>>Mhm Hello and welcome to today's session of the 2021 aws Global Public Sector partner awards. I'm Natalie early, your host for the cube and I'm delighted to present our guests. They are Jose Montero, ceo logitech the central America and Rafael Ramirez Product manager. Costa rica Ministry of Education. Welcome gentlemen to today's session. >>Think in Italy >>religion and belief. Well, let's start with Rafael. Please tell us about some of the key challenges that are affecting the Ministry of Education in Post A Rekha. >>One of the main challenges was to be able to have a product that is always available to schools that is easy to use for schools and at the same time that the product should be user friendly. That is you don't need so much training for schools to use it more. A few things that we thought of was to consider our client because schools have a very limited connectivity so we could not use very highly tech technologies because that required very huge. Both advanced and our clients, the schools would be subject to a service that was not available to them. One of the main things was to consider the client and how to reach them. Thanks to Ed attack, the ministry made an alliance with a company that thought about the innovation and they recommended different services that we can provide with a cloud through the cloud so that we are able to get to take the service to deliver the service to our clients and then they can use the platform that we are building in an easy way and at the same time to take care of the quality they need. Something important about schools was that while they were using the product, they were getting benefit that made schools to be willing to participate. >>Terrific. Well Jose I'd love it if you could give us some insight on some of the services that you are providing to the ministry. >>Sure. Um, so when, when the ministry approaches and um, and we had the opportunity to work with them um, of course, as an AWS partner, we thought, well, this is couldn't be better, right? And um, so we um, we we started to think on all of the different services that AWS offers in the cloud to provide to the ministry to be able to reach this gap. That has been for a long time where you see still, you know, people using Excel, using access Microsoft access as databases, um, instead of using all of the energy and all of the, the power that the cloud has. So when we approach to them and um, and we were able to um um, to show all of these different services that AWS could um, could provide to the Minister of Education. It was it was a perfect marriage. So, um, we we started to work with uh, with them and I think it's been awesome. This is only the first part of of a project of eight stages, We are currently working on stage two and stage Three, which will come in August and in January of 2020, And, um, but we're we're super happy to to see just in this first face, everything that has come and all of the data that has come to help the Ministry of Education in order to take action in the student's lives. >>Yeah, that's really terrific to hear. Um, you know, I'd love to hear from Rafael further about why he thinks it was so important to have cloud data at the Ministry of Education level. >>Okay, I >>will give you an important example for us in our country. We would rather gather the, collect data in paper and take that to the central office and this would enter into an Excel file. This take around two months to process all this later and make decisions. Mm When we started with the first service, which was to record the number of enrollees of the students, we could pay teachers on time, we could get the number of students and know where we had the biggest needs. So this would make a very innovative solution. And when the pandemic started, we had the first active service. This allowed us to react very quickly and we realized that in the first quarter, 19,000 students were not in in our schools because we were from a face to face service to a virtual service. So we could react very quickly. We plant a strategy with the Ministry of Education that was to come back. That is the idea goes to locate where students were. And in the next four months we could reduce the dropout From 90 students to 18,000 students. After that, we initiated a Another stage to retrieve those 18,000 students back to school. This was thanks to having the information online in some countries that may not have this problem. This might be very little. But for us, this was very, very important because we were able to reach the poll a wrist households so as to bring those students back to the school. >>Terrific. Well, that's really fantastic. Um, you know, in a non covid world, how do you think this technology will really help you, uh, to enhance education within Costa rica? See I can't. The important thing. >>This is important in the idea of this innovative product for us has a strategy of having a single file of the student. This allows us to do a follow up of what the student has done during the different school years and we can identify their lacks the weaknesses and we can see which are the programs that are more appropriate. Was to replicate this in the rest of the country without a centralized file. Like we have now, we are looking to have this traceability of students so as to have strengthened our witnesses and replicate our strength in the rest of the educational system. one of the most important things when you is that this technological unit, this implementation not only reached primary school students, but also preschool kindergarten, primary school, secondary school higher education, technical Education. So we reached every single sector where the Ministry of Education was able to detect where there was a need in the country. >>Yeah, Terrific. Well, I'd love to hear more from our other guest Jose monteiro Ceo of ecotech to central America. Uh, you know, if you could give us a, you know, more insight, more depth on the services that you provide. You, you talked about like an eight step plan. If you could just highlight those eight steps. >>Sure. Um, so part of this aid stages that we're going to be developing and um, and we hope that we'll be working with the Ministry of Education and every single one of them. Um, It causes where it brings a lot of technologies. For example, there's one that were planning on using, which is recognition from AWS. Um, the fact of um, there was, there's a lot of students that come to the country that have no documentation. There's no passports, There's no um, document I. D. There's nothing, right? So it's really hard for a um within the same school system to be able to track these students, right? Because they can they can go, they can come and they can, if they want, they can change their name. They can they can do a lot of things that are maybe are not correct. And um and sometimes it's not even because they want to do something incorrect. It's just that the uh the system or the yeah the the way of doing things manually, it allows us to do these types of changes. So for example, with with the service like recognition have been able to recognize their face or or recognize their um their idea with their with their fingerprints um and and being able to a um to interact and give give an actual recognition as the word says to this student. It's amazing. It's amazing technology that allows the Ministry of Education and the students to have a voice to have a presence even though they don't have their actual documentation because of whatever reason. Um There is something behind this that helps them um b be valuable and the b at the same time, a present in