And if you have the five G capabilities to move those communications really fast and crypt them so you have all the security you need. This is game changing, but I'll give you an example. I'll go back to the kids for a minute at at Arizona State University, they put Io TI centers everywhere. They no traffic patterns. Have any parking slots? Airfield What Utilities of water, if they're trash bins are being filled at number of seats that are being taken up in stadiums. So it's things like that that they're really working to understand. What are the dynamics of their city and traffic flow around that smart city? And then they're adding things on for the students like Alexis skills. Where's all the activity? So you're adding all things like Alexa Abs, which go into a smart city kind of dynamic. We're not shop. Where's the best activities for about books, for about clothes? What's the pizza on sale tonight? So on and then two things like you saw today on Singapore, where they're taking data from all different elements of agencies and presenting that bad to citizen from their child as example Day one of a birth even before, where's all the service is what I do? How do I track these things? How do I navigate my city? to get all those service is the same. One can find this guy things they're not. They're really and they're actually happening. >>Seems like they're instrumented a lot of the components of the city learning from that and then deciding. Okay, where do we double down on where do we place? >>You're making it Every resilient government, a resilient town. I mean, these were the things that citizens can really help take intro Web and have a voice in doing >>threes. I want to say congratulations to your success. I know it's not for the faint of heart in the public sector of these days, a lot of blockers, a lot of politics, a lot of government lockers and the old procurement system technical debt. I mean, Windows 95 is probably still in a bunch of PCs and 50 45 fighters. 15 fighters. Oh, you've got a great job. You've been doing a great job and riding that wave. So congratulations. >>Well, I'll just say it's worth it. It is worth it. We are committed to public sector, and we really want to see everyone from our war fighters. Are citizens have the capabilities they need. So >>you know, you know that we're very passionate this year about going in the 2020 for the Cube and our audience to do a lot more tech for good programming. This'll is something that's near and dear to your heart as well. You have a chance to shape technology. >>Yes, well, today you saw we had a really amazing not for profit on stage with It's called Game Changer. And what we found with not for profits is that technology can be a game changer if they use it because it makes their mission dollars damage further. And they're an amazing father. And send a team that started game changer at. Taylor was in the hospital five years with terminal cancer, and he and his father, through these five years, kind of looked around. Look at all these Children what they need and they started. He is actually still here with us today, and now he's a young adult taking care of other young Children with cancer, using gaming technologies with their partner, twitch and eight MPs and helping analyze and understand what these young affected Children with cancer need, both that personally and academically and the tools he has He's helping really permit office and get back and it's really hard, Warren says. I was happy. My partner, Mike Level, who is my Gran's commercial sales in business, and I ran public Sector Day. We're honored to give them at a small token of our gift from A to B s to help support their efforts. >>Congratulates, We appreciate you coming on the Cube sharing the update on good luck into 2020. Great to see you 10 years at AWS day one. Still, >>it's day one. I feel like I started >>it like still, like 10 o'clock in the morning or like still a day it wasn't like >>I still wake up every day with the jump in my staff and excited about what I'm gonna do. And so I am. You know, I am really excited that we're doing and like Andy and I say we're just scratching the surface. >>You're a fighter. You are charging We love you, Great executive. You're the chief of public. Get a great job. Great, too. Follow you and ride the wave with Amazon and cover. You guys were documenting history. >>Yeah, exactly. We're in happy holidays to you all and help seeing our seventh and 20 >>so much. Okay, Cube coverage here live in Las Vegas. This is the cube coverage. Extracting the signals. Wanna shout out to eight of us? An intel for putting on the two sets without sponsorship, we wouldn't be able to support the mission of the Cube. I want to thank them. And thank you for watching with more after this short break.

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

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

>> from Seattle WASHINGTON. It's the Q covering AWS Imagine brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> Hey, welcome back, You're ready. Geoffrey here with the Cube were in Seattle, >> Washington downtown, right next to the convention center for the AWS. Imagine e d. You show. It's a second year of the show found by Andrew Cohen. His crew, part of Theresa's public sector group, really focused on education. Education means everything from K through 12 higher education and community college education, getting out of the military and retraining education. It's ah, it's a really huge category, and it's everything from, you know, getting the colleges to do a better job by being on cloud infrastructure, innovating and really thinking outside the box are really excited to have the man who's doing a lot of the work on the curriculum development in the education is Ken Eisner is the director of worldwide education programs for AWS. Educate can great to see you. Thank you so much for having absolutely nice shot out this morning by Theresa, she said. She just keeps asking you for more. So >> you want to deliver for Theresa? Carl says she is. She is a dynamo and she drives us >> all she does. So let's dive into it a little bit. So, you know, there was, Ah, great line that they played in the keynote with Andy talking about, You know, we cannot be protecting old institutions. We need to think about the kids is a story I hear all the time where somebody came from a time machine from 17 76 and landed here today. It wouldn't recognize how we talk, how we get around, but they would recognize one thing, and unfortunately, that's the school house down at the end of the block. So you guys are trying to change that. You're really trying to revolutionize what's happening in education, give us a little bit of background on some of the specific things that you're working on today. >> Yeah, I I think Andy, one of the things that he mentioned at that time was that education is really in a crisis on. We need to be inventing at a rapid rate. We need to show that invented simplify inside that occassion. Andi, he's incredibly, he's correct. The students are our customers, and we've got to be changing things for them. What we've been really excited to see is that with this giant growth in cloud computing A W S. It was the fastest I T vendor to ever hit $10,000,000,000 a year. The run rate We're now growing at a 42% or 41% year over year growth Ray and $31,000,000,000 a year Lee company. It's creating this giant cloud computing opportunity cloud computing in the number one Lincoln Skill for the past four years in Rome, when we look at that software development to cloud architecture to the data science and artificial intelligence and data analytics and cyber security rules. But we're not preparing kids for this. Market Gallop ran a study that that showed about 11% of business executives thought that students were prepared for their jobs. It's not working, It's gotta change. And the exciting thing that's happening right now is workforce development. Governments are really pushing for change in education, and it's starting to happen >> right? It's pretty amazing were here last year. The team last year was very much round the community college releases and the certification of the associate programs and trial down in Southern California, and this year. I've been surprised. We've had two guests on where it's the state governor has pushed these initiatives not at the district level, the city level, but from the state winning both Louisiana as well as Virginia. That's pretty amazing support to move in such an aggressive direction and really a new area. >> Yeah, I was actually just moderating a panel where we had Virginia, Louisiana, in California, all sitting down talking about that scaling statewide strategy. We had announcements from the entire CUNY and Sunni or City University of New York and State University of New York system to do both two and four year programs in Cloud Computing. And Louisiana announced it with their K 12 system, their community college system and their four year with Governor John Bel Edwards making the announcement two months ago. So right we are seeing this scaling consortium, a play where institutions are collaborating across themselves. They're collaborating vertically with your higher ed and K 12 and yet direct to the workforce because we need to be hiring people at such a rapid ray that we we need to be also putting a lot of skin in the game and that story that happened so again, I agree with Andy said. Education is at a crisis. But now we're starting to see change makers inside of education, making that move right. It's interesting. I wonder, >> you know, is it? Is it? I don't want to say second tier, that's the wrong word, but kind of what I'm thinking, you know, kind of these other institutions that the schools that don't necessarily have the super top in cachet, you know who are forced to be innovative, right? We're number two. We try harder. As they used to say in the in the Hertz commercial. Um, really a lot of creativity coming out of again the community colleges last year in L. A. Which I was, I was blown away, that kind of understand cause that specifically to skill people up to get a job. But now you're hearing it in much more kind of traditional institutions and doing really innovative things like the thing with the the Marines teaching active duty Marines about data science. >> Yeah, who came up with that idea that phenomenal Well, you know, data permeates every threat. It's not just impure data science, jobs and machine learning jobs. There's air brilliantly important, but it's also in marketing jobs and business jobs. And so on. Dad Analytics, that intelligence, security, cybersecurity so important that you think, God, you Northern Virginia Community College in U. S. Marine Corps are working for to make these programs available to their veterans and active military. The other thing is, they're sharing it with the rest of the student by. So that's I think another thing that's happening is this sharing this ability, all of for this cloud degree program that AWS educate is running. All these institutions are sharing their curricula. So the stuff that was done in Los Angeles is being learned in Virginia is the stuff that the U. S Marine Corps is doing is being available to students. Who are you not in military occupations? I think that collaboration mode is is amazing. The thing they say about community colleges and just this new locus of control for education on dhe. Why it's changing community colleges. You're right there. They're moving fast. These institutions have a bias for action. They know they have to. You change the r A. Y right? It's about preventing students for this work for, but they also serve as a flywheel to those four year institutions back to the 12 into the into the workforce and they hit you underserved audience. Is that the rest? So that you were not all picking from the same crew? You cannot keep going to just your lead institutions and recruit. We have to grow that pipeline. So you thank thank these places for moving quick brand operating for their student, right? >> Right, And and And that's where the innovation happens, right? I mean, that's that's, uh, that that's goodness. And the other thing that that was pretty interesting was, um, you know, obviously Skilling people up to get jobs. You need to hire him. That's pretty. That's pretty obvious and simple, but really bringing kind of big data attitude analytics attitude into the universities across into the research departments and the medical schools. And you think at first well, of course, researchers are data centric, right? They've been doing it that way for a long time, but they haven't been doing it and kind of the modern big, big data, real time analytics, you know, streaming data, not sampling data, all the data. So so even bringing that type of point of view, I don't know mindset to the academic institutions outside of what they're doing for the students. >> Absolutely. The machine learning is really changing the game. This notion of big data, the way that costs have gone down in terms of storing and utilizing data and right, it's streaming data. It's non Columbia or down, as opposed to yeah, the old pure sequel set up right that that is a game changer. No longer can you make just can you make a theory and tested out theories air coming streaming by looking at that data and letting it do some work for you, which is kind of machine learning, artificial intelligence path, and it's all becoming democratized. So, yes, researchers need to need learn these new past two to make sense and tow leverage. This with that big data on the medical center site, there are cures that can be discerned again. Some of our most pressing diseases by leveraging data way gonna change. And we, by the way, we gotta change that mindset, not just yeah, the phD level, but actually at the K 12 levels. Are kids learning the right skills to prepare them for you this new big data world once they get into higher ed, right? And then the last piece, which again we've seen >> on the Enterprise. You've kind of seen the movie on the enterprise side in terms of of cloud adoption. What AWS has done is at first it's a better, more efficient way to run your infrastructure. It's, you know, there's a whole bunch of good things that come from running a cloud infrastructure, but >> that's not. But that's not the end, right? The answer to