>> 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.

>> 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 downtown Seattle at AWS IMAGINE Education. First year of the show, 900 registrants, 20 countries represented, really all the public sectors show, but this one's just focused on education as its own track. A lot of really interesting innovation going on, and as part of the keynote, we saw a really cool concept video about bringing Alexa into the class. The Echo Dot talking, and so, we're excited to have kind of the guy driving this whole project. He's David Hakanson, the CIO of Saint Louis University. First off, what a great keynote you had this morning. >> Thank you, thank you, and we're really excited to announce this today. So, today we announced that we are putting an Amazon Echo Dot in every single residence hall room. So, over 2,300 devices that will be in every room awaiting students for this fall. The device will be essentially their virtual assistant. They can ask questions specific to the university, through our custom skill, or any other question that's normally through the Alexa platform. >> So, the voice of God is talking above us, but that's okay. So, it was interesting when you were starting your presentation earlier today, I'm like, what are the applications going to be? I mean, what are these kids going to do with this? Like, we've got a Dot at home. We ask it to play music all the time, but you really did your homework on trying to think through what are the different use cases, what types of information are going to help the kids get their information a little bit faster, a little easier? >> That's right. We want this to be valuable for our students, and our students are active inside and outside of the classroom. Our university does over a million hours of community service a year, so we attract a very active student. We don't want them to be spending time searching for information. We want them to get that information immediately. Whether it's something simple, such as when is the library closed? Or, what channel is their favorite show going to be on? We want them to be able to get very fast access to information because right now, they have to search through web pages or calendars to find out what's going on on campus or other key information, and that takes time. >> Right. Well, it's funny because there's a lot of conversation about the educational experience, and really trying to develop an engaging experience for the kids in school, for the students, but the question is always, you know, how do you define engagement, what is engagement, and what are the actual things, the physical activities, that are going to drive this? And you guys, amazing stat. You said you went from concept to delivery in three months, and in that process, really explored a lot of interesting concepts. I wonder if you can add a little bit more color to that development process. >> Absolutely. It started with a six week pilot program, where we tested different virtual assistant technology to see what did the students really like, and they chose the Amazon Echo system. And once we made that decision, we were able to go from that concept to completion in three months, which was fantastic for us because we wanted to make sure we were ready for the fall semester. To do that, we worked very closely with AWS and the Alexa for Business team, as well as the partner, the skill development partner, called Empowered. We were able to use the partner ecosystem to allow us to move very quickly, and through that process engaging our students, engaging our stakeholders to make sure that the device was going to meet their needs, not just be something that looked good on their desk. >> Right. So was voice part of the initial design criteria, or did that come when you were looking at different type of interactive devices? Because clearly, the kids today are super adept on their phone, and they can text with their eyes closed with one finger tied behind their back. Voice is still relatively new. At least, maybe it's not as new as I think, so how did you get to the voice as the main UI for kind of this new, cutting edge information system? >> So, we started with voice saying we want a virtual assistant that's voice based because we see that as the future. So, if you're on your smart phone looking for information, you're still having to go to a website or to different data sources to get that, whereas asking a question is much faster, and getting that answer, it's a much faster transaction. So, we started with that saying how can we use voice technology to help our students be more productive, and then, engaged our students in that conversation, and they were very excited about that. >> Right. So, one of the really cool things about Alexa and the Dot is the programmability, which, obviously, you guys took advantage of. So, a little color on kind of how you chose what to program, but I think even more exciting is what kind of opportunities that opens up as an individual student, as a CS project in the class, and as you said, your university has a lot more going on than just incoming students. You've got graduate degrees, medical things going on, so I wonder if you can shed a little light on kind of how you developed what you have for the launch date, but you know, some of the future things that you see down the road. >> That really goes to the Alexa for Business foundation that we chose, and Alexa for Business was the differentiator for us. It was a key area because through that tool and ecosystem, we could manage the devices, and we could group the devices. So, we could group a learning community of engineers, of students studying engineering, and give them specialized skills or allow them to develop a skill and have that only on their devices, not on everyone else's devices. So, the ability to manage these allowed us to really focus on that educational experience, allow students to start creating skills, and then be able to manage and deploy them at scale. >> That's great. I can't wait to come back a year from now and hear kind of what happened. I'm sure there's going to be all kinds of cool surprises, tough surprises, you know, upsides and downsides 'cause you said they're getting installed this week and the kids are showing up in a couple weeks. >> That's correct, that's correct. (laughing) We're moving very quickly. >> Alright David. Well again, I'm going to give you the last word as you touched on it a little bit, but you know, how working with Amazon and AWS specifically you know, kind of impacted this project and how does that help you, you know deliver your objectives more efficiently and faster? >> Yeah, the only way we could have gone from concept to completion in three months was by working closely with AWS and the partner ecosystem. We could not have done this at any scale or efficient timeframe without them. They were a fantastic partner, helping us all the way from choosing the right partner to develop the skill to helping us on how do we get all these devices to work on our network, to how do we get all these devices working on our network and installed within a couple days, and so, from beginning to end AWS has been instrumental in our success to bring this new innovative technology to our students. >> Okay, well we might have to have a field trip out to Saint Louis and check it out. >> You're welcome to come. >> Alright, he's David, I'm Jeff. We're at AWS in downtown Seattle at AWS IMAGINE. Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) >> On 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. Jeffrey here with theCUBE. We're in Seattle, Washington at the AWS Imagine education conference. It's the first one. Teresa Carlson just kicked off the keynote. About 900 registrants from over 20 countries worldwide. We saw it happen with the public sector before. They went from 50 people to 15 thousand, I think she said in seven years. I'm imagining that Imagine is going to have the same track. Cause education is so, so important. And we're excited our next guest came all the way from the other side of the pond. The other side of the Atlantic. He's Peter O'Rourke, Director of IT for the University of Suffolk. Peter, great to see ya. >> Thanks Jeff for the welcome. Yes it's been fantastic to be here with this exciting crowd. And as Teresa said it would be great to be here in seven years. At a huge event. >> A huge event, it'll probably be in Vegas. They like to have those big ones down in Vegas. So what brings you here? It's a long way, education is clearly super important. Digital transformation and cloud. We see it all over the place. But what's the application that you're looking at, what are you excited about in bringing kind of cloud economics to the University of Suffolk? >> Well Jeff, the key thing in education has got to be about students' experience. And that's the thing we've got to keep driving at all the time. What's exciting about partners like Amazon is the potential that they talk about. It's not what they're doing today. It's what they're talking about and going to do tomorrow and the day after. And as I've just said, this is day one. >> Right. >> This is an exciting journey to engage with. With these partners. >> So how have the student experience kind of expectations morphed over time? As you get kind of digital-native kids coming up into the school now and kind of, you know we've seen it on the business side. The consumerization of IT cause people expect their interactions with their companies, their banks and their retailers to be like it is with their phone and computer. How are you seeing the expectations change from your students on what they want and how they want to interact with all the services that you guys provide them. >> Good question. And again the mobile phone is the key here. People arrive at your organizations, whether they are universities or retail establishments. And they already know how they're going to work with you. And when you can't do that. That's a huge disappointment. So these people are using things in their daily life. To arrange trips, theater tickets, cinema. And when you can't work like that, there's a huge disconnect. >> Right, right. The other big issue that happens I've seen more and more is mobile. And you know, universities. You guys are always limited on space. >> Yeah. >> There's always lots of construction and new buildings and new labs and new academic offices and classrooms. So space is always an issue. How does you know, mobile specifically as you mentioned, enable you to provide a different experience, a better experience, a more varied experience when you've got all these other kind of constraints you're faced with. >> How mobile can help with that. It's about allowing your users to consume their content where and when they want to. It's exactly how they live their daily lives. So you know maybe you can't a lecture today. But why should that really matter? >> Right. >> You should be able to pick this up later. >> Right. And that last piece is the staff. And you know a lot of the teachers weren't necessarily educated in CS. That wasn't kind of why they got into the business. Especially if they are in say, history or philosophy. Or some of maybe the softer sciences. How are you seeing their adoption of technology to be, you know don't be afraid of it. This actually can be a great enabler to help you do your job better. How are you seeing their adoption of some of this technology in some of the softer academic areas? >> Well, again good question. But it's a huge challenge. I think for too long what we've tried to do from a technology perspective. Is to turn absolutely brilliant academic colleagues into technologists. And that's not why they came into education. >> Right. >> What's exciting about what's happening now is that we're able to enable them to use much, much simpler technology tools or interfaces that are actually doing amazing things in the background. And they don't need to understand how it does it. And that's the way it should be. >> Right. So last question. What are you expecting to get out of this conference for a day and a half here in Seattle? Ton of educators, ton of people from your indsutry. First ever event of this type for AWS. What are you hoping to take away? >> I'm hoping to take away a ton of exciting ideas. That are almost impossible to install. But there's going to be one or two gems in there that we can work with people like Amazon going forward. And we're going to come back in a year's time. And we'll want to talk about what we've done. >> Right. >> That's the exciting thing. >> That is the key right, what have you done? >> Yes. >> And now with cloud you can do, they've talked about a project in the keynote that was three months from ideation to actually starting to ship stuff. So we can do it. >> That's what we've got to do. >> Right alright Peter, well thanks for taking a few minutes of your day. And good luck with the rest of the conference. >> Thanks Jeff, thanks for talking to me. >> Alright, Peter, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're at AWS Imagine Education in Seattle, Washington. Thanks for watching. (upbeat 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 Seattle, Washington at the AWS IMAGINE education event. First time ever as part of the public sector series. Theresa Carlson kicked it off earlier today. 900 registered people watched this thing grow, like every other Amazon event that we've ever covered. And really, this is all about education. We're excited to be here. Our next guest has been working on this for awhile, He's Lou Pugliese, he's the Senior Innovation Fellow and Managing Director of Technology Innovation at Action Lab, Arizona State. Welcome. >> Thanks for letting me interview here. >> Absolutely. So just before we get started, kind of general impressions of this event? >> You know, it's amazing. I was just saying just a few minutes ago that you go to a lot of conferences, and you know, you go to so many conferences that the goal is to sort of try to meet 80% of the time new people. And you don't ever do that. Here you do, you know. And so there's a lot of people here that I've known for years, that I haven't seen. And there are a lot of new faces here too, so it's great. >> Right. It's really interesting, we cover a lot of conferences and kind of the lifecycle as they grow. But when they're small like this and just getting started you know, it's so intimate. There's so much hall conversations going on, there's so much just genuine sharing of best practices 'cause everybody's still trying to figure it out. >> Exactly, exactly. That's what you're doing here now. >> Absolutely. So, one of the things you're involved in, that caught my eye doing the research for this, is working on research based approach to really understand what works for the student learning experience. So there's all kinds of conversations we can have about higher education. Does it work, does it not work, is it broken? There's a lot of interesting things. Here, you know, it's been really interesting to focus on community colleges specifically and this kind of direct path between skills and getting a job. And it almost feels like the old apprenticeship model, kind of back in the day. You're at a big four year institution and really exploring. What is changing in the education interaction between kids and teachers, kids and curriculum, and how that stuff gets communicated and what's effective? 