>> Announcer: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE conversation. >> Hi, everyone. Welcome to theCUBE Studios here in Palo Alto, California. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're here for coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit. This is theCUBE Virtual with our quarantine crew going out and covering the latest posts of the Virtual Summit where our next guest is Matthew Cornelius, Executive Director for the Alliance for Digital Innovation. Matthew, thanks for joining me today for part of AWS virtual Public Sector Summit. >> That's great, thanks, John. Appreciate you having me. >> I know that John Wood and I have been talking about this organization and some of the ambition and the relevance of it. So I think it's a super important story. I want to get your thoughts on this in an unpack kind of the mission but for starters, tell us what is the Alliance for Digital Innovation? When were you formed? What's the mission? What do you do? >> Sure. Yeah, so ADI was formed about two years ago, to create a new advocacy group that could focus explicitly on getting cloud forward, commercial, highly innovative companies into the public sector. So the government technology space has traditionally been dominated by a lot of legacy vendors, folks that are very happy with vendor lock-in, folks that have an outdated business model that would not suffice in the commercial sector. So why does it have to be that way for government and ADI started with about eight members has since grown. We're approaching two dozen now. So we've had a lot of growth and I think a lot of the response that you've seen in the public sector, especially to the COVID crisis, and the response and relief efforts have made this organization and our mission more relevant now than ever. There's no way that you can go back to the previous way of doing business, so adopting all these commercials technologies, changing your business model, changing your operating model, and really use an emerging technology to deliver all these missions services is critical. >> You know, one of the things that I've been reporting on for many, many years is this idea of modernization. Certainly on the commercial side with cloud, it's been really important and Amazon has done extremely well, from a business standpoint. We all know that where that's going. The issue that's happening now is the modernization is kicking in. So the government has started to move down this track, we've seen the procurement start to get more modernized. Move from buying manuals to actually having the modern stuff and in comes COVID-19. You couldn't have accelerated, you couldn't have pulled the future forward fast enough to an already struggling federal government, in my opinion, and I've talked to many people in DC and the young crowd saying, "Hey, old government get modern", and then this comes. It's almost like throwing the rock on your back and you're sinking. This is a problem. What's your take on this? Because you're trying to solve a problem with modernizing, but now you got COVID-19 coming in, it compounds the complexity and the challenge. What's your chosen reaction to that? >> Yeah, so it there's a multifaceted response to this. So part of it is what I like to say is the government's done more in the past four months than it's done in the past 14 years when it comes to modernization and adopting commercial capabilities. I think with individual agencies, you've seen those those agencies, I will name a couple like the Small Business Administration, the General Services Administration, where I used to work, folks that were already heavily invested in cloud, heavily invested in modern digital tools and modern digital processes, they were able to weather this storm and to deal especially in SPS case, with a dramatic increase in their mission. I mean, running the paycheck Protection Program is something unlike an organization that size has ever seen. And from a technology standpoint, they have a lot of good stories that are worth telling and I think it's because they were so cloud forward. I think one of the other interesting points that as really come to light over the past four months is so many of the issues around modernization were cultural. Now, of course, there are some that are legal, there's acquisition, there's the way agencies are appropriated and financed and the way they can spend their money, but by and large, all of these agencies had to move to maximum telework, they had to get rid of all of these outdated on premise processes, these paper based processes that they had. And although surely there were some bumps in the road, and that was not easy, especially for these folks working around the clock to keep their agencies operational to make sure citizens are getting the services, they need, especially during this crisis, I think there's a lot of great success stories that you see there and because of this, no one even if they're allowed to go back into the office or when they're allowed to go back in the office, people are going to understand how much more productive they are, how much more technologically capable they are. And that's not just CIO officers that's people on programs in the front lines delivering services that mission response. We've really seen it powerful word over the last four months. >> You know, Matthew, I've been very vocal given that I'm kind of the old guy, get off my lawn kind of commentary. (Matthew laughs) I've seen that the waves and I remember coming in when I was in my late 20s and 30s old school enterprises, the commercial business wouldn't do business with startups, you had to be approved or you were in entrenched vendors supporting those things and then in comes the web, in comes the 90s, and then the web came there's more agile, you had startups that were more open and working with commercial vendors. It seems like we're seeing that movie play out in public sector where you have the entrenched incumbents, they got the town wired, who knows what's going on. It's been called the Beltway bandits for years and Tris and Curson and I talk about that all the time, but now the government can be agile, and startups need to be product to these new solutions, like whether it's video conferencing or virtual events, things like we do. New solutions are coming that need to come in, it's hard. Can you share how a company whether it's a startup or a new solution can come in and work with the government? Because the perception is, it's impossible. >> Yeah, and part of why ADI exist is to break that down. One to recruit more members to join us to really help drive commercial innovation in the government. And we have some very large companies like AWS and others that do an awful lot of work with the government. And we have a lot of smaller startups that are interested in dipping their toe in there. And so we try to help them demystify how it is that you go about working with the government. I think there have been again, some good success stories on this one. I think that there are lots of places like the Department of Defense, a lot of the folks in the