the question >> is the innovation right? It's It's the speed of change, of speed development and some of the things that we're seeing here around the competitive nature of higher education, trying to appeal to the younger kids because you're competing for their time and attention in there. And they're dollar really interesting stuff with Alexa and some of these other kind of innovation, which is where the goodness really starts to pay off on a cloud investment. >> Yeah, without a doubt, Alexa Week AWS came up with robo maker and Deep Racer on our last reinvent, and there's there's organizations at the K 12 level like First Robotics and Project lead. The way they're doing really cool stuff by making this this relevant it you education becomes more relevant when kids get to do hands on stuff. A W S lowers the price for failure lowers the ability you can just open a browser and do real world hands on bay hands on stuff robotics, a rvr that all of these things again are game changers inside the classroom. But you also have to connect it to jobs at the end, right? And if your educational institutions can become more relevant to their students in terms of preparing them for jobs like they've done in Santa Monica College and like they're doing in Northern Virginia Community College across the state of Louisiana and by May putting the real world stuff in the hands of their kids, they will then start to attract assumes. We saw this happen in Santa Monica. They opened up one class, a classroom of 35 students that sold out in a day. They opened another co ward of 35 sold out in another day or two. The name went from 70 students. Last year, about 325 they opened up this California cloud workforce project where they now have 825 students of five. These Northern Virginia Community College. They're they're cloud associate degree that they ran into tandem with AWS Educate grew from 30 students at the start of the year to well over 100. Now the's programs will drive students to them, right and students will get a job at the end. >> Right? Right, well and can. And can the school support the demand? I mean, that's That's a problem we see with CS, right? Everyone says, Tell your kids to take CS. They want to take CS. Guess what? There's no sections, hope in C. S. So you know, thinking of it in a different way, a little bit more innovative way providing that infrastructure kind of ready to go in a cloud based way. Now we'll hopefully enable them to get more kids and really fulfill the demand. >> Absolutely. There's another thing with professional development. I think you're hitting on, so we definitely have a shortage in terms of teachers who are capable to teach about software development and cloud architecture and data sciences and cybersecurity. So we're putting AWS educators putting a specific focus on professional development. We also want to bring Amazonian, Tze and our customers and partners into the classroom to help with that, because the work based learning and the focus on subject matter expert experts is also important. But we really need to have programs both from industry as well as government out support new teachers coming into this field and in service training for existing teachers to make sure, because yes, we launch those programs and students will come. We have to make sure that were adequately preparing teachers. It's not it's not. It's not easy, but again, we're seeing whether it's Koda Cole out of yeah out of, uh, Roosevelt High School. Are the people that were working with George Mason University and so on were seeing such an appetite for making change for their students? And so they're putting in those extra hours they're getting that AWS certification, and they're getting stronger, prepared to teach inside the clients. >> That's amazing, cause right. Teachers have so many conflict ing draws on their time, many of which have nothing to do with teaching right whether it's regulations. And there's just so many things the teachers have to deal with. So you know the fact that they're encouraged. The fact that they want t to spend and invest in this is really a good sign and really a nice kind of indicator to you and the team that, you know, you guys were hitting something really, really positive. >> Yeah, I think we've had its this foam oh fear of missing out opportunity. There's the excitement of the cloud. There's the excitement of watching your kids. You're really transformed their lives. And it could be Alfredo Cologne who came over from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. You wiped out his economic potential and started taking AWS educate. And you're learning some of these pathways and then landing a job as the Dev Ops engineered. When you see the transformation in your students, no matter what their background is, it is. It is a game changer. This has got to be you. Listen, I love watching that women's team when I win the World Cup, and that the excitement cloud is like the new sport. Robotics is the new sport for these kids. They'll bring them on >> pathways to career, right. We'll take for taking a few minutes in The passion comes through, Andrew Koza big passion guy. And we know Teresa is a CZ Well, so it shines through and keep doing good work. >> Thank you so much for the time. Alright, he's can on Jeff. You're watching the cube. We're in downtown Seattle. A aws. Imagine e d. Thanks for watching. >> We'll see you next time.

>> from Seattle WASHINGTON. It's the Q covering AWS Imagine brought to you by Amazon Web service is >> Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeffrey here with the Cube were in Seattle, >> Washington downtown, right next to the convention center for the AWS. Imagine e d. You show. It's a second year of the show found by Andrew Cohen. His crew, part of Theresa's public sector group, really focused on education. Education means everything from K through 12 higher education, community college education, getting out of the military and retraining education. It's ah, it's a really huge category, and it's everything from, you know, getting the colleges to do a better job by being on cloud infrastructure, innovating and really thinking outside the box are really excited to have the man who's doing a lot of the work on the curriculum development in the education is Ken Eisner is the director of worldwide education programs for AWS. Educate can Great to see you. Thank you so much for having absolutely nice shot out this morning by Theresa, she said. She just keeps asking you for more. So >> you want to deliver for Theresa. Carl says she is. She is a dynamo, and she drives us >> all she does, so just dive into it a little bit. So, you know, there was, Ah, great line that they played in the keynote with Andy talking about, You know, we cannot be protecting old institutions. We need to think about the kids is a story I hear all the time where somebody came from a time machine from 17 76 and landed here today. It wouldn't recognize how we talk, how we get around, but they would recognize one thing, and unfortunately, that's the school house down at the end of the block. So you guys are trying to change that. You're really trying to revolutionize what's happening in education, give us a little bit of background on some of the specific things that you're working on today. >> Yeah, I think Andy, one of the things that he mentioned at that time was that education is really in a crisis on. We need to be inventing at a rapid rate. We need to show that invented, simple, fine inside education, and he's incredibly, he's correct. The students are our customers and we've got to be changing things for them. What we've been really excited to see is that with this giant growth in cloud computing a W. S. It was the fastest I T vendor to ever a $10,000,000,000 a year. The run rate. We're now growing at a 42% or 41% year over year growth Ray and $31,000,000,000 a year Lee company. It's creating this giant cloud computing opportunity, cloud computing in the number one linked in skill for the past four years in Rome. When we look at that software development to cloud architecture to the data science and artificial intelligence and data analytics and cyber security rules. But we're not preparing kids for this. Market Gallop ran a study that that showed about 11% of business executives thought that students were prepared for their jobs. It's not working, It's gotta change. And the exciting thing that's happening right now is workforce development. Governments are really pushing for change in education, and it's starting to happen right? It's pretty amazing were here last year. >> The team last year was very much round the community college releases and the certification of the associate programs and trial down in Southern California, and this year I've been surprised. We've had two guests on where it's the state governor has pushed these initiatives not at the district level, the city level, but from the state winning both Louisiana as well as Virginia. That's pretty amazing support to move in such an aggressive direction and really a new area. >> Yeah, I was actually just moderating a panel where we had Virginia, Louisiana, in California, all sitting down talking about that scaling statewide strategy. We had announcements from the entire CUNY and Sunni or City University of New York and State University of New York system to do both to end four year programs in Cloud Computing. And Louisiana announced it with their K 12 system, their community college system and their four year with Governor John Bel Edwards making the announcement two months ago. So right, we are seeing this scaling consortium, a play where institutions are collaborating across themselves. They're collaborating vertically with your higher ed and K 12 and yet direct to the workforce because we need to be hiring people at such a rapid ray that we we need to be also putting a lot of skin in the game. And that story that happened So again, I agree with Andy said. Education is at a crisis. But now we're starting to see change makers inside of education, making that move right. It's interesting. I wonder, >> you know, is it is it? I don't want to say second tier, that's the wrong word, but kind of what I'm thinking, you know, kind of these other institutions that the schools that don't necessarily have the super top in cachet, you know who are forced to be innovative, right? We're number two. We try harder. As they used to say in the in the Hertz commercial. Um, really a lot of creativity coming out of again the community colleges last year in L. A. Which I was, I was blown away, that kind of understand cause that specifically to skill people up to get a job. But now you're hearing it in much more kind of traditional institutions and doing really innovative things like the thing with the the Marines teaching active duty Marines about data science. >> Yeah, who came up with that idea that phenomenal Well, you know, data permeates every threat. It's not just impure data science, jobs and machine learning jobs. There's air brilliantly important, but it's also in marketing jobs and business jobs. And so on. Dad Analytics that intelligence, security, cybersecurity so important that you think, God, you Northern Virginia Community College in U. S. Marine Corps are working for to make these programs available to their veterans and active military. The other thing is, they're sharing it with the rest of the student by. So that's I think another thing that's happening is this. Sharing this ability all of for this cloud degree program that AWS educate is running. All these institutions are sharing their curricula. So the stuff that was done in Los Angeles is being learned in Virginia's stuff the U. S. Marine Corps is doing is being available to students. Who are you not in military occupations? I think that collaboration mode is is amazing, the thing they say about community colleges and just this new locus of control for education on dhe. Why it's changing community colleges. You're right there. They're moving fast. These institutions have a bias for action. They know they have to. You change the r A. Y right. It's about preventing students for this work for, but they also serve as a flywheel to those four year institutions back to the 12 into the into the workforce and they hit you underserved audience is that the rest is so that you were not all picking from the same crew. You cannot keep going to just share lead institutions and recruit. We have to grow that pipeline. So you thank thank these places for moving quick and operating for their student, right? >> Right, And and And that's where the innovation happens, right? I mean, that's that's, ah, that that's goodness. And the other thing that that was pretty interesting was obviously Skilling people up to get jobs, you need to hire him. That's pretty. That's pretty obvious and simple, but really bringing kind of big data attitude analytics attitude into the universities across into the research departments and the medical schools. And you think at first, of course, researchers are data centric, right? They've been doing it that way for a long time, but they haven't been doing it in kind of the modern big, big data. Real time analytics, you know, streaming data, not sampling data, all the data. So so even bringing that type of point of view, I don't know, mindset to the academic institutions outside of what they're doing for the students. >> Absolutely. The machine learning is really changing the game. This notion of big data, the way that costs have gone down in terms of storing and utilizing data and right, it's streaming data. It's non Columbia or down, as opposed to yeah, the old pure sequel set up right that that is a game changer. No longer can you make just can you make a theory and tested out theories air coming streaming by looking at that data and letting it do some work for you, which is kind of machine learning, artificial intelligence path, and it's all becoming democratized. So, yes, researchers need to need learn these new past two to make sense and tow leverage. This with that big data on the medical center site, there are cures that could be discerned again some of our most pressing diseases by leveraging data, way gonna change. And we, by the way, we gotta change that mindset, not just yeah, the phD level, but actually at the K 12 levels. Are kids learning the right skills to prepare