'Cause it's a new world, it's not the old world. >> No, it is. And you know, at ASU, what's interesting is is that there's a significant digital presence. You know, 35 thousand students very historically, back to 2009. So with that comes a significant amount of footsteps, digital footsteps, that students have taken. And so now you have the ability to be able to analyze that at a much higher level. And so now what we can do, and the part of what we're doing at the Action Lab is: looking specifically at the efficacy of these digital programs, finding out what course design elements do work, and what needs to be changed. And that gives us the ability to sort of feed that information back into the instructional design process, and continue to iterate on that improvement. The unique thing about the lab is that, it's a persistent lab. Most universities are sort of stop and start research initiatives, and they learn a lot and they publish a lot of papers. We've been around for three years, and we'll be around for 10 more, and it's a persistent examination of what we're doing at a digital environment, and we're taking it one step further, we're trying to understand how students behave in a digital environment. We know a lot about how students behave in a classroom or traditional learning setting, but we don't know how they how they learn in a digital environment. >> Right. I love, you said digital footprints, not digital exhaust, (both laugh) and it kind of reminds me of kind of these older you know, long term longitudinal studies, because it's still pretty early days in trying to figure out how these educational tools and mobile and stuff are impacting the way these kids learn. But we know they spend so much time on them, that is their interface to the world. It's almost like your remote control to life is actually this little thing that you carry around in your hand. So I'm curious, what are some of the things you've discovered that are working? What are some of the things that maybe that were kind of surprising that didn't work? What's some of the early findings that's coming out of that research? >> Sure, so in the early studies, we looked specifically at how demographic populations succeed or don't succeed in an environment. And what we found out is: there are certain demographics of students that flourish in an online environment, and consistently perform well. There are some that don't. The second thing we learned specifically is: what types of design features within a course, like the interaction within students, or exposing learning objectives, or getting students to really understand what rubrics of measurement, how content is being used and paced throughout our curriculum. A lot of really detailed information that faculty need to reorient and redesign their instruction, and so we can see a direct predictive value of improvement based on those changes. >> Right. So are you getting stuff out now that's impacting curriculum development? Or are you still kind of pulling the data together and there has not been enough time to really implement it? >> We are doing that, absolutely. One of the elements that we're introducing into the research now is: this notion of, it sounds like a fancy term, non cognitive or social and emotional learning; things that are a predispositions of learning about a student in their, you know, sort of soft skills world. Grit, determination, goal orientation, a variety of different soft skills, and their disposition, and how that impacts how they learn, and how they succeed in a classroom. >> And how important is that? I would imagine it's got to be super important. >> It's a field that is just still early in its science, but we're learning a lot. Not necessarily just about how students will succeed in a course environment, but those types of social/emotional learning skills that are required for them to be successful in a workplace environment. >> Right, right. And then the other factors that were discussed earlier in the key note are some of the, you know, what's happening at home? You know, there's all these other factors that are in a student's life that aren't directly tied to their education, but it can have a significant impact on their ability to learn, either temporarily, or-- >> They're all predispositions, yeah absolutely, yeah. >> Yeah, or full time. That's great. So, as you look forward now, and I think it came up too in the keynote, there's no shortage of data (chuckles) in this education environment. It's really been the time to grab it, analyze it, and put it to work. So, how are, you know, your engagement with Amazon kind of helping you to move your objectives forward? >> Well the Amazon engagement allows us to sort of off load all of the technological constraints, and gives us ultimate possibilities of not necessarily focusing on the tough stuff; the hardware, the integration, the specific tool sets that are required to extract data and analyze data, and focusing specifically on the research. So ultimately, it allows us to redirect our focus in what's really important in our world, because it's not necessarily about the technology, it's how the technology can point and draw a direct line between what the data says and how we create an intervention with students. >> Right. So I'm just curious to get your perspective. You said before we turned on the cameras, you've been involved in this field for a long time, trying to figure out how people can learn, how they can learn better, more effectively. Are there some big, kind of macro themes, that maybe people don't think about enough, that you've seen repeated time and time again, that people should be thinking about when they think about effective education and how to get kids to actually learn what we're trying to teach them? >> Sure, so a couple things. I mean, what we're focused on is not necessarily what we call big data, what we typically know big data as, it's really more about small data, which shows us causality. So for instance, one of the things that we are learning is that peer-to-peer engagement is really, really important in many courses in engaging in asynchronous and synchronous organizations within the course to learn from peers. Also avenues specifically to faculty, so faculty can actually look at the map of the entire classroom and understand who's achieving and focus just only on those people. >> Interesting. Well, good stuff, and, I'm sure, as you get more and more of the digital footprints, the insights will only increase by leaps and bounds. >> Absolutely. >> Alright, Lou, well thanks for taking a few minutes of your time >> Thank you. and we'll look forward to catching up next year and getting some new information. >> Thanks. >> He's Lou, I'm Jeff, thanks for watchin', we're in Seattle, signing off from AWS IMAGINE educate, See ya next time. (upbeat techno 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 downtown Seattle at AWS Imagine Education. About 900 people from 20 countries really coming together for the first ever AWS summit from public sector group, really focused just on education. We've got a little bit of a twist here, our next guest really coming from more of the artsy side of the house, which is always great to hear from. We've got Linda Drew, she's the Vice Chancellor, and Andy Cook, the Chief Operations Officer, both from Ravensbourne University in London. Welcome. >> We're really pleased >> Thank you. to be here, really excited. >> For the people that aren't familiar with Ravensbourne, give us a little overview of the school. >> We're in the center of London in Greenwich, which is right by the river. We have about two-and-a-half-thousand students and about 250 faculty. We specialize in design, media, and technology, and the interaction, and all that kind of stuff. >> Pretty fun space to be right now. >> Absolutely gorgeous place to be. >> There's so much talk about IT and the tech and IT in operations, but there's so much neat stuff happening really more on the creative side and in the arts. Leveraging technology in all different, new ways. >> Absolutely, it's kind of hand and glove, really. All the innovation that's happening is happening with the way that tech is disrupting what's happening in the creative workspace, and vice versa really. The two things are effecting each other. >> The channels of distribution now, being so open, there's no greater time to be an artist, a creator, because your path to publishing, your path to your audience is really, really short and direct, assuming you can get their attention. >> Absolutely, I think we recognize there's a huge opportunity there for us in terms of developing a competitive advantage in the sector using new, emerging technologies to forge a new path for the institution and help educate and bridge the skills gap for industry. >> What are the things you guys do, one of the classes is broadcast production, and we were talking to all of our guys behind the cameras that nobody can see, and that again is an evolving space and you guys, it's kind of an interesting play, on one hand you're talking about Shakespearian plays, on the other hand you're looking at the newest, latest, greatest way to get that out to consumers, to viewers, to