intelligence community, some other agencies, they have authorities, they have partnership programs that make it easier for folks to adopt commercial innovation. They have unique authorities like other transaction authorities or commercial solutions offerings that really lowers the barrier for new technologies to be piloted and potentially scaled inside government. But that's not the case across lots of agencies, and that's why we advocate broadly for getting the acquisition process to move at the speed of technology. If there are good authorities that work in some agencies, let's get into everybody, let's have everybody try it because the people in the agencies, the acquisition professionals, the technical professionals, they have to be committed to working with industry, so the industry is committed to working with them. And as a former federal employee, myself, I worked at the Office of Management and Budget and the General Service Administration, I always was upset at the fact that the government is very good at speaking to industry, but not very good at working with industry and listening, and so we see a lot more of that now and I think part of that is a response to COVID, but it's also the recognition that you can't do things the way you used to do it, the traditional butts in seats contracting business model where everybody in between a federal employee and that outsourced service provider. You don't need all those people there, you can do it yourself and be just as effective and get all the real outcomes you're looking for with commercial innovation. >> It sounds like ADI your priorities is to make things go fast and be modernized. So I have to ask you, the question that's on my mind, probably on everyone's mind is, what are the key conversations or messages you provide to the agencies, heads or members of Congress to get them excited about this, to take action to support what you're doing? Because let's face it, most of these guys up on the Hill are girls now, most of them have a law backgrounds, they don't have a tech background. So that's a complaint that I've heard in the hallways in DC is, the guy making all the decisions doesn't know jack about tech. >> No, it's it's a great point. When we advocate up on the Hill there's a law that I don't think a lot of folks pay in awful lot of attention to. Everybody likes the nice new things that are coming from Capitol Hill but there's a great piece of legislation from 1994 for the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act. We actually did some tremendous original research at ADI, about a year ago and released an interesting report that got a lot of uptick here. And most people don't even understand that the law requires you to do market research and see if there's a commercial product or service that meets your need before you go down building any sort of specific requirements or building out some sort of long procurement process. And so a lot of what we're doing is educating folks, not just on what the law says, but on why these can lead to better outcomes for agencies. I mean, I truly believe that most of the folks in government whether they're technical folks or not want to do the best thing, but if you're a company trying to do business with the government, you have to go through what is often a five or six or sometimes 10 person human supply chain. There's someone in government who wants your solution because it addresses a particular problem, and between them, and you the company, there's all sorts of additional bureaucratic overlays and folks that are not technical, that have other incentives and other priorities that don't always lead to the most optable procurement outcome. So there's an educational component, there's a cultural component. We need more champions inside government. We need not just better technology that's wanting to work with the government but we also need smarter, better people inside that understand the technology and can get to it the way they need to get to it so that they can deliver mission. >> As someone like me who's in the technology business, who loves entrepreneurship, loves business, loves the impact of technology, I'm not a public servant, and I'm not at that up to speed on all the government kind of inside baseball, so I kind of look at it a little bit differently. I've always been a big proponent of public private partnerships that's been kicked around in the past. It's kind of like digital transformation, kind of cliche, but there's been some pockets of success there, but look at the future. The role of influence and the commercial impact just China, for instance, just riffing the other day with someone around China doesn't actually go through government channels for how they deal with the United States. There's a little commercial, they have intellectual property issues going on, people saying they're stealing, they're investing in the United States. So there's a commercial influence. So as the government has to look at these commercial influences, they then have to modernize their workforce, their workloads, their applications, their workplaces. The work is not just workloads, it's workplace, workforce. So if you had your way, how would you like to see the landscape of the federal technology piece of this look like in five years? Because there's now new influence vectors coming in that are outside the channels of federal purview. >> No, it's a great question, and I appreciate you bringing up the other complexities around nation state actors in China and everything else. Obviously, supply chain security and being able to deal with legitimate security threat is critical when you're inside government. I mean, your first sort of purpose is to do no harm and to make sure that you're keeping citizen data, whether it's classified or unclassified secure. We think at ADI that there's a great balance to be heard there and part of that is if you're working with American companies, and you're adopting the best and most agile and most innovative commercial technology that America has to offer, that's going to make our industry more competitive and position it better in the commercial market and it's also going to make government agencies more effective. They're going to be able to meet their mission faster, they're going to be able to lower costs, they're going to be able to shift what are going to be tighter and tighter budgets over the next four or five or 10 years to other areas because they're not wasting so much money on these old systems and this old business processes, this old way of doing business. So you that is one of the balances that we have to take from an advocacy standpoint. We have to understand that supply chain security, cybersecurity are real issues, but security can also be an enabler to innovation and not an impediment and if a lot of the commercial capabilities that are coming out now and a lot of these companies like the ones ADI represents, want to do business with the government, and their commercial products can inherently be more secure than a lot of these old bespoke systems or old business practices. That's good for not just