them for you? This new big data world once they get into higher ed, right? And then the last piece, which again we've seen >> on the Enterprise. You've kind of seen the movie on the enterprise side in terms of of cloud adoption. What AWS has done is at first it's a better, more efficient way to run your infrastructure. It's, you know, there's a whole bunch of good things that come from running a cloud infrastructure, but >> that's not. But that's not the end, right? The answer to the question >> is the innovation right? It's It's the speed of change, of speed, a development and some of the things that we're seeing here around the competitive nature of higher education, trying to appeal to the younger kids because you're competing for their time and attention in there. And they're dollar really interesting stuff with Alexa and some of these other kind of innovation, which is where the goodness really starts to pay off on a cloud investment. >> Yeah, without a doubt, Alexa Week AWS came up with robo maker and Deep Racer on our last reinvent, and there's there's organizations at the K 12 level like First Robotics and project lead the way they're doing really cool stuff by making this this relevant you education becomes more relevant when kids get to do hands on stuff. A W S lowers the price for failure lowers the ability you can just open a browser and do real world hands on bay hands on stuff. Robotics, A R V R. That all of these things again are game changers inside the classroom. But you also have to connect it to jobs at the end, right? And if your educational institutions can become more relevant to their students in terms of preparing them for jobs like they've done in Santa Monica College and like they're doing in Northern Virginia Community College across the state of Louisiana and by May putting the real world stuff in the hands of their kids, they will then start to attract assumes. We saw this happen in Santa Monica. They opened up one class, a classroom of 35 students that sold out in a day. They opened another co ward of 35 sold out in another day or two. The name went from 70 students. Last year, about 325 they opened up this California Cloud Workforce Project, where they now have 825 students of five. These Northern Virginia Community College. They're they're cloud associate degree that they ran in tandem with AWS Educate grew from 30 students at the start of the year to well over 100. Now these programs will drive students to them right and students will get a job at the end. >> Right? Right, well in Ken. And can the schools sports a demand? That's that's a problem we see with CS, right? Everyone says, Tell your kids to take CS. They want to take CS. Guess what? There's no sections, hope in C. S. So you know, thinking of it in a different way, a little bit more innovative way providing that infrastructure kind of ready to go in a cloud based way. Now we'll hopefully enable them to get more kids and really fulfill the demand. >> Absolutely. There's another thing with professional development. I think you're hitting on, so we definitely have a shortage in terms of teachers who are capable to teach about software development and cloud architecture and data sciences and cybersecurity. So we're putting a W. C. Educate is putting a specific focus on professional development. We also want to bring Amazonian, Tze and our customers and partners into the classroom to help with that, because the work based learning and the focus on subject matter expert experts is also important. But we really need to have programs both from industry as well as government out support new teachers coming into this field and in service training for existing teachers to make sure, because yes, we launch those programs and students will come. We have to make sure that were adequately preparing teachers. It's not, it's not. It's not easy, but again, we're seeing whether it's Koda Cole out of out of, uh Roosevelt High School. Are the people that were working with George Mason University and so on were seeing such an appetite >> for >> making change for their students? And so they're putting in those extra hours they're getting that AWS certification, and they're getting stronger, prepared to teach inside the class. That's >> amazing, cause right. Teachers have so many conflict ing draws on their time, many of which have nothing to do with teaching right whether it's regulations and there's just so many things the teachers have to deal with. So you know the fact that they're encouraged the fact that they want t to spend and invest in this is really a good sign and really a nice kind of indicator to you and the team that, you know, you guys were hitting something really, really positive. >> Yeah, I think we've had its this foam oh fear of missing out opportunity. There's the excitement of the cloud. There's the excitement of watching your kids. You're really transformed their lives. And it could be Alfredo Cologne who came over from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. You wiped out his economic potential and started taking AWS educate and you're learning some of these pathways and then landing a job has the Dev ops engineer to Michael Brown, who went through that Santa Monica problem and >> landed an >> internship with Annika. When you see the transformation in your students, no matter what their background is, it is. It is a game changer. This has got to be you. Listen, I love watching that women's team when I win the World Cup, and that the excitement cloud is like the new sport. Robotics is the new sport for these kids. They'll bring them on >> pathways to career, right, well, take for taking a few minutes in The passion comes through Andrew Koza, Big passion guy. And we know Teresa is as well. So it shines through and keep doing good work. >> Thank you so much for the time. Alright, He's Can I'm Jeff, You're watching the Cube. We're in downtown Seattle. A aws. Imagine E d. Thanks for >> watching. We'll see you next time.

>> Voice Over: Live from Washington, D.C. It's the Cube! Covering AWS Public Sector Summit. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hello everyone welcome back to the Cube's live coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit here in Washington DC. I'm your host Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host John Furrier. We're joined by Kim Majerus. She is the leader, state and local government at AWS. Thanks so much for coming on the show. >> Thank you for having me, I'm excited my first time so. >> John: Welcome to the Cube. >> Welcome! >> I'm excited! >> Rebecca: Your first rodeo. I'm sure you'll be a natural. >> Thank you. >> Let's start by telling our viewers a little bit about what you do, and how heading up the state and local is different from the folks who work more with the federal government. >> Sure. So I've been with Amazon a little over a couple of years and having responsibility for state and local government has really opened up my eyes to the transformation that that space is moving to. So when I think about our opportunity, it's not just state and local government, but it's actually the gov tax that are supporting that transformation in traditional environments. Everyone asks that questions, what's the difference between a federal versus a state and local? And I attribute it to this way, programs are very important in a federal space but what I'm focused on is every single city, county, state has aspirations to do things the way they want to do things, of how they need to address their specialized market. What people need in New York City might feel and look a little bit different in a small town in my home state. So when you look at the differences it's exciting to have the opportunity to impact there. >> And one of the things that you inherited in the job is state and local governments also, and we've heard this on the Cube from many guests that have been on, they didn't have the big IT budgets. >> No. >> And so, things to move the needle on R&D and experiment, you know Andy Jassy talks about experimentation and learning through failure, a lot of them don't have the luxury. And this changing landscapes, different diversity environments. >> Yeah absolutely. It's doing more with less, and each state struggles with that. And when you take a look at the budget and where state budget goes, it's predominantly in the health provider instances. So they have the responsibility to serve their constituents and their health, so what's left? You're competing with budgets for teachers, firefighters, first responders of all sorts, so they have to be very frugal with what they do and they have to learn from one another. I think that is one of the nicest things that we see across the states and the cities. >> Tell me about the community aspect of it because one of the things we're seeing on the trend side is the wave that's coming, besides all the normal investments they've got to make, is internet of things and digitization. Whether it's cameras on utility poles, to how to deal with policies just like self-driving cars and Uber. All these things are going on, right? >> Yep. >> Massive change going on, and it's first generation problems. >> Absolutely. >> Net New right? So where's the money going to come from? Where's the solutions going to come from? >> Save to invest right? So they're taking a look at Net New technologies that allows them to actually re-invest those savings into what the community's asking for. People don't want to stand in lines to get their driver's license or a permit. We just had a customer meeting, they were talking about how the challenge between the connected community. If you're in a city, in a county, who do you go and talk to? I need a building permit, do I go to the city, do I go to the county? But I don't want to go. I want to be able to do it in a different way. That's the generational change and we're seeing that, even local to the D.C. area, when you take a look at Arlington county, they have the highest population of millennials. How they want to interact with government is so different than what they've seen in times past. >> So talk to me about what, so what what are the kinds of innovations that Arlington needs to be thinking about according to you, in terms of how to meet these citizens where they are and what they're accustomed to? >> Expectations, I mean take a look at, we walk outside the street you see birds sitting around there and you've got to be able to give them transportation that is accustomed to what they do every single day. They want to buy, they want to communicate and more importantly they want to their services when they look for it. They don't want to have to go to the buildings, they want to have to, they want to be able to actually access the information, find exactly where they need to go to grab that specific service. I mean long is the day that you would stand there are say, well I don't know which office to go to, send me. People want to look and everything's got to be available and accessible. >> I mean this is classic definition of what Andy Jassy and Theresa talk about. Removing all that undifferentiated heavy-lifting. >> Yep, barriers. >> All this red tape, and the lack of budget. All these things kind of create this environment. What are you guys doing to address that? How do you get people over the hump to saying, okay, it's okay to start this journey, here's some successes, is it get a couple wins under your belt first? What's the process? Take us through it and use (mumbles). >> I think this has been probably one of the most refreshing parts for me to be a part of AWS. It's really starting with, what problem are you trying to solve for? What is the biggest issue that you have? And we work backwards from their needs. And it's a very different approach than how others have worked with our customers, our state and local customers, because we're used to selling them this thing for this opportunity, whereas we take three steps backwards and say let's start from the beginning. What issues are you having? What're your constituents having? Was with a group of CIOs on Monday and we went through this whole process of, who are your customers? And they would've thought, well it's an agency here and it's an agency there, and what they soon realized is, those are my stakeholders, those are not my customers. So if we really look at it more of a product versus a project with the state and local executives, it's really changing their perspective on how they could actually have a full cycle of opportunity, not a project-based solution. So when you think about how a constituent wants to work through the government, or access it's services, it will look and feel differently if you're thinking about the full life-cycle of it, not the activity. >> You know one thing I want to ask you that came up in a couple conversations earlier, and then what the key note was. The old days was if you worked for the government, it was slow, why keep the effort if you can't achieve the objective? I'm going to give up, people get indifferent, they abandon their initiatives. Now Andy and you guys are talking about the idea that you can get to the value proposition earlier. >> Yes. >> So, even though you can work backwards, which I appreciate, love the working backwards concept, but even more reality for the customer in public and local and state is like, they now see visibility into light at the end of the tunnel. So there's changing the game on what's gettable, what's attainable, which is aspirational. >> It might feel aspirational for those who have not embraced the art of what's possible, and I think one of the things that we've seen recently in another state. They had a workforce that liked to do what they did, as Andy said, "Touch the tin." And when you think about that whole concept, you never touch the tin. So now let's take a look at your workforce, how do we make being in government the way to, as Andy close it, to make the biggest impact for your local community. So some states are saying, what we've done is we still need the resources we have, but the resources that are moving up the stack and providing more of an engagement of difference, those are the ones that are taking those two pizza team type of opportunities and saying what are we going to do to change the way they interact? >> With real impact. >> With real impact. >> Andy also talked