schools, while training the people in the middle with the latest and greatest tools. You guys have started a AWS Elemental Experiment. I wonder if you can give us a little bit of color on that project. >> I can start, and I'll tell you about the impact that it has, and Andy might be able to follow up on some of the technical stuff. We've had a project going with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, and it's one of their education programs where what we do is a three-way relationship between them, their plays being shot in Stratford-upon-Avon or in London, and one aspect of what happens is that what we do is host the live program that is shot in our TV production studio and jointly the recorded program and the live action is streamed to schools, several hundred schools at a time. Some of our recent shows have been reaching upwards of 85,000 school students at a time. >> 85,000? >> Absolutely. >> That is great reach. We'd been using the more traditional technology before and that was having some issues with school teachers and others that were saying they weren't getting a great service out of the live stream, and our students were a bit frustrated with what they were learning about the streaming technologies. Since having moved to AWS Elemental, that's really increased the satisfaction both of what our students are learning but also in what they're delivering in terms of the live streamed program and because they're streaming more than one thing, because we know that they're also streaming not just the content but also the British sign language. They're also streaming signed content as well. >> Great, great. Andy, you're on the hook for actually getting these systems up and working, right? >> (laughs) Well, I'm not sure about that, but I think Linda said it all, I think the previous stack of technology that we were using in this area were not reliable, we were getting a lot of jump outs with the streams, lots of complaints from our schools. This shift to Elemental has been transformational. Lots of really complimentary feedback from the schools that are taking part in this exercise. It's been really good. >> That's good, the story over and over with cloud basically anything is that the amount of scale and resources and expertise and hardware and software that Amazon can bring to bear on your behalf compared to what you can do on you own, it's just not the same and you're a relatively small school. It's that same scale delta whether it's a medium-size company, a big company, or multi-national. These guys have that massive scale across so many customers, and you get that delivered to your doorstep. >> As you well know, there's a massive shift taking place in the broadcast industry away from the, towards IP-driven technologies, so we see this as a real opportunity to develop our curriculum, add cloud technologies in to our existing courses and go on that journey away from the more traditional technologies to a cloud-based approach. >> I'm just curious if you've adopted cloud stuff in more your standard IT practices, or where are you on that journey? Or was the client satisfaction issue on these broadcasts what accelerated that adoption faster than your normal stuff? >> I think it's been quite closely related, in some ways. It's a bit kind of chicken and egg. We were already looking at ways of enhancing our infrastructure and this kind of stuff came along at the same time, so we just say how quickly can we get to move some of this stuff for our standard operational focus. >> I think most universities are in some sort of hybrid state running on premise services with some, putting their feet gently into the water of cloud technologies, but I think we're looking at really accelerating that journey towards AWS now for our infrastructure. >> I'm curious, were you here for the keynote this morning? >> Yeah, definitely. >> Did you see the Alexa movie with the kids in the dorm room? >> Yeah. >> Really exciting. Very exciting. >> I think one of the slides really sums up our journey and thoughts around working with Amazon. It's the IT transformation piece, then there's a adoption of machine learning in terms of improving the student experience, and then there's adopting cloud courses into our curriculum, so those three areas are really where we're looking to build a relationship with Amazon. >> It's interesting to see what defines this new education experience, because the kids have different expectations, they've all grown up with apps and mobile. To your point on the attention, if something's not working, they're used to flipping to another channel, switching to another input, so if it doesn't work, you only have their attention for a short period of time. I think it is really interesting to rethink what are the actual activities that define this new engagement and this new student experience while they're in your institution, and I thought that was a really pretty slick demo. >> That was a great example, really good demo. Some of the really exciting things that have come out of us adopting this technology thus far includes some students coming to us with ideas of setting up our very own television channel that we can broadcast on campus using this technology and a way of streaming it to students' phones and tablets so that they've got content about the university and it's activities on a regular basis. >> The ROI calculation for you to execute that when it's cloud-based is very, very different, right? >> Absolutely, yes >> It's pretty simple. (all laughing) Just buy a new rack of servers and the whole to-do. I'll give you the last word, what are you hoping to get out of these couple days here, what have you seen so far, any hallway conversations that are really getting your attention? >> Hopefully, not just a deeper relationship with AWS, but the traction to help us work towards innovating on creativity and technology into the future. >> Great. >> Brilliant. >> Andy goes I'm going to go with the Chancellor, smart man. (all laughing) >> Absolutely. >> Linda and Andy, thanks again for taking a few minutes-- >> Thank you very much. >> Absolute pleasure. and hope you enjoy the rest of your time here. >> Thank you. >> (mumbles) thank you. >> She's Linda, he's Andy, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE, we're at AWS Imagine Education in downtown Seattle. Thanks for watching. (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)

>> From the Amazon Meeting Center in Downtown Seattle, it's the theCUBE. Covering, Imagine: A Better World, a global education conference, sponsored by Amazon Web Services. >> Hey welcome back everybody. Jeff Rick here with theCUBE. We're in Downtown Seattle Washington at the AWS Imagine Education Conference. First one they've ever done about 900 registrants. People from over 20 countries are here. Theresa Carlson gave the kickoff and it's a pretty exciting event. We've seen this movie before with Amazon. They get involved in a project, and it grows and grows and grows. So this is all about education. It's about education institutions. It's about students obviously, which are the core of education, and we're really excited to have our next guest. It was a big announcement that happened today. He's Marvin Martinez, the President of East Los Angeles College. Marvin great to see you. >> Thank you, pleasure to be here. >> So you're getting ready to go up on stage. it's a big announcement so tell about what it is. It's called the California Cloud... >> Computing. >> Computing Initiative. >> So this is what we've done. We've been developing for the last year a certificate where students can take a number of classes, which is basically a total of 15 units, and they're able to earn at the end of 15 units, a certificate in cloud computing. And the goal is to get them trained quickly to get them out to work quickly. Eventually we hope that the certificate evolves into a degree program, so then we're hoping that the students come back and they get their associate of our certificate and they're able to get even a better job, which is really the goal of this program is we want to get them started, want to get them excited, get them into an entry-level type of job, then they will know they like it. They're going