>> Live from Bahrain it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Summit Bahrain. Brought to you be Amazon Web Services. >> Okay welcome back everyone, we are here in Bahrain for the special exclusive coverage of AWS Summit in the region and the big announcement of the AWS region being deployed here, and that's scheduled for Q1 roughly in 2019 as Teresa Carlson told us today on theCube. This is exciting opportunities for the Middle East and the region and around the world, a big spot where Amazon needed a region, of course we get all that coverage. Our next guest here is Lana Al Attar, founder of Gud Juju, and amazing logo on their card, empowering good, welcome to theCube, good to see you. >> Thank you for having me. >> Great to meet you. Yesterday, we were chatting, take a minute to explain what Gud Juju is, and we'll get to the meaning of the logo, if you can see it, I'm not sure if you can see it. Go ahead, what's Gud Juju? >> Gud Juju means good magic. We're a digital agency with a conscience, and how we do that is, a lot of our clients are people that have any kind of social good to them, so we're talking autism schools, or even normal schools, for example, they might charge money, but they're still in the industry of education, so it's fantastic. So, we help the little guys, we give them the technology they need, we empower them with technology, and that's what Gud Juju's about. On the other side of the spectrum, we also hire mostly women to do the development, so we hire and train. We hire refugees as well, and most recently we've signed a contract with a company and they provide us differently abled people, but they're fantastic designers and developers, so we've expanded into that as well. So, we pay our staff to be heroes, they are heroes day in and day out, and that's why I told you to wait (laughter) I can see you're impressed. >> Oh my god, I'm impressed. Well, no, I mean, there's a little bit of capitalism in there too that makes me go "Wow, that's a brilliant idea" (mumbles) In the labor market, but they're also helping people, and you're giving, tapping into passion. Taking a passion project, turning it into a business, help people, bring it all together, magic. >> Exactly. >> We help people >> That's good magic! >> Exactly, that's where the name Gud Juju comes from. >> Great mission, I love your mission, tell me about some of the things you're working on. >> Oh, okay, so most recently we're working on a "diversity on board" project, and initially it will be to, so we handle the tech part of this. A lot of people, they come to us and they try to partner with us, or even get us to complete their project. And, this particular project, if you go to any part of the world, usually in the Middle East, it'll be Middle Eastern men on the boards, and if you go to the States, it'll be middle aged white men on the boards, so there's no diversity. And that can be a problem for certain companies because if you want a 360 view, >> That's a big problem. It's a problem, period. I think, pretty much, people have figured out that diversity gives you more. >> Of course. >> Than not having it. >> You see things from different angles, because if you have the same kind of age group, and the same kind of gender, and the same everything, then you will not foresee the different challenges or opportunities that come by. So, this is a matchmaking portal that we're working on and it's soon to be launched, we're already testing internally in beta, and then then we're going to expand it into a private beta group, so that's one of the things that I'm working on, I recently, within the company, did one for the Women Power Summit, it was the largest summit in Bahrain for women, we had 500 woman attendees, and about 50 speakers, some of them were international as well, all women, men were welcome but a majority of them were women. And, just to really up the game in the gender equality. So we did the technology for that as well, so we did an online ticketing system, a credit card debit card payment and reservation, so it was a lot of fun. >> So who's coding all these apps? >> Oh, it's us, internally in the team. We have about nine in Bahrain, and most of them are women except for one, the digital marketer. >> People are getting down and dirty and coding away. >> Yes, though it does take a lot of training. So, in Bahrain, there's been a shift, so I also run a local development community, so the Google developer group in Manama, the Manama chapter, and we have like 651 members, so it's picking up. >> Wow. TensorFlow is like candy for developers. People love TensorFlow. >> We did do a few TensorFlow, yeah, definitely, AI, machine learning, deep learning, it's on right now. >> It really is. So how do you find all these people? Do they come to you, you got an open policy hiring refugees, >> Mm-hmm. >> So is there like a network, are you tapping your own network? >> So what we usually try to do is find people that are on the ground, and then they tell us "we have this kind of facility setup, so can you find us a job?" and I will never say no to people wanting jobs and to be very honest, in my line of work, especially when you're catering to charities and NGOs, you have an abundance of clients, it's overflowing. Because, they don't have the capital that they need in order to accomplish their projects. >> And even big firms are like conglomerates, now. We want to tap into these big agencies, you need to write a big check, >> Yeah, exactly. and you might not get the service you need anyway. And if you're an NGO, you don't get the love that the big commercial clients would get. >> Exactly. So, we cater to those kinds of clients. And also, we have, so our slogan is "empowering good". So we empower those who empower other people. We would never sell our clients something that they don't need, for example, we focus primarily on