about real problems that could be solved, and he didn't really kind of say federal or any kind of category, he just kind of laid it out there generally. And this is what people care about, that work for state, local and federal. They actually want to solve problems so there are a lot of problems out there. What are you seeing at the state and local level that are on the top problem statements that you're seeing where Cloud is going to help them? >> A great example would be, when you think about all the siloed organizations within our community care. You're unable to track any one record, and a record could be an individual or an organization. So what they're doing is they're moving all those disparate data silos into an opportunity say let's dedupe-- how many constituents do we have? What type of services do they need? How do we become proactive? So when you take a look at someone who's moved into the community and their health record comes in, what're the services that they need? Because right now they have to go find those services and if they county were to do things more proactively, say hey, these are the services that you need, here is where you can actually go and get them. And it's those individual personalized engagements that, once you pull all that data together through all the different organizations, from the beginning of a 911 call for whatever reason, through their health record to say, this is the care that they, these are the cares that they have, and these are the services that they need, and oh by the way they might be allergic to something or they might have missed a doctor's appointment, let's go ensure that they are getting the healthcare. There's one state that's actually even thinking about their senior care. Why don't we go put an Alexa in their house to remind them that these are the medications that you need? You have a doctor's appointment at 2 o'clock, do you want me to order a ride for you to get to your doctor's appointment on time? That is proactive. >> And also the isolation for a lot of old people living by themselves, having another voice who can answer their question is actually incredibly meaningful. >> It is, and whether it's individual care to even some are up and rising drivers. A great application in Utah is they've actually used Alexa and wrote skills around Alexa so that they could pre-test at home before they go take their test are the driver's license facility. So when you think about these young kids coming into the government, how interactive and how exciting for them to say, hey, I'm going to take the time, I have my Alexa, she's going to ask me all the questions that I need to literally the other end of the spectrum to say, hey, I can order you an Uber, I could provide you with a reminder of your doctor's appointments or any health checks requirements that you might need along the way. >> So you're talking about the young people today engaging with government in this way, but what about actually entering the government as a career? Because right now we know that there's just such a poisonous atmosphere in Washington, extreme partisanship and it doesn't seem like a very, the government doesn't seem appealing to a lot of people. And when they are thinking about, even the people who are in Cloud, not necessarily in the public policy, what're you hearing, what're you thinking? What's AWS's position on this? >> This is where I love my brother and in the education space. So in two different areas we have California, Cal State Poly, and then we also have Arizona State University who have put in kicks. They're innovation centers are the university that they're enlisting these college students or maybe project based that are coming in and helping solve for some of the state and local government challenges. I think the important part is, if you could grab those individuals in early through that journey in maybe through their later years of education say, hey, you could write apps, you could help them innovate differently because it's through their lens. That gets them excited and I think it's important for everyone to understand the opportunity and whether it's two years, four years or a lifetime career, you've got to see it from the other side and I think, what we hear from the CIOs today across the states is they want to pull that talent in and they want to show them the opportunity, but more importantly they want to see the impact and hear from them what they need differently. So it's fun. >> There's a whole community vibe going on. >> Yeah. >> And we were riffing on day one on our intro about a new generation of skill, not just private and public sector, both. We have a collective intelligence and this is where open-data, openness, comes in, and that's resource. And I think a lot of people are looking at it differently and I think this is what gets my attention here at this event this year, besides the growth and size, is that Cloud is attracting smart people, it's attracting people who look at solutions that are possibly attainable, and for the first time you're seeing kind of progress. >> It's a blank sheet of paper. >> There's been progress before I don't mean to say there's no progress, there's new kinds of progress. >> I think the best part, and I say this to people who are working with Amazon, when you think about a blank sheet of paper, that's where we're at. And I think that's the legacy that we need to get through, it's like this is the way we've done it, this is the way we've always done it. In state and local government we're dealing with procurement challenges, they know how to do CATPACs, they don't know how to OPECs, so how can you help us change the way they look at assets, and more importantly, break through those barriers so that we could start with a blank sheet of paper and build from the ground-up what's needed, versus just keep on building on what was out there. >> So that mean education's paramount for you. So what're you guys doing with education? Share some notable things that are important that are going on that are on education initiatives that you can help people. >> It's starting at the 101. Again I think it's the partnership with the education, what we have in the community college, and even starting in high school, is get people interested in Cloud. But for state and local customers today, it is about workforce redevelopment and giving them the basic tools so that they could rebuild. And there are going to be people that are going to opt-in, and there's going to be people that say, I'm fine where I'm at thank you very much, and there's a place and, more importantly, there's plenty of opportunity for them there. So we're providing them with AWS Educate, we're providing them with our support locally through my team, but the important part is you get in, show them, put their hands on the keyboards and let them go 'cause once they start they're like, I didn't realize I could do that, I didn't understand the value and the opportunity and the cost savings that I could move through with these applications. >> And there's so many jobs out there, I mean Amazon is just one company that's in Cloud. There's Machine Learning, there's AI, there's all kinds of analytics. All kinds of new job opportunities that there's openings for, it's not like. No one's skilled enough! We need more people. >> I'll give you another. There was a great case study in there, they actually did a session here this week, LA County. They get 800-900 calls a day just within an IT, one of the IT organizations and Benny would say, my customer is those who are working in the county. So they've been able to move to CANACT, and now they have a sentiment scale, they are able to not only intake, transcribe, comprehend, but they're able to see the trends that they're saying. What that's been able to save by ways of time and assets and resources it's really allowing them to focus on what's the next generation service that they could deliver differently, and more importantly, cost-effectively. >> Where in the US, 'cause Andy talked about the middle class shrinking with the whole reference to the mills going out of the business, inferring that digital's coming. Where do you see the trends in the US, outside of the major metros like Silicon Valley, New York, et cetera, Austin, where there's growth in digital mind IQ? Are you seeing, obviously we joke with the Minnesota guys, it's O'Shannon on and we had Troy on earlier, both from Minnesota. But is there areas that you're seeing that's kind of flowering up in terms of, ripe for investment for in-migration, or people staying within their states. Because out-migration has been a big problem with these states in the middle of the country. They want to keep people in the state, have in-migration. What're you areas of success been for digital? >> You know what, look at Kansas City. Great use case, smart connected city, IOT. If you take a look at what their aspirations were, it was to rejuvenate that downtown area. It's all started with a street car and the question was, when people got off that street car did they go right or did they go left? And they weren't going left and the question was why? Well when they looked and they surveyed, well there's nothing there, the coffee shops there. So what they did proactively, because this is about providing affordable opportunity for businesses, but more importantly, students and younger that are moving out of home, they put a coffee shop there. Then they put a convenience store, then they put a sandwich shop down there and they started to build this environment that allowed more people to move in and be in that community. It's not about running to the big city, it's about staying maybe where you're at but in a new way. So Kansas City I think has done a fantastic job. >> And then having jobs to work remotely 'cause you're seeing now remote, virtual-first companies are being born and this is kind of a new generational thing where it's not Cloud first. >> Work is where you're at, it's not where you go. >> And yet we do need >> That's an opportunity. >> Clusters of smart people and these sort of centers of innovation beyond just the coasts. >> I'm out of Chicago. I obviously have headquarters in D.C. for public sector and corporate out of Seattle. I think there is a time and place that is required to be there when we're working on those projects or we require that deep time. But I want to be available to my team, and more importantly to my customers, and when I see my customers, my customers are not all in city buildings or county buildings or state buildings. They're all over. So it's actually refreshing to see the state government and local governments actually promote some of that. It's like well hey I'm not going to the office today, let's go meet in this location so that we could figure out how to get through these challenges. It has to be that way because people want to be a part of their community in a different way, and it doesn't necessarily mean being in an office. >> Exactly. >> Okay Kim, well to check in with you and to find out your progress on the state and local, certainly it's real opportunity for jobs and revitalization crossed with digital. >> Yep, as Andy would put it, when we look at this space, it's a labor of love and it's the biggest impact that I could make in my career. >> And tech for good. >> And tech for good. >> Excellent, well thank you so much Kim. >> Thank you. Goodbye. >> Stay tuned for my of the Cube's live coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit. (outro music)

>> From the Amazon meeting Center in downtown Seattle, it's theCUBE, covering IMAGINE: A Better World, a global education conference sponsored by Amazon Web Services. >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Seattle, Washington at the first ever AWS IMAGINE education conference. I think they said there was 900 registrants. Teresa Carlson did the key note, just finished, really fantastic. 900 people, it's funny, she equated it to AWS Public Sector which, seven years ago, had 50 people. And this year it had, I think, 15,000 people. So I think we'll see a similar growth here. Really, application of all the things that AWS does for education specifically, and there's all the cost saving and shutting down data centers and all that kind of stuff. But much more importantly is educating the workforce and getting a new class of kids and educators involved in cloud computing 'cause, let's face it, it's the dominant paradigm going forward. I don't think there's much question about that. So we're excited to be here, talk to some of the great people, all educators. And our first guest is Dr. David Dimmett. He's the SVP and Chief Engagement Officer at Project Lead the Way. David, great to see you. >> Yeah, great, thanks for having us here. So we're excited to be here as part of this first ever education conference that AWS is hosting. So great event, lots of fantastic energy, excited to present later today on diversity inclusion and computer science education, a space where we're doing a lot of really great work. And want to share, and also here to learn. >> Great, so give us the overview on Project Lead the Way. >> Sure, so Project Lead the Way, we are a 20-year-old national nonprofit. We were started in upstate New York, and we're working today with over three million students in pre-K all the way through 12th grade in high school. And we work with them in computer science education, biomedical science engineering; our job is to inspire kids. We want them to have access to a lifetime of opportunity. We know these skills are essential. Students who have these skills have opportunities, have doors open to them. Students without these skills really, today, face a lifetime of consequences. >> Right, so how do you get the skills into the education? It's such a frustration, and typical K through 12 education, computer science has not been part of the standard curriculum. There's the math track, which you take trig and calc, and there's the science track with bio and physics and chem, but computer science really hasn't done a great job of weaseling its way into the standard curriculum that everybody takes. So how do you get this curriculum in? How do you get the education to the kids? >> Sure, and we're seeing some movement in this area, which is really exciting. AWS has been a big part of that. But what we look at, we for the last 20 years have really put an emphasis on testing students primarily in those subjects that are easy to test, so core academic content; we definitely need students to have knowledge in those areas. What's been missing for a long time is the connection to that core academic knowledge to real-world problem solving. And that's where kids come in to a Project Lead the Way classroom and get excited. So we're starting with them early as pre-K, working all the way through, and it's, like I said, all those career pathways. But they're applying what they're learning in their algebra class, they're applying what they're learning in their physics class. And we know the research indicates that students decide really early if they like or are good at math or science. And gone are the days where it's okay to just brush off those content areas. We need to rethink the way kids get excited and inspired at an early age. >> So do you pull them, then, into a separate classroom experience outside of their everyday at school? How does the mechanics actually work? >> Right, so we're working with about 14,000 programs all across the country this year, all 50 states. And there are a variety of implementation models. In the early grades, in pre-K through five, a lot of times that's integrating into the homeroom or into the primary classroom. So we're training teachers all across buildings in a lot of elementary schools all across the country. When you work your way into middle school and high school, students rotate through, sometimes as an elective. But increasingly we're seeing schools require those courses because it exposes students to some of the careers that they may not understand and opportunities that they don't know exist. >> Right, it's so funny, right? 