to come back. They'll get that degree, you know do even better right. >> So let me, I just want to make sure I get this. This is a California Cloud Workforce Project. So it's really about the workforce and giving these kids the skills. So it's funny though Marvin where everybody says technology is taking away jobs. They forget yeah they take away some jobs, but there's new jobs created. >> All the time. >> All the time, there's a ton of openings especially in the engineering field and in the cloud, but so what are some of the cloud skills specifically that that kids are taking to get the certificate? >> Well you know the skills they're taking specifically so they could eventually work with some of the major industries in our area. Obviously from Amazon and other similar industries and similar businesses, and there's many of them. Los Angeles you know quickly is becoming the new Silicon Valley. So a lot of industries are moving. They call us all the time, they call me all the time, and say that you have trained students. We will hire them right now and we'll pay them a good salary. So no doubt it's a motivation for us because that's who we are as community colleges. We are here to serve students. We are here to get them trained, get them up there quickly and respond to the needs of industry, that area. >> So it's a really interesting planning that it's the community colleges that you guys have all come together. I think the number's 19 as part of this. So A, you know that you're doing it as a unified effort. So kids at a broad area can take advantage, and also you're also partnering with individual high schools. Each Community College is partners with an individual high school. So how does that work? How does that kind of come into fruition? >> Well you know, one thing that we want to do is that as we work with high schools, high schools today are also under pressure to ensure that their students are being trained well and that if they just get a high school diploma they can go and work somewhere. But also today high schools are getting smart. They're saying hey how do we work with a local college so that when students graduate, they graduate with a high school diploma and a degree from a college. So and why are they doing that because they know in order to be competitive, a young person needs to have these degrees. Today if you want to be competitive a high school diploma may not be enough. So we notice that motivation there. Secondly we're able to get students on a college campus, get them developed get them, they're mature, get them to take a college-level course and then they're able to go out and obviously and work once they complete this program. So the relationship is a natural one. It's one that high schools are seeking from us, which is great. That has not been the case all the time. Usually we've gone to them, but now they're coming to us and saying we need you help us out. >> The part I like about it too is the kids are smart. And they're like why am I taking philosophy? How am I going to use philosophy in my job, that or why am I taking this or why am I taking that? These are really concrete skills that A, they can go look in the newspaper today or I guess I don't know if they look in newspaper for jobs because couldn't find a newspaper if you threw it at them, but they could go seek the job listings at the Amazon sites and also they are working with this technology, they live in this technology, so it's not something foreign or something new. It's something they experience every day. So it's got to be a pretty easy sell I would imagine. >> It's an easy sell. Young people today are different than the way that we grew up. I grew up at a time where there were no cell phones, there was no bottled water. It was a whole different time. Young people today as you're seeing grow up with these technologies. It's part of the who they are. They more than just embraced it. So they welcome to use it in any way they can. So when we propose programs like these, guess what happens? They enroll en masse and that's because they understand it. They identify with it. Will they be willing to enroll in a Shakespeare class? They might but not as much as a class like this one. So no doubt the population today has changed, so part of my job is to introduce programs on the campus that I know will generate that kind of enrollment and interest. So we know that a program like this will do that and we just need to recognize the fact that the world has changed. Let me just add that we don't do that world's education institutions. As institutions we're some of the most conservative institutions in the history of this country. So for us to change it takes quite a lot. So what's forcing us to change, what was forcing us to change is that enrollment is down and not just in many of our colleges in LA but throughout the country. Enrollment is-- >> In Community colleges generally or colleges in general? Community colleges. >> Community colleges throughout the nation enrollment is down. And enrollment is down for a number of reasons. There's more jobs out there, so students are looking to go out and work, but also enrollment is down because of the curriculum and the courses that we have are just not interesting to them. So I think a program like this will help the campus. A program like this will get more students to come and take advantage of an incredible education that they can get at our campuses. >> I was just curious kind of what were the drivers of enrollment before that have kind of fallen away? Was it a particular type of skill set? Was it just that they don't want it generic anymore? They got to go get a job? I'm just curious if there was something that you had before that was appealing that you have now that's just not appealing anymore? >> Good questions. So the last time our economy was in bad shape when the employment was down. That was back around 2008-2009. Well guess what happened in our campuses? Enrollment was up. So when the economy is in bad shape people come back to school. When the economy is in great shape like it is today where there is a lot of jobs, enrollment is down. So we don't see the economy going down at all in a number of years. >> Anytime soon. >> So we have to develop programs that we think will be of interest to students first. Secondly we have to respond to the needs of the new economy. The new economy is now being dominated by these new technologies. We know about it, young people know about it. So when we develop a program like this and we know that it will generate interest. It will generate enrollment. And in many ways that's what drives the funding for a college. We're funded on the basis of how many people we enroll. So if we don't enroll a lot people, we have less money, so no doubt there's a motivation for us, a motivation for the entire system, to really partner with Amazon. And figure out a way for us to really get students train and to get them, hopefully get them a good job. >> So you segued perfectly. My last question was going to be kind of the role of Amazon in AWS, in terms of being a partner. I mean they obviously you know are thinking about things. Theresa's fantastic. She just talked about being from an education family, but at the same time you know they have their own reasons to do it. They need workers right? They need people to fill these jobs to fulfill Amazon's own growth beyond their ecosystem, their partners and customers etcetera. So what does it mean for you as an educator and part of this consortium of community colleges to have somebody like AWS come in and really help you codevelop and drive these types of new programs? >> Well it means everything. Number one we know that Amazon is a major employer. We know that the jobs that they have available are good-paying jobs. They have a career path and so we know it's a good direction for young people to take. So part of my job as an educator is many ways it's like a parent. You want to take care of your family, you want to take care of the kids and put them in the right path so they have the most success possible. Amazon offers that kind of path. So for us to partner with someone like Amazon is great. Secondly, students know who Amazon is. I don't have to sell them. They know who they are, and they know what Amazon can do and they know that it's a great career path for them. So now that I think it could be a great partnership for us but also it's an opportunity for Amazon to even continue further developing that workforce in Los Angeles in California. >> Alright Marvin, well thank you so much for spending a few minutes and I wish you nothing but the best with this California Cloud Workforce Project. Make sure I get it right? >> It's right. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. >> Thank you, alright he's Marvin, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're in Seattle at the Amazon Imagine Education event. First time ever, keep watching. It's going to grow and grow and grow. Thanks for watching. (electronic music)