federal agencies, that's good for citizens and that's good for our national defense and our economy. >> You know, I look at our landscape and being an American born here, looking at other emerging countries, certainly China's one example of becoming very world digital native, even other areas where 5G and then telecom has made great internet access, you're seeing digital native countries, so as we modernize, and our lawmakers have more tech savvy and things become digital native, the commercial enabling piece is a huge thing, having that enabling technology, because it creates wealth and jobs and other things so you got three things, digital native country, enabling technologies to promote good and wealth and engine of economic value, and then societal impact. What's your take on those three kind of pillars? Because we're kind of as a country coming into this world order and look at the younger generation, they're all screaming for it, we're digital native, and all kinds of arbitrage there, fake news, misinformation, then you got enabling technology with the cloud, and then you get societal benefits, future of elections and everything else. So what's your thoughts? 'Cause it sounds like you're thinking about these things in your Digital Innovation Alliance. >> Yeah, absolutely. The one thing I will say and as someone that was a former federal employee, the one thing we need more of whether you're on the executive branch or in Congress, we need more people that like you said, are digital natives that understand technology that also want to be inside government either running programs or dealing with policy issues. We need as many good new ideas and folks with real, legitimate, necessary and current skills in there. Because if you don't understand the technology, you don't understand, like you said the societal impacts, you don't understand the business impacts of government decision making and the government can drive markets. I mean, especially in the middle of Coronavirus, we're spending trillions of dollars to keep folks afloat and we're using technology primarily as a way to make that happen. So the first thing I would say is, we need, we continue, need to continue, sorry, we need to continue to recruit and retain and train the best and the brightest to go into government service because it is a joy and a privilege to serve government and we've got to have better smarter technical people in there or we're going to keep getting these same outcomes, like you've mentioned over the past 30 plus years. >> I think we're in a JFK moment where John F. Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, "what you can do for your country". Moment in the modern era and that was the 60s, that we saw the revolution of that happen there, we're kind of having a digital version of that now where it's an opportunity for people to get involved, younger generations and make change rather than arguing about it. So I feel fairly strongly about this so I think this is an opportunity. Your reaction to that? >> No, that's a fantastic point. I hadn't really thought about the JFK resemblance. From an industry standpoint, I think that is what is happening with these emerging technology companies and even some of the large companies. They understand that this is their way to contribute to the country whose R&D dollars and these public private partnerships helped a lot of these folks to grow and become the companies they are now. At least started them down that road. And so for us at the Alliance for Digital Innovation and the companies that are a part of us that is sort of purposeful to who we are. We do what we do and we want the government to build stronger relationships and to use this technology, because it does serve mission. I mean, we exclusively focus on the public sector. Focus of these companies and it's tremendously valuable when you see a federal agency who spent five or 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars and still not solving a problem and then they can pick up the commercial off the shelf technology from a company that we represent, and can solve that problem for $5 million and do it in six months. I mean, that's truly rewarding and whether you're inside government or out, we should all celebrate that and we should find ways to make that the norm and not the exception. >> And take all that hate and violence and challenge it towards voting and getting involved. I'm a big proponent of that. Matthew, thank you so much for taking the time. I'll give you the last word. Take a minute to put a plug in for the Alliance for Digital Innovation. Who are the charter members, who's involved? I know John Wood from Telos is a charter member. Who's involved, how did it all start? >> Yeah. >> Give it taste of the culture and who's involved. >> Yeah, thanks, John. So, yeah, like you mentioned, we have tremendous members, AWS is obviously a great partner. We have a lot of big companies that are involved, Google Cloud, Salesforce, Palantir, Palo Alto Networks. We also have great midsize and small companies. You think of Telos, you think of SAP NS2 and Iron Net, you think of Saildrone. We've got companies that whose technology product and service offerings run the range for government needs. We all come together because we understand that the government can and should and must do better to buy and leverage commercial technology to meet mission outcomes. So that is what we focus on. And, frankly, we have seen tremendous growth since COVID started. I mean, we are 24 members now we were at 18, just four months ago, but I like to say that ADI is an organization whose mission is more important and more resonant now, not just in the technology, parts of government, but at the secretary level at the Chief Acquisition Officer level, in Congress. We are folks that are trying to paint the future, we're doing a positive vision for change for what government can and should be. And for all of those other technology companies that want to be a part of that, that understand that the government can do better, and that has ideas for making it work better and for getting commercial innovation into government faster, to solve mission outcomes and to increase that trust between citizens and government, we want you. So if folks are interested in joining you got people that are watching out there, you can go to alliance4digitalinnovation.org. We're always accepting interested applicants and we look forward to continuing this message, showing some real outcomes and helping the government for the next year, five years, 10 years, really mature and modernize faster and more effectively than it has before. >> Great mission, love what you're doing. I think the future democracy depends on these new models to be explored, candidly and out in the open, and it's a great mission, we support that. Thanks for taking the time, Matthew. Appreciate it. >> Thanks, John. Have a great Public Sector Summit. >> Okay, this is theCUBE coverage of AWS Public Sector Virtual Summit. I'm John Furrier here in theCUBE Virtual. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more coverage. (gentle music)