'Cause technology, over and over and over again, back to the Luddites, right, destroys certain industries, creates new industries, right? You don't want to be the guy making buggy whips anymore; it's probably not a great industry. But there didn't use to be web developers. There didn't use to be integration specialists. There didn't use to be SEO people. So there's a whole new class of applications that continue to be created with each of these huge information technology transformations. >> Yeah, it really is, and we have an increasing gap, really, unfortunately, in equality of opportunity. Increasingly today, we see students who have access to these opportunities in their pre-K, 12 experiences. Those students have a chance to go on to all kinds of careers, whether it's AWS, Verizon, Toyota, Lockheed Martin, you can go down the list. Companies are recruiting students that have these skills. Students who happen to not get exposed to these opportunities early really struggle to catch up later in life or later in their education system. So we really look at a variety of on-ramps for students. We work in the school day primarily. We also support a lot of work outside the school day. One of the key things that we do is we help teachers gain confidence in these areas. We were talking earlier about the skills gap that exists for adults in getting into some of these careers; same thing exists for teachers. We have teacher shortages all across the country. And what we're really looking to do is inspire not just students but the teachers who teach them. We'll train over 10,000 teachers this summer and get them ready to go in and inspire and prepare their students. >> It's really interesting, especially you get smarter kids once they're in high school and college. And they're looking for that connection. "Come on, Dad, what am I taking in chemistry? "I'm not going to be a doctor, "I'm not going to be a chemical scientist. "How does it relate to what I'm going to do "or philosophy or whatever." But these types of skills are really, really cogent. And not to mention that, but the kids are interacting with these types of applications all the day. So the connection between what I'm doing at school versus what I might be doing when I get out of school has got to be so much tighter than when you take a philosophy class or an American lit class. >> Yeah, we're rolling out, and with AWS's support. AWS has provided us with subject matter experts with a lot of the technological tools to help us deliver a brand new cybersecurity course this year all across the country. We're really excited about that. And you look at what's happening in terms of the cybersecurity threats that our country faces, that other countries face. It's both an economic issue but also a national security issue. And we just don't have the skilled workforce to be effective in those areas. We're inspiring kids, through AWS's help, to get excited and not just get excited but to have the skills to go out and be successful. So what I love, too, is a lot of the advances that we anticipate in healthcare are not going to be necessarily biomedical advancements. They will be, but they'll also be technological advances. We've worked with Cerner to train teachers in our computer science courses; they're one of the world's largest medical records companies. How do we provide data and information, big data, to medical providers, so that they can provide the best targeted treatment to their students? And so one of the things that we thrive on in our work is the connection to business and industry. And we want to provide that talent, that workforce, of the future. >> Right, so let me just drill in on that a little bit in terms of the role. You said you've been around for 20 years, your foundation. The role of private companies in general, and AWS specifically in helping on some of these really big problems, these really big efforts. 'Cause we know the public school systems never have enough money, getting pulled in a ton of different directions. So what kind of impact does somebody like AWS coming in help you complete your mission? >> Right, so AWS, AWS Educate have provided us with a variety of supports, and they're really helping us do a lot of really great work for students all across the country. A couple of specific examples. I mentioned subject matter experts. Having AWS come in and help us not just with this cybersecurity course but also how do we infuse into our other computer science coursework cloud career skilled development? And so we're doing that now with AWS's support. And Ken Eisner and his team have really helped us for the last couple of years; it's a great partnership. Additionally, providing us with the infrastructure, the applications, the AWS ecosystem of supports are helping us do a variety of things to secure student data, to also drive down cost to schools. All of those things together provide a great opportunity to the students that we're serving, three million plus, all across the country. >> Three million plus, that's great. So there's a real specific program that I want to give you a chance to talk about, the Kentucky Cloud Careers Pathways. That's kind of an example; give us a little bit more color. And we talked before, I got a lot of family in Kentucky, so it touched me a little bit. And, of course, Teresa's from there as well. >> So Kentucky is one of our strongest states for Project Lead the Way and has been for a lot of years. The governor and his cabinet have really done a lot of work to advance career opportunities, workforce development, economic development. And what we have and what we announced last year in Kentucky is the Cloud Career Pathway program. And that is a partnership between AWS; Project Lead the Way; the community college system in Kentucky; the governor's economic, labor, development, education departments; all of us working together to get kids exposed to cloud careers early in their education experience. And we've started training teachers to that end this year. We think it's going to be a real model for the country. >> David, I think you said it in every one of your answers, adding the "and the teachers, too." Such an important part, right? Such a key enabler to make this thing actually go. It can't just be about the kids. >> Absolutely, teachers are the bedrock of what we do in education. I say that as a lifelong educator. We've got a lot of work to do, and teachers are under attack in some places. And you've seen this last year, the work that's happened to put teachers in a position to be successful. And we've got a lot of work to do there. But our job, we want to go out and inspire the country's best teachers to go in and work in some of the most difficult work situations that exist in our country and inspire kids and with limited resources. And teachers are pouring their hearts out to do that. We think we've got a great opportunity, but we trained 10,000 plus teachers this year alone. And we see those teachers gain confidence. They go back to their classrooms, they're excited, and they know more about the opportunities that exist for their students. And I say that as a lifelong educator. In fact, my wife and I met 20 years ago as first-year teachers, so that, to me, is really core to what we do. >> Well, I see the passion in your eyes. So thank you for following up on this mission and doing good work and spending a few minutes with us on theCUBE. >> Yeah, that's great, thanks Jeff. >> All right, he's David, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE from AWS IMAGINE Educate. Thanks for watching. (electronic music)

>> From the Amazon Meeting Center in Downtown Seattle, it's theCUBE. Covering Imagine: A Better World, A Global Education Conference sponsored by Amazon Web Services. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Seattle, Washington, at the AWS, I think it's called the Meeting Space. There's a lot of AWS buildings around here. It's AWS Imagine: Education, first year of the conference, about 900 registered folks, 22 countries represented. Really excited, this thing is going to grow. We've seen it before with AWS. We saw it with Summit: Reinvent. AWS Public Sector. We're excited to be here for the very first time and our next guest is Dr. Scott Ralls. He is the President of Northern Virginia Community College. Scott, great to see you. >> Thank you, it's good to be here Jeff, appreciate it. >> A lot of mentions of NOVA, and that's you guys. >> That's us, yeah. >> That's not the PBS programming. You guys are kind of out front on some of these initiatives, with 3sa and AWS Public Sector. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the Veterans' Apprenticeship Program, which has been in place for a little while. >> Just a little bit about NOVA, we're a community college just right outside of the Virginia suburbs of D.C. We're the, I'd say, the biggest college that nobody's heard of outside of our region. We have about 100,000 students. >> 100,000? >> 100,000. >> And how many campuses? >> Six campuses. >> For us, our niche is information technology. It's where the internet runs through our region, and so that cloud computing, we have the highest concentration of cloud computing cyber degrees. That's why the AWS partnership is so key for us, because it's about the opportunity for our students. And for AWS, it's about filling those jobs. Also, we have a lot of employers in our region that hire based on AWS credentials. AWS is the backbone for them. That's why for us as a community college, being jobs-focused, filling that gap, that's why it's key for us. >> That's Tyson's corner, right? That's where AOL started-- >> That's right, that's right, that's right. >> and there's a whole history. >> You've got all the cyber right around there. One writer has said that we're the bullseye of the internet. It's a unique place, but it's a unique opportunity for our students. >> Right, and the smart money's on the AWS second headquarter being in that neighborhood, but we don't-- >> Knock on wood. >> Knock on wood. We would love to see that. >> I'm just curious then if you've been educating people to get jobs in this IT sector, how you've seen that evolve over time? Because it used to be there were a lot of sys admin jobs or a lot of jobs that now automation and cloud is taking away. On the other hand, there's a lot of new jobs that the technology's enabling, like happens every time. How are you seeing the landscape change? >> I really think that's the way it has been. 30 years ago, when I was breaking into this workforce and world, that same conversation was going on. Automation was going to take all the jobs. There's been all kinds of new opportunities that emerge and that's the same thing we see, and certainly in Northern Virginia we see that so, for us, as a community college, we're doing it two ways. You asked about the apprenticeship program, that was our first entree with AWS so we are one of their primary training providers, education providers for apprenticeship. Those are the veterans and others that are hired by AWS, they come to our college for the education component, the certifications, the IT skills. The second part for us is the new cloud degree which we introduced in February, which is a two-year, first cloud degree in the country that will help other students who are not those coming through apprenticeship to also break into this important area. >> This is an associate's degree like all the other degrees you guys offer >> That's right. as a two-year program. I'd be just curious, what are some of the curricula? What are some of the core classes that they take that are part of that degree? >> One of the things that we've been doing, we use a lot of data analytics on the workforce side that others do not so part of it's our engagement, talking with the AWS leaders about what's needed. Part of it's also watching what AW, what credentials, what skills AWS is hiring for and then others who use the AWS platform, so you will see certain types of credentials that are built in, security plus, Linux plus, AWS Solutions Architect built in. Also even programming language, it's like Python because of its importance in that regard. We kind of use that as the, using that intelligence, if you will, to be able to build out what the degree should look like. Because we're paying attention to how AWS hires and how the IT users of AWS, how they're hiring and what the skills are that they're looking for. >> How hard is it to get that through at the school, to actually have an associate degree based on cloud? Were they receptive of the idea, did everybody see it coming, was it a hard push? >> We