(soft music) (soft music) >> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas. It's the Cube. Covering Oracle Modern Customer Experience 2017. Brought to you by Oracle. >> Okay welcome back everyone. We're live in Las Vegas. This is the Cube. SiliconAngles flagship program. We got out to the events and extract the (mumbles). Been here two full days of wall to wall coverage. I'm John Furrier. My cohost Peter Burris. Peter really good to see Oracle really move from modern marketing experience, the old show name, to a cleaner broader canvas called Modern CX. Which is modern customer experience. And you startin to see the new management which took the baton from the old management. Kevin Akeroyd. Andrea Ward who did a lot of work. I mean they basically did a ton of acquisitions. We talked last year if you remember. Look they have a data opportunity and we spelled it right out there and said if they can leverage that data horizontally and then offer that vertical specialism with differentiation, they could have their cake and eat it too. Meaning the pillars of solutions in a digital fabric with data. That's what they did. They essentially did it. >> Yeah they did. And it's been, it was a. We came here hoping that that's what we would see and that's what we saw John. Oracle not only has access to a lot of data but a lot of that first person data that really differentiates the business. Information about your finances. Information about your customers. Information about orders. That's really, really crucial data. And it's not easy to get. And if you could build a a strategy for your customers that says let's find ways of bringing in new sources of data. Leveraging that data so that we can actually help you solve and serve your customers better. You got a powerful story. That's a great starting point. >> And one of the things that I would observe here is that this event, the top story was that Mark Hurd came down and talked to the customers in the keynote. And also made a cameo visit to the CMO, some which they had separately. But really kind of basically putting it transparently out there. Look we got all this technology. Why are we spending all of this technology and effort to get a one percent conversion rate on something that happens over here. Let's look at it differently. And I think the big story here is that Oracle puts the arc to the future. Which I think is a very relevant trajectory. Certainly directionally correct using data and then figuring out your process and implementing it. But really looking at it from a people perspective and saying if you can use the data, focus your energies on that data to get new things going. And not rely on the old so much. Make it better but bring in the new. >> I think that's the one thing that we need to see more from Oracle in all honesty. At shows, this show, and shows like this. Is that and we asked the question to a couple quests. What exactly is modern marketing? Technology can allow a company to do the wrong things faster and cheaper. And in some cases that's bad. In marketing that's awful. Because more of the wrong thing amplifies the problem. That's how you take down a brand. You can really annoy the hell out of your customers pretty quickly. >> Well I think you made that point interesting I thought. On that just to reiterate that, validate that, and amplify. Is that if you focus more on serving the business as a marketer versus now it's about the customer. Okay which is why I like the CX and I know you do too. You can create enterprise value through that new way. Versus hey look what team. I'm helping you out with some leads and whatever. Support, content. Marketing now owns the customer relationship. >> Well marketers talk about a persona all the time John. They say what's the persona? It's a stylized type of customer, and now with data we can make it increasingly specific. Which is very, very powerful. I think Oracle needs to do the same thing with the marketing function. What is that marketing function persona that Oracle is, it's self driving to. Driving it's customers to. And trying to lead the industry into. So I would personally like to see a little bit more about what will be the role of marketing in the future. What exactly is the modern. What exactly is modern marketing? What is the road map that Oracle has, not just for delivering the technology, but for that customer transformation that they talk about so much. It's clear that they have an idea. I'd like to see a little bit more public. Cause I think a lot of marketers need to know where they're going to end up. >> I was a bit skeptical coming in here today. I was a little nervous and skeptical. I like the team though, the people here. But I wasn't sure they were going to be able to pull this off as well as they did. I'd give them a solid letter grade of an A on this event. Not an A plus because I think there's some critical analysis that's worth addressing in my opinion. In my opinion Oracle's missing some things. It's not their fault. They're only going as fast as they can. Not to get into your perspective too, but here's my take. They don't know how to deal with video. That came up as technical issue. But Jay -- >> But nobody really does. >> But nobody really does. And that's just again because we're in the video business it jumped out at me. But Jay Baer was on. Who's hosted the CMO Summit. And he's out there too like us. Content is a big thing. And I haven't heard a lot about the content equation in the marketing mix. So if you look at the modern marketing mix, content is data. And content is instrumental as a payload for email marketing. And we're in the content business so we know a lot about the engagement side of it. So I just don't see a lot of the engagement conversations that are happening around content. Don't see that dots connecting. >> And I think you're right. I think you're right John. And part of the reason is, and again I think Oracle needs to do a better job at articulating what this means. From our perspective, it's my perspective but you agree with me. I'll put words in your mouth. Is that marketing has to be a source of value to customers. Well what do customers find valuable? They find information in easily digestible, consumable chunks as they go on their journey. What are those chunks? Those chunks, in fact, are content. So to tie this back and show how crucial this is. At the end of the day, consumers, businesses need to learn about your brand. Need to learn about next best action. All that other stuff. In consumable interesting, valuable chunks. And it ultimately ends up looking like content. So your absolutely right to talk about how this all comes together and show how, that content is the mechanism by which a lot of this value's actually going to be delivered. Is really crucial. >> And now to give the praise sandwich, as we say in positive coaching alliance, two positives and then the critical analysis in the middle. That's the praise sandwich. So to give them some praise around the criticism. I will say that Oracle validates for me, and this is why I think they got a good strategy. That there's no silver bullet in marketing. Okay there's no silver bullet. This product will get you more engagement. This will do that. They do show that data is going to be an instruble part of creating a series of collections of silver bullets. Of bullets if you will. To create that value. And I think that's the key. And then