like, sometimes they want a website and an app and the whole nine yards, and they just need one page to accept payments and donations online, and that's all they really need, And some good branding. And so we make sure they focus that capital that they already have, and then, and really capitalize on that capital that they have, and give them the maximum bang for their buck, basically. >> That's awesome. Now, who do you work with? Do you have any partners, are you doing it solo, what are your... >> It's just me leading a staff of nine, and then we tap into a global market of ten, so we have associates that we bring on. I believe in the gig market, I don't think that having full-time staff long term is something that is sustainable. So I recently came back from China, from the annual meeting of champions, and the common theme over there, whether it was the future of work, the future of education, or even the future of... Wait, there was work, there was education, and there was one more. >> There was something. >> Yeah, oh, E-commerce, there we go. Digital, like online sales. And we noticed, there was a very big trend towards everything being digitalized. And with the exception of having community clubhouses, to have that human factor over there. So people love to still have that, you know, that engagement, that bonding, that I belong to that company, or I belong to that mission or vision, but everything is going online. So, I really believe that the gig market's going to, it's already started taking off. So, it's going to be a thing. >> And then being a part of community really brings the shared experiences together. And when you have that kind of co-creation or interaction, it makes people feel part of something bigger. And that's bonding. >> Exactly. So even if you look at e-commerce stores, a lot of them have their flagship stores, but they're not there for sales, because most of their sales get done online. They're there for giving that experience, so when you walk in a store, you have that experience. >> Yeah. >> That's super. What's the biggest thing that you've learned doing this? Is there anything that surprised you, things that jumped out at you, things you didn't expect, things that were successful, you go "wow, that was amazing", things you tripped over >> Oh, I tripped over a lot. (both laugh) It's constant tripping. >> Of course. Well that's how you learn! >> Yeah. So when I first started, I mean, people think like, okay, so you're going to help charities and you're going to help people and you're going to make money, how does that work? I learned very earlier on that people value what they pay for, so don't give things for free. You charge people, but charge them reasonably. So you say, okay I'll charge you this much for this kind of service, and this bit you can do by yourself. We'll give you the guidelines, we've done it over and over, and we'll tell you what your branding is, and then you go out, find the pictures, or write up the copywriting or whatever. So there was that, there was a lot of, so for example, "oh you can't hire refugees", and "why can't I hire refugees", there's a lot of trial and error. Obviously, you'd have people that will sell their (laughs) >> You got to give it a shot, give it a try. >> yeah, of course. And, the experience has been unbelievable. Some of them start out with wordpress development, and then end up with full-stack Javascript. Right? And you give people a chance, it's just like that example of professor Muhammed Yunus in Grameen bank, where they said "oh you can't loan to beggars" and he's like "why not?", and the default rate is so much more lower than the conventional banks. And they don't have any credit ratings! Right, so, I learned to not, I try not to follow the status quo, my mission is purely to empower people, whether I'm employing them, or I'm doing a project for them, so there's always that angle. And it's very different when you know what your values are. And you go in, so... >> And then you got having alignment. Well, Lana, thanks for coming on theCube this year, great to hear your story. >> Thank you. I think Bahrain is going to be a great tech scene. Obviously, I'm very encouraged by the entrepreneurs that I met. You can kind of spot an entrepreneur a mile away, they chirp a lot, they want to go faster, where's the cash, where's the collaboration? Not in a mean way, I don't mean that. And the other thing is that surprised me was Teresa's Women's Breakfast yesterday, that was blowing me away. How dynamic the group was, thought that was phenomenal. Just great to see this startup community here in Bahrain doing, just so much energy and support. >> We have a very tight ecosystem, I'm sure some of the other people probably have already mentioned this. Everybody talks to everybody, so you either, you're always one step away from whatever it is that you need. So, either you ask a person, they know exactly what you need, or they refer you to that person, and they give you like, name and number, right then and there, so, we're all intertwined. I think you've seen us all, how the ecosystem is amazing. >> It's important, and it's super important as communities with open source, you can see this when Amazon comes here, it's going to be a goodness of open source. >> Oh, it is! We're going to have navscale, we're going to have pull, new opportunities going to be coming in, >> Fantastic. it's going to be really, it should be a fun ride, I'm looking forward to covering you guys. >> I've been telling everyone that it is an amazing time to be a woman tech entrepreneur in this region. Amazing. >> Congratulations, and our doors are always open in Silicon Valley if you need anything. >> Awesome. >> Okay, there's more Cube coverage, stay with us! All day, wall to wall, stay with us. We got a couple more interviews, be right back after this short break. (techno music)