did it within one year, we did it within one year. >> Did it in one year? >> Within one year. >> Everything in the cloud happens fast. >> We moved fast on this. It is built off of our IT degree, so it's a specialization of that degree, so it was really, I think what made it move faster for us was two things. One is AWS has a great program called AWS Educate, which essentially provides a lot of the curriculum content. It's the kind of things if you were starting a degree, you would have to go out and create on your own. Having that rich content. Other partners, like Columbus State, who is also, Santa Monica, others that are working on cloud degrees and we can partner with each other. Then having the apprenticeship as sort of a North Star to tack on with respect to how companies are hiring and what skills are needed. That allowed us to move fast. >> Beyond Educate and the actual materials and curriculum materials, what does partnering with AWS do for you guys? What has that enabled you to do as part of this program that you couldn't do or it'd be a whole lot harder? >> Not everybody looks at community colleges. Being partnered with AWS, who they are, is key for us, it's important for us. I think it's also they recognize how important it is for them. Not everybody recognizes that. One thing that's unique for us as a community college, we have a lot of students who come to us who already have four-year degrees to get that skills part. It's almost like a graduate school. The apprentices are that way. Most of the apprentices already have four-year degrees in computer science, and we're providing that finishing piece. I think AWS sees in us how to broaden the, to scale, to fill that talent gap. I really think the only way you're going to diversify the talent gap and scale the talent gap is through institutions like ours. >> It's really an interesting statement on the role of community colleges in this whole refactoring of education. One, as you said, a lot of people have four-year degrees, so this concept of ongoing education, continue to get new skills as the opportunities dictate. Have that very specific knowledge and these certifications that are not Intro Philosophy or English Lit 205. These are very specific things that people can apply to their job today. >> The curriculum changes so fast, so we have to be willing to change, our instructors have to be willing to get that new thing. The history curriculum doesn't change that quickly, but the IT curriculum and particularly as it relates to cloud and cyber and other areas. If we're not doing that, then we're out of the ballgame, and when we're out of the ballgame that means our students are out of the ballgame, and that's what it's all about. >> When you come to an event like this, what are you hoping to get out of an event like this? Flew across the country, unfortunately through all the terrible smoke and stuff we have on the west coast. What are some of the things you hope to gain here with some of the other educators? >> One thing that always happens at AWS events is the connections that you make. Part of it is you do hear people, like we heard this morning, that you wouldn't have the opportunity to hear before, on machine learning and other areas. A lot of it's about the connections, so actually tomorrow morning a lot of the community colleges and others who are creating cloud programs will be working together tomorrow. AWS does a great job of maximizing our time, so we're part of the program, but we're also breaking off to really partner and that allows us all to move quicker. When we can build off of each other and then have the resources like AWS makes available to us. >> Sounds like you're moving pretty quick-- >> We're trying, we're trying. >> To get all that done and to get it done in a year. >> We have to keep up with where they're going. >> It's not what academic institutions are generally known for, speed and change. >> We're not your average academic institution. >> There ya go, alright. He's Dr. Scott Ralls,-- >> Thank you, 'preciate it. thanks for taking a few minutes with ya. I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCUBE, we're at AWS public sector, Imagine, in downtown Seattle. Thanks for watching, catch ya next time. (electronic tones)

>> From the Amazon Meeting Center in downtown Seattle, it's theCUBE. Covering: Imagine A Better World, A Global Education Conference. Sponsored by Amazon Web Services. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown Seattle at the AWS IMAGINE education event, first time ever, 900 people registered, over 20 countries represented, Teresa gave the keynote, a lot of exciting stuff. And one of the big announcements is some of the work that's happening down in Los Angeles with all the community colleges there. We're excited to have, right off the keynote stage, he's Bill Allen, the CEO of the LA Economic Development Corporation, who's been instrumental in getting this thing off the ground. Bill, good to see you. >> Jeff, it's great to be with you today. This is an exciting moment for us, rolling out this very successful pilot program to all 19 colleges that are part of the LA Regional Consortium. >> So let's jump in, it's called the CA Cloud Workforce Project. >> Yeah, the California Cloud Workforce Project. We have obviously millions of businesses in California, in our own region 250,000 business with employees that are looking to convert to the cloud, take advantage of the exciting tools and resources available to them in the cloud, but they need the skilled workers in these firms to help migrate this transition and that's what our community colleges are stepping up to provide with the help of Amazon Web Services and AWS Educate. >> So it's really interesting cause you know it's a special role that community colleges play within the whole education system, and we could have a whole long debate over adult beverages on a Friday about the state of the education system but specifically here, there is a huge gap and people think technology's taking jobs away. They're taking some jobs away, but they're opening up a ton of new jobs and go no further than looking at the jobs open recs, there's lots and lots and lots of jobs to fill. So how did it come to be to tie that back directly to real skills, that you can actually have real kids take real jobs? >> Well we see these transitions happening all across the industry sectors in Los Angeles and we have a broad array: aerospace, entertainment, digital media, life sciences, transportation logistics. >> It's the little technology, right. >> Advanced transportation. they're all undergoing significant changes and they're all becoming more technology enabled, more technology dependent. And the opportunity exists to train workers for these technology enabled jobs that provide good wages and good benefits, and help our businesses compete globally and take advantage, fully leverage all these advances and innovations. We formed a center for a competitive workforce with all of our 19 colleges, using their labeled market researcher economists and our own economists in the institute for applied economics at the LAEDC, to study the evolving demand for labor and skills in the various occupations in these industry sectors and compare that against the supply side of our labor market. >> Right, right. >> To enhance our talent development pipeline, and its led to new programs such as this. This was one of the clear areas of opportunity was cloud computing skills. The first program we launched at Santa Monica College, had two sections they rapidly sold out, we had to expand it to seven sections. More than 300 students participated in the first year of courses. 230 are signed up for this Fall 2018. And it's an extraordinarily successful program, but now the other 18 community college presidents have all stepped up and said we're going to roll this out on our campuses beginning this August at East Los Angeles college and historic East LA, part of our community which, speaks to the diversity opportunities. >> Right. >> We have a very diverse population in Los Angeles and many of our communities have been underrepresented historically in the technology fields. They are really interested in accessing the skills and opportunities, and they are really taking up these courses with enthusiasm from our local high schools to our community colleges. And I think it's going to help us in Los Angeles really diversity our technology workforce, and that helps our companies expand globally. >> Right, so I'm just curious, what are some of the skills when you did the research that popped up in terms of specific types of jobs? Because we've all see the pictures of data centers, they are usually pretty clean, there's not a lot of people walking around. But there are people that really need to make it go. So what were some of those kind of job titles and job skills that leapt out that have such demand, and field demand. >> There's so much need for data scientist, there's so much need for machine learning capabilities, there's so much need for basic cloud computing, cyber security, really all of these advanced technologies that are data dependent, data analytic, data science, really are emerging as important components of each and every industry sector that I mentioned earlier that exists in our community and throughout the world. And so our job is to try and share that knowledge with our community colleges, our state universities, our four year public and private institutions, and even our k-12 institutions so they can begin to adjust their curriculum to ensure that they're creating pathways of learning at the earliest ages, and then specific coursework in these emerging opportunities throughout the career ladder, throughout the career development pipeline in the LA area. >> So I want to touch base on the k-12 because I think an interesting component of this program is each community college is paired up with at least one, I don't know if there's more than one high school in their area. And it's always been kind of interesting to me that it's been so hard to get kind of CS baked into kind of the standard high school curriculum. You've got kind of the standard math track with trig and Calc, and Algebra I and Algebra II, you've got kind of the standard science track with Physics, and Bio, and Chem. But it's been really hard to wedge CS into that. So are you finding with programs like this, kind of the adoption or the embracing of the CS curriculum at these lower, lower levels is finally getting some steam? >> We are, interestingly our students have often been ahead of our institutions in understanding the demand and the opportunity, and they've been clamoring for these kinds of opportunities. And our industries are becoming more aware of the roll that they can play in helping our schools develop the curriculum, purchase, acquire, maintain the equipment associated with this. Whether it's hardware, or software. And these partnerships that are emerging originally around some theme based academies in our schools, both charter schools and traditional public schools have been helping the broader school districts engage more deeply in the development of curriculum to prepare a more technologically literate workforce for the future. >> Right, now what if you could speak a little to the public private partnership. You're with the economic development corporation, you mentioned LA chamber of commerce's involved and now you've got a big company like AWS, there's a lot of resources to bring to bare and also a lot of open job recs. How does that work, and how have they helped you partner with Amazon AWS kind of move your initiative forward? >> So Amazon and the AWS platform have been terrific partners and specifically the AWS education initiative, have been terrific partners and are really shining the way, lighting the path for other major employers in our region. The students who graduate with this program will not only be valuable to Amazon itself but so many of its customers who are migrating to the cloud platform. But we have companies like Northrop Grumman who are partnering with community colleges to develop talent for their joint strike fighter program in the North end of our county, and hiring people for well paying jobs. Amazon has premier partners in their AWS educate partner program like Anaca who are providing internships for the graduates of this program. So the public and private sector are working closely together, that's why the LAEDC and the LA chamber were asked to get involved in this so we can bring employers to the table, who are really forward looking in their approaches to developing their future talent pipeline. And really desirous of developing the more diverse talent base that is in Los Angeles to fill the needs as so many of the workers in these industries are aging out of the workforce. We need a significant number of newly skilled young people in our communities to take on the future of each of these industries. >> Right, so we're both big fans of Teresa Carlson she kicked things off today. If we come back a year from today, which I assume we will, what are we going to be talking about? How do you see kind of the next year? What are your kind of short term goals and more medium term goals? I won't even ask you about long term goals. >> As I mentioned we had a few hundred students sign up for this so much so that we had to expand the sections from two to seven, I think you're going to see thousands of students taking advantage of this across our region. We have 300,000 students in our community colleges in this LA regional consortium. >> 300 thousand? >> 300 thousand students. >> Make a big impact. >> And I think a significant number of them are going to want to avail themselves of these types of opportunities. We're projecting through our center for competitive workforce, thousands of job openings in this area and so we have a ways to go of scaling this up to the thousands of students who should be taking these courses, and preparing themselves for the well paying jobs in these careers in Los Angeles and the broader Southern California mega region for which our community colleges train such a healthy percentage of our workforce. >> Alright Bill, well sounds like you're off and running, and wish you nothing but the best. >> Jeff, thanks so much, great talking to you. >> Alright, he's Bill, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE! We're at AWS Imagine education in Seattle. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(electronic music) >> Live, from Washington, DC, it's theCUBE, covering AWS Public Sector Summit 2018. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and its ecosystem partners. >> Hey, welcome back. We're here live in Washington, D.C. It's theCUBE's coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit Amazon Web Services, Public Sector Summit. It's like re:Invent but also for public sector. But it's a global public sector. I'm John Furrier with Stu Miniman. Our next guest is Vincent Quah, who's the head of education, nonprofits, and healthcare in Asia, Pacific, and Japan for AWS. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thanks, John, Stu. Great to be able to be here. >> You know, we constantly talk about cloud in the United States here, and people use the word GovCloud, and Teresa and I always kind of jokingly say, "No, it's bigger than GovCloud. It's global public sector." You bring an international perspective covering APAC for AWS? >> Yes, absolutely. >> Public sector, okay. Outside of China, which is a different division with Amazon, you got the whole world. So Teresa and the team are looking not just at the US, it's the entire world. What's different? How's that working? Give us an update. >> I think one of the key differences that we see is that the US has really led the way in terms of the adoption of cloud technologies. We had great examples of universities that have really gone all in. What we are seeing now is that universities and education institutions in Asia, they're beginning to pick up their pace. And it's exciting to see some of the universities really coming very strongly using AWS. And we're seeing this across not just in mature countries and developed countries, but also in developing countries. And so it is a very widespread adoption of the cloud. And we're very excited by that. Tell us about the AWS Educate. Teresa Carlson on stage yesterday very highlighted much in her keynote about education, as well as some of the that they're doing with retraining and educating young people and whatnot, but really education has been a real growth area, from interest with cloud. Because old IT (laughs) okay, you look at that, okay, there's never had a lot of IT guys. (Vincent laughs) But it's really changed both technology procurement and delivery, but also the impact. >> Right. >> Talk about the AWS Educate program. >> So the AWS Educate program is a free program that all institutions can join. It comes with content from AWS, it comes with content from some of the top computer science universities in the world, as well as Cloud Credits, where individual student members, or the educator's members, they can actually get access to using the real platform that AWS provide. Now, this is really game-changing for students and for the institution. And it's game-changing because they have exactly the same access to all the 125-plus technologies that AWS provide to enterprises and now they are in the hands of students. So can you imagine, if they have the experience using some of these services, building capabilities, building solutions and services, and bringing out to the market. So now, innovation is in the hands of every single individual. And Educate is such an important program to re-skill and skill graduates to be ready for the working world. >> I love that, Vincent. I think back, most of my career, when you talked about education, you talked about research and universities. So it was a certain top-tier and a very limited amount. You're really democratizing what's happening. Wonder if you have any examples, or what sort of innovations are coming out of some of these global initiatives? One of the great example is NOVA, right. So we've announced that NOVA is now building this cloud associate degree as part of their information systems technology. >> What's NOVA again? >> The Northern Virginia Community College. >> In the keynote yesterday, not to be confused with Villanova, the basketball champs. >> Northern Virginia, got it, sorry. >> So, there's a need there that the institutions see because there's so much that the industry would need in terms of skills and graduates graduating with the right skill set. If you look at the World Economic Forum that was published in 2016, more about Internet and cloud computing are the two key technological drivers that's creating all these change in the industry. And many, many organizations are now investing into skilling and re-skilling. Educate sits so nicely to this particular part of the agenda. Apart from what NOVA has done here in the US, there are two other examples I want to quickly highlight to you. The first is, in the first week of June, we actually did an event in the Philippines. It was a large-scale student event. We had more than hundreds of students in a single location, with probably close to 100 educators. We took them through a four-day event. Two days of skills and content learning with hands-on experience. A third day on a gamified challenge that we put the students through so that they can compete with one another in groups, and thereby achieving top-notch scores in the leaderboard. And at the end of the day, they actually get to also develop a curriculum vitae, a CV, that they can actually submit to companies. And on the fourth day, we brought more than 20 companies as part of this whole event, and we got the students to actually connect with the companies, and the companies to the students, so that where the companies are looking for jobs, these are the students that are ready with skills that they have learned over the past three days, that they can apply to jobs that these company are looking for. So that's a really strong case of what we see working. Connecting skills to companies that are looking for students with the right set of skills. >> Talk about the international global landscape for a minute. You have a unique perspective in your job. What are the key things going on out there? What's the progress look like? What are some of the successes? Can you share a little bit about what's going on in Asia, Pacific, and Japan? >> Sure. There'll be two examples that I'll be sharing. The first is, we know that AWS Educate started off at the tertiary level. But then, last re:Invent is now being extended to 14 years and above. So now children at that age can learn about the cloud and be made aware of what's the potential of the cloud and what they can learn and use the cloud for. We've also begun to extend that work into the adult working workforce. One very specific example that I can share with you. There is an organization in Singapore called the National Trade Unions Congress LearningHub. They're an education service provider and they provide education services to citizens of Singapore. We have worked with them. They're using the AWS Educate content, and they develop two courses. Fundamentals in Cloud Computing and Fundamentals in IoT. They bring this pilot courses for the Fundamentals in IoT to a group of individuals age 45 to 74 years old. And they came away, the course just simply blew their mind away. They were so excited about what they have learned. How to program, actually, I have with me, an Internet of Things button. Now they can actually come up with an idea, program an activity on this button, so that it trigger off a particular reaction. And that's the excitement that these individuals 45 to 74 years old. They have the domain expertise, now they need is just an idea and a platform. >> It's also entrepreneurial too. >> Absolutely. >> They can tinker with the software, learn about the cloud at a very young age, and they can grow into it and maybe start something compelling, have a unique idea, fresh perspective. >> Correct. >> Or, someone who's retraining, to get a new job. >> Correct. And innovation is, we keep thinking of innovation as something that's really big. But actually, innovation doesn't have to be that way. It can start very small and then scale up from there. And all you need is just an idea to apply. >> All right. So Vincent, one of the themes we've been talking a lot about at the show is cybersecurity. Can you speak how that discussion plays specifically in the education markets? >> What we want to do is really raise the awareness of every individual's understanding of cloud computing. And by that I mean from 14 years to 74 years old. We want to let them know, actually, they are already interacting with cloud technologies. For example, if you have a Samsung Smart TV at home, if you have made a hotel booking through Expedia or through Airbnb, or if you have called for home delivery from McDonald's, you've already interacted with the cloud. And so what we want to do is make sure that everybody actually understand that. And then through some of these courses that are being provided by our partners, then they can go and learn about the security part of it. And help them have a much better sense of idea of, look, the cloud is actually a lot more secure. And we've heard many examples of that today and yesterday. And we want to give them that assurance that what they are doing and consuming, they can be part of that entrepreneur process to create something new and very exciting. >> Vincent, I'll give you the last word on this interview by sharing the update from Asia Pacific AWS. How many people are out there's a growing, you're hiring. What are some of the priorities you guys have. They have a big event in Singapore, I know that. We've been watching it, thinking about bringing theCUBE there. Give us some idea of the growth around the AWS people. What's the head count look like, give us some estimations. John, you know I can't really talk too much about head count, but I can say that we are definitely growing our AWS head count very, very rapidly. The needs and requirements out there in the market is so tremendous, and we want to be able to serve the customer as best as we can. We are a customer-obsessed company, and so we want to be there with the customer, work with them to really meet the objective and the goals that they have. And help them achieve that vision. And so we are just the enabler. We empower the customer to make. >> You have events out there too, right? You have the re:Invent, Summit? >> We have the AWS Summit, and this coming October we have the Public Sector Summit here in Singapore, as well as in Canberra in September. >> Right. >> And there's an education event coming domestically, too. >> And there's an education, a global education event that is happening in Seattle in August. So we're very excited about that. >> Lot of action on the AWS ecosystem. Congratulations, you guys do a great job. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, Vincent. Really appreciate it. We're here live in Washington, DC. It's theCUBE's coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit. I'm John Furrier with Stu Miniman. We've got Dave Vellante here as well, coming and joining us for some interviews. We'll be right back, stay with us for more coverage after this short break. (electronic music)

>> Live from Washington DC, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Summit 2018. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and its ecosystem partners. >> Hello everyone, welcome back. It's theCUBE's exclusive coverage. We're here in Washington, D.C. for live coverage of theCUBE here at Amazon Web Services, AWS Public Sector Summit. This is the re-invent for the global public sector. Technically they do a summit but it's really more of a very focused celebration and informational sessions with customers from Amazon Web Services, GovCloud, and also international, except China, different world. John Furrier, Dave Vellante here for our third year covering AWS Public Sector Summit and again our next guest is Max Peterson, the Vice President of International Sales Worldwide for public sector data, Max, good to see you, thanks for coming back. >> It's good to see you again, John, thank you. >> So, we saw you at dinner last night, great VIP Teresa Carlson dinner last night, it's a who's who in Washington, D.C., but also international global public sector. >> Absolutely. >> And so, I want to get your thoughts on this, because AWS is not just in D.C. for GovCloud, there's a global framework here. What's goin' on, what's your take on how this cloud is disrupting the digital nations, and obviously here at home in D.C.? >> Well, John, so first of all, I love your description of this as a celebration, because really that's one of the things that we do, is we celebrate customer success, and so when you look at AWS around the world, we've got customers that are delivering solutions for citizens, new solutions for healthcare, a great solution to education all around the world. In Europe, we serve all those customers from London, Ireland, Germany, Frankfurt, Paris, all open regions, and we're bringing two new regions that we've announced, in the Middle East, which is an exciting part of the Europe, Middle East, and Africa business, and then also up in the Nordics, with Sweden. >> Yeah, so I want to ask you about EMEA, Europe, Middle East and Africa, it's the acronym for essentially international. Huge growth, obviously Europe is a mature set of countries, and it has its own set of issues, but in the Middle East and outside of Europe there's a huge growing middle class of digital culture. >> Yes. >> You're seeing everything from cryptocurrency booming, blockchain, you're seeing kind of the financial industries changing, obviously mobile impact, you got a new revolution going on with digital. You guys have to kind of thread the needle on that. What are you guys doing to support those regions? Obviously, you got to invest, got GDP always in the headlines >> Right. >> Recently, that's Europe's issue, and globally, but you got Europe, and you got outside of Europe. Two different growth strategies, how is AWS investing, what are some of the things you guys are doing? >> Sure, let me try and get all of those questions >> (laughs) Just start them one at a time >> That was very good, yeah. So, let's do the invest and grow piece. Digital skills are critical, and that's one of the challenges with the overall digital transformation, and, by the way, that's not just EMEA, that's all around the world, right? Including