the second praise is, this is kind of nuance in their analysis. But the third party data support, is a big deal in my mind. I want to expand more on that. I want to learn more about it. Because when you have the first party data, which is very valuable, and access to more data sources. That becomes increasingly interesting. So the extensibility for getting content data or other data can come in through third party. I think that opens the door for Oracle to innovate on the area we gave the criticism on. So I think that's a positive trend. I think that's a good outlook on having the ability to get that third party data. >> Yeah but it's also going to be one of the places where Oracle is going to have to compete very, very aggressively with some other leaders who are a little bit more oriented towards content. At least some of their marketing clients are a little bit more content oriented. I'm comfortable Oracle will get there because let's face it. At the end of the day, marketing's always done a pretty good job of created, creative, using data to figure out what creative to use or create is nice. Very important. But what we're really talking about is customer experience. Will the customer get something out of every interaction? And while content's crucial to that the end result is ultimately, is the customer successful? And Oracle is showing a better play for that. So I'll give you, I like the way you did it on the grading. I'll give them a B plus. But I'm not disagreeing with you. I think we saw A talent here. We saw an A minus story. And they're a year in. So there's still some work that needs to be done, but it's clearly -- >> Why you weighted as a B plus >> I give them an A on vector. And where they're going. >> I would agree with that. >> And the feedback that we've gotten from the customers walking the show floor. There's a lot of excitement. A lot of positive energy. The other thing that I would say -- >> Oh the band. I'd give the band, the band was a B minus. (Peter laughs) Yeah that takes it. That's going to kill the curve. >> What was the band last night? >> I don't even remember. We missed the good one, I know that. We had dinner so we came late. It was a good band. It wasn't like, it wasn't like Maroon 5 or One Republic. Or Imagine Dragons or U2. >> Or one of the good ones. Sting. C minus. But the other thing that I think is really important is at least it pertains to modern customer experience. Is that they are, they are absolutely committed to the role the data's going to play. And we talked about that right at the front. But they are demonstrating a deep knowledge of how data and data integration and data flows are really going to impact the way their customers businesses operate. And I think that there were a couple of, I'll give a really high point and one that I want to hear more about in terms of the interviews we had. Great high point was one, we talked a lot about data science and how data science technologies are being productized. And that we heard, for example, that Oracle's commitment to it's marketplace is that they are going to insure that their customers can serve their customer's customers with any request within 130 milliseconds anywhere in the world. That's a very, very powerful statement that you can only really make if you're talking about having an end to end role over, or influence -- >> Like we commented, that's a good point. Like we commented that this end to end architecture is going to be fundamental. If you read the tea leaves and look at other things happening, like at Mobile World Congress. Intel I think is a bellwether on this with 5G. Cause they have to essentially create this overlay for connectivity as well as network transformation to do autonomous vehicles. To do smart cities. To smart homes. All these new technologies. It's an end to end IPR (mumbles). It's connected devices. So they're super smart to have this connected data theme which I think's relevant. But the other one, Ron Corbusier's talked about this evolution. And I find some of these, and I want to get your reaction to this statement. So Ron was kind of like, "oh it's an evolution. "We've seen this movie before." Okay great. But when you talk to Marta Feturichie, who was a customer from Royal Phillips. >> Peter: Great interview. >> She's head of CRM. Now she's doing some other stuff. So okay. What does CRM mean? So if you think evolution. What the customers are doing. Time Warner and Royal. It's interesting. Certain things are becoming critical infrastructure and other things are becoming more dynamic and fluid. So if you believe in evolution, these are layers of innovation. So stuff can be hardened as critical infrastructure, say like email marketing. So I think that what's happening here is you start to see some hardening of some critical infrastructure, aka marketing technology. MarTech (mumbles). Maybe some consolidation. AdTech kind of comes together. Certain things are going to be hardened and platformized. >> Let's take the word hardened and change it cause I know what you mean. Let's say it's codified. Now why is that, why is that little distinction a little bit interesting is because the more codified it gets, the more you can put software on it. The more you can put software on it the more you can automate it. And now we're introducing this whole notion of the adaptive intelligence. Where as we start to see marketing practices and processes become increasingly codified. What works, what doesn't work? What should we do more of? What should we do less of? Where should we be spending out time and innovating? Versus where should we just be doing it because it's a road activity at this point in time. That's where introducing this adaptive intelligence technology becomes really interesting. Because we can have the adaptive technology elements handle that deeply codified stuff where there really is not a lot of room for invention. And give the more interesting ongoing, customer engagement, customer experience -- >> Right on. And I think we should challenge Oracle post event and keep an eye on them on this adaptive intelligence app concept. Because that is something that they should ride to the sunset cause that is just a beautiful positioning. And if they can deliver the goods on that, they say they have it. We'll expand on that. That's going to give them the ability to churn out a ton of apps and leverage the data. But to the codified point you're making, here's my take. One of the things that I hear from customers in marketing all the time is a lot of stuff if oh yeah mobile first all that stuff. But still stuff's web presence based. So you got all these coded URL's. You got campaigns running ten ways from Sunday. DNS is not built to be adaptive and flexible. So it's okay to codify some of those systems. And say, "look we just don't tinker with these anymore." They're locked and loaded. You build on top of it. Codify it. And make that data the enabling technology from that. >> Peter: Without it become new inflexible (mumbles). >> Yeah I can't say, "Hey let's just tweak the hardened infrastructure "to run an AB test on a campaign." Or do something. No, no. You set this codified systems. You harden them. You put software on top of them. And you make it a subsystem that's hardened. And that's kind of what I mean. That's where the market will go because let's face it. The systems aren't that intelligent to handle a lot of marketing. >> Peter: They're still computers. >> They're still computers. People are running around just trying to fix some of this spaghetti code in marketing. And as the marketing department gets more IT power. Hey you own it. They're owning now. Be afraid what you wish for you might get it. So now they own the problem. So I think Oracle on the surfaces side has a huge opportunity to do what they did with Time Warner. Come into the market and saying, "Hey we got that for you." And that's what Hurd's kind of subtle message was on his keynote. Hey we're IT pros, but by the way you don't need to be in the IT business to do this. We fix your problems and roll out this -- >> We're going to talk to you in your language. And your language is modern customer experience. Which is one of the reasons why they've got to be more aggressive. And stating what they mean by that. >> And we have all the data in our data cloud. And all the first party data in our Oracle database. >> Right, right exactly right. >> That system of record becomes the crown jewel. Oracle has a lock spec on the table. You think it's a lock spec? >> Uh no. And that's exactly why I think they need to articulate where this is all going a little bit. They have to be a leader in defining what the future of marketing looks like so they can make it easier for people to move forward. >> Alright putting you on the spot. What do you think a modern marketing looks like? And organization. >> We talked about this and the answer that I gave, and I'll evolve it slightly, cause we had another great guest and I thought about it a little bit more is. A brand continuously and always delivers customer value. Always. And one of the -- >> Kind of cliche-ish. >> Kind of cliche-ish. >> Dig into it. >> But modern marketing is focused on delivering customer value. >> How? >> If they're deliver - well for example when the customer has a moment in a journey of uncertainty. Your brand is first is first to the table with that content that gets them excited. Gets them comfortable. >> Lot of progression. >> Makes them feel ready to move forward. That your, and well I'll make another point in a second. And I would even say that we might even think about a new definition of funnel. At the risk of bringing up that old artifact. Historical funnel went to the sale. Now we can actually start thinking about what's that funnel look like to customer success. >> Well there's two funnel dynamics that are changing. This is important, I think. This is going to be one of those moments where wow the Cube actually unpacked a major trend and I believe it to be true. The vertical funnel has collapsed. And now the success funnel is not >> Peter: It's not baked. >> Not big. It's decimated from this perspective of if the sale is the end game of the funnel, pop out that's over. Your point is kind of like venture funding for starter. That's when the start line begins. So here it's, okay we got a sale. But now we have instrumentation to take it all the way through the life cycle. >> And you know John. That's a great way of thinking about it. That many respects when you, when you introduce a customer to a new solution that has complex business implications that you are jointly together making an investment in something. And you both have to see it through. >> I mean sales guys put investment proposal on the -- >> That's exactly right. And so I think increasingly. So I would say modern marketing, modern marketing comes down to customer success. A prediction I'll make for next year is that this session is called, you know we'll call it the modern marketing modern customer experience show. But the theme is going to be customer success. >> Heres what I'm going to do. Here's what we're going to do this year Peter. We're going to, we will, based upon this conversation which we're riffing in real time as we analyze and summarize the event. We, I will make it my mission. And you're going to work with me on this as a directive. We're going to interview people, we're going to pick people that are truly modern marketing executives. >> Peter: That's great. >> We're going to define a simple algorithm that says this is what we think a modern marketing executive looks like. And we're going to interview them. We're going to do a story on them. And we're going to start to unpack because I think next year. We should be coming here saying, "we actually did our work on this." We figured out that a modern marketing organization and an executive behave and look this way. >> Right I think it's a great idea. So I'll give you one more thought. Cause I know you'll like this one too. Doug Kennedy. The partner. The conversation that we had. >> Very good. >> Talking about clearly a grade A executive. Seven weeks into the job. But that is going to be, you know for this whole thing to succeed he's got a lot of work in front of him. It's going to be very interesting to see how over the course of time this show and other Oracle shows evolve. >> I have a lot of partner experience. You do too. He's got a zillion years under his belt. He's a pro. He did not have any deer in the headlights look for seven weeks on the job. He's been there. He's done that. He knows the industry. He's seen the cycles of change. He's ridden waves of innovation up and down. And I think Oracle has a huge opportunity with his new program. And that is Oracle knows how to make money. Okay Oracle knows how to price things. They know how to execute on the sales side and go to market. And partners relationships are grounded in trust. And profitability. I would say profitability first and trust second. And it's kind of a virtuous circle. >> But John they've got to start getting grown in customer experience right? >> John: Yeah, yep. >> And that's not, it's doable but it's going to be a challenge. >> Well we talk about swim lanes with his interview, and I thought that was interesting. If you look at a center for instance, Deloy, PWC and all the different players. They're picking their swim lanes where their core competency is. And that's what he was basically saying. They're going to look for core competency. Now I think they're not there yet. The major SI's and potential partners. So he's going to have to put the spec out and put the bar there and say this is what we got to do. But you got to make the channel serve the customer. It has to be profitable. And it has to be relevant. And the only dangerous strategy I would say is the co-selling thing is always dicey. >> Especially if one has customer experience as a primary. >> It requires equilibrium in the ecosystem. >> You got it, you got it. >> It isn't there. >> And also it's a multi-partner go to market. It's not just one or two now. >> So he's going to have to really spread the love at the same time have hardened rules. Stick to his knitting on that one. Okay Peter final word. What do you, bottom line the show. Encapsulate the show into a bumper sticker. >> Well we heard Amazon released today. Google released today. Beat their numbers. Two companies that are trying to build an ecosystem from their core of the cloud. And the question is. Is Oracle who has customers with applications and with that first person data. Are they going to be able to cloudify, sorry for using that word, but are they going to be able to gain that trust that this new operating model they're really committed to for the future. Before Amazon and Google can create applications to their platform. Because Oracle has the end to end advantage right now. And in the world where digital's important. Speed's important. The fidelity of the data's important. The customer experience is important. That end to end has a window of opportunity. >> And I would also add two other companies reported, Microsoft and Intel and missed. So you have Amazon and Google. New guard, newer guard. Old guard Intel, Microsoft. Oracle is considered old guard even though they have some modernization going on from CX and the cloud. But Oracle is cloud a hundred percent in the cloud. Their SAP, for instance, is going multi-class. So the wild card in all this is, if the multi-cloud game evolves. >> Think end to end. End to end. Because that has advantages. When you're talking data, one of the things that Jack Brookwood said. He said, "you know why we can hit that 150 millisecond target?" >> Cause you don't have to move the data around. >> Cause sometimes we don't have to move the data around. >> This can be very interesting. And this going to be fun to watch and participate in. Of course the Cube will covering Oracle, well we'll be there again this year. We don't have the exacts specifics on that, but certainly if your interested in checking us out. Were siliconangle.com. Peter's research is at wikibon.com as well as SiliconANGLE on the front page. SiliconAngle.tv has all the videos. And well will be documenting and following the modern marketing experience with people and companies. And documenting that on the Cube and SiliconANGLE. So that's a wrap from day two at Oracle Modern CX. Thanks for watching. (electronic music)