the U.S., and so we're doing a lot of things to try to address the digital skills requirement, a program that we've got called AWS Educate just yesterday announced the Cloud Academy Course. So, career colleges, technical colleges will be able to teach a two-year course specifically on cloud, right? For traditional university education, we provide this thing called AWS Educate. We, in the UK, we started a program over 18 months ago called Restart, where we focus on military leavers, spouses, and disadvantaged youth through the prince's trust, and we're training a thousand people a year on AWS cloud computing and digital skills. Taking them, in this case, out of military, or from less advantaged backgrounds and bringin' 'em into tech. And then, finally in April of this year, at our Brussels public sector summit, a celebration of customers in EMEA, we announced that we're going to be training 100,000 people across Europe, Middle East and Africa, with a combination of all of these programs, so skills is absolutely top in terms of getting people on to the cloud, right, and having them be digitally savvy, but the other part that you talked about is really the generational and cultural changes. People expect service when they touch a button on the phone. And that's not how most governments work, it's not how a lot of educational institutions work, and so we're helping them. And so, literally now, across the region, we've got governments that are delivering online citizen services at the touch of a button. Big organizations, like the UK Home Office, like the Department for Wealth and Pensions, like the Ministry of Justice. And then, I think the other thing that you asked about was GDPR. >> Yeah. (laughs) >> Am I covering all the bases? >> You're doing good Max. >> You keep it rollin'. >> You're a clipping machine, here. >> So, GDPR might be thought of as a European phenomenon, but my personal opinion is that's going to set the direction for personal data privacy around the world, and we're seeing the implementation happen in Europe, but we're seeing also customers in the Middle East, in Asia, down in Latin America going, "Hey, that's a good example." And I think you'll see people adopt it, much like people have adopted the NIST definition of cloud computing. Why re-invent it? If there's something that's good, let's adopt it and go, and Amazon understood that that was coming, although some people act like it's a surprise. >> Yeah. >> Did your e-mail box get flooded with e-mail? >> Oh, Gosh. >> God, tons Well the day >> Day before. >> Yes! >> (laughs) >> Yes, day before! Acting like this was, like a surprise. It started two years before, so Amazon actually started our planning so that when the day arrived for it to be effective, AWS services were GDPR compliant so that customers could build GDPR compliant solutions on top of the cloud. >> So, I mean generally I know there's a lot of detail there, but what does that mean, GDPR compliant? 'Cause I like having my data in the cloud with GDPR, 'cause I can push a lot of the compliance onto my cloud provider, so what does that really mean, Max? >> Yeah, well fundamentally, GDPR gives people control of their information. An example is the right to be forgotten, right? Many companies, good companies were already doing that. This makes it a requirement across the entire EU, right? And so, what it means to be compliant is that companies, governments, people need to have a data architecture. They really have to understand where their data is, what information they're collecting, and they have to make the systems follow the rules for privacy protection. >> So how does AWS specifically help me as a customer? >> Right, so our customers around Europe, in fact, around the world build their solutions on top of Amazon. The Amazon services do things that are required by GDPR like encryption, alright? And so, you're supposed to encrypt and protect private data. In Amazon, all you do is click a button, and no matter where you store it, it's encrypted and protected. So a lot of organizations struggled to implement some of these basic protections. Amazon's done it forever, and under GDPR, we've organized those so that all of our services act the same. >> Max, this brings up security questions, 'cause, you know obviously we hear a lot of people use the cloud, as an example, for getting things stood up quickly, >> Yep. >> Whether it's an application in the past, and then say a data warehouse, you got redshifts, and kinesis, and at one point was the fastest growing service, as Andy Jassy said, now that's been replaced by a bunch of other stuff. You got SageMaker around the corner, >> SageMaker's awesome. >> So you got that ability, but also data is not just a data warehouse question. It's really a central value proposition, whether you're talking about in the cloud or IOT, so data becomes the center of the value proposition. How are you guys ensuring security? What are some of the conversations, because it certainly differs on a country by country basis. You got multiple regions developing, established and developing new ones for AWS. How do you look at that? How do you talk to customers and say, "Okay, here's our strategy, and here's what we're doing to secure your data, here's how you can go faster (laughs), keep innovating, because you know they don't want to go slower, because it's complicated. To do a GDPR overhaul, for some customers, is a huge task. How do you guys make it faster, while securing the data? >> Yeah, so first of all, your observation about data, having gravity, is absolutely true. What we've struggled with, with government customers, with healthcare and commercial enterprise, is people have their data locked up in little silos. So the first thing that people are doing on the cloud, is they're taking all that and putting it into a data warehouse, a data repository. Last night we heard from NASA, and from Blue Origin about the explosion in data, and in fact, what they said, and we believe, is that you're going to start bringing your compute to the data because the amount of information that you've got, when you've got billions of sensors, IOT, billions of these devices that are sending information or receiving information, you have to have a cloud strategy to store all that information. And then secondly, you have to have a cloud compute strategy to actually make use of that information. You can't download it anymore. If you're going to operate in real time, you've got to run that machine learning, right, in real time, against the data that's coming in, and then you've got to be able to provide the information back to an application or to people that makes use of it. So you just can't do it in-house anymore. >> You mentioned the talk last night as part of the Earth and Science Program, which you guys did, which by the way, I thought was fabulous. For the folks watching, they had a special inaugural event, before this event around earth and space, Blue Origin was there, Jet Propulsion Lab, much of the NASA guys, a lot of customers. But the interesting thing he said also, was is that they look at the data as a key part, and then he called himself a CTO, Chief Toy Officer. And he goes, "you got to play with the toys before they become too old," but that was a methodology that he was talking about how they get involved in using the tooling. Tooling becomes super important. You guys have a set of services, AWS, Amazon Web Services, which essentially are tools. >> Yeah. >> Collectively tools, you know global, you end up generalizing it, but this is important because now you can mix and match. Talk about how that's changed the customer mindset and how they roll out technology because they got to play, they got to experiment, as Andy Jassy would say, but also, also put the tools into production. How is it changing the face of your customer base? >> Sure, well, one of the things that customers love, is the selection of tools, but one of the most important things we actually do with customers, is help them to solve their problems. We have a professional service organization, we have what we call Envision Engineering, which is a specialized team that goes in and develops prototypes with customers, so that they understand how they can use these different tools to actually get their work done. One quick example: in the UK, the NHS had to implement a new program for people calling in to understand health benefits. And they could've done this in a very traditional fashion, it would've taken months and months to set up the call center and get everything rolling. Fortunately, they worked with one of our partners, and they understood that they could use new speech and language processing tools like Lex, and Amazon's in-the-cloud call center tools, like Connect. In two weeks, they were able to develop the application that handled 42% of the inbound call volume entirely automated, with speech and text processing, so that the other 52% could go to live operators where they had a more complex problem. That was prototyped in two weeks, it was implemented in three more weeks, a total of five weeks from concept to operation of a call center receiving thousands and thousands of inbound calls on the cloud. >> Max, can you paint a picture of the EMEA customer base, how it sort of compares to the US, the profile? I mean, obviously here, in the United States, you got a healthy mix of customers. You got startups, you're announcing enterprises, you got IOT use cases. I imagine a lot of diversity in EMEA, but how does it compare with the US, how would you describe it? Paint a picture for us. >> Yeah sure, candidly, we see the same exact patterns all around the world. Customers are in different stages of readiness, but across Europe, we have central governments that are bringing online, mission systems to the cloud. I mentioned Home Office, I mentioned DWP, I mentioned Her Majesty Revenue and Customs, HMRC. They're bringing real mission systems to the cloud now because they laid the right foundations, right? They've got a cloud native policy, and that's what directs government, that says stop building legacy systems and start building for the future by using the cloud. Educational institutions across the board are using AWS. Science and research, like the European Space Agency is using AWS, so we see, really, just the same pattern going on. Some areas of the world are newer to the cloud, so in the Middle East, we're seeing that sort of startup phase, where startup companies are gettin' onto the cloud. Some of 'em are very big. Careem is a billion dollar startup running on AWS, right. But we're helping startups just do the basics on the cloud. In Bahrain, which is a small country in the Middle East, they realized the transformative opportunity with cloud computing, and they decided to take the lead. They worked with AWS, they produced a national cloud policy, their CIO said we will move to the cloud, and that's key. Leadership is absolutely key. And then they put in place a framework, and they very systematically identified those applications that were ready, and they moved those first. Then they tackled the ones that weren't quite ready, and they moved those. They moved 450 applications in a matter of three months, to the cloud, but it was by having a focused program, top-level leadership, the right policy, and then we provided technical resources to help them do it. >> Max, I want to get one last question before the time comes up, but I want to put you on the spot here. >> Oh good. >> In the United States, Amazon Web Services public sector has really kind of changed the game. You saw the CIA deal that you guys did years ago, the Department of Defense is all in the news, obviously it's changing the ecosystem. How is that dynamic happening in Europe? You said the patterns are the same. Take a minute to just quickly describe, what's going on in the ecosystem? What's the partner profile look like? You've got a great partner ecosystem, and there are different partners. You mentioned Bahrain, Digital Nation, changing the game. You guys seem to attract kind of a new guard, a new kind of thinking, partners. What is the ecosystem partnerships look like for you guys, internationally, and is there the same dynamic going on that's happening in the US with the CIA, and DOD leaders around changing the narrative, changing the game, with technology? >> Sure, good questions. We wouldn't be able to deliver the solutions that we deliver to customers without our partner ecosystem. And sometimes, they're small, born in the cloud partners, the same sort of phenomenon that we have in the US. The example with the National Health Service was delivered by a expert consulting partner called Arcus Global, about a hundred person strong consulting organization that just knows cloud and makes it their business. And we see those throughout Europe, Middle East, and into Africa. We have our large global partners, Capgemini, Accenture, and then I think the other thing that's really important, is the regional partners. So what's happening is we're seeing those regional partners, partners like Everee, or Dee-Ecto, or SCC. We're seeing them now realize that their customers want to be agile, they want to be innovative, they want to be fast, and it doesn't hurt that they're going to save some money. And so we're seeing them change their business model, to adopt cloud computing, and that's the tipping point. When that middle, that trusted middle of partners, starts to adopt cloud and help the customers, that's when it really swings the other direction. >> It's great growth, and new growth brings new partners, new profiles, new brands, new names, and specialty is key. Max, thanks for coming on the CUBE. Really appreciate you taking the time. International, we're riding the wave of home sector with CUBE here in the US, soon we'll see you in some international summits. >> I'm looking forward, >> Alright. >> John, Dave, it was awesome to talk to you. >> Thanks Max. >> Alright, we are here live in Washington, D.C., for Amazon Web Services, AWS, Public Sector Summit 2018, we are in Washington, I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante, and also Stu Miniman is here, the whole CUBE team is here, unpacking the phenomenon that is AWS, rocking the government and digital nations around the world. We're back with more, after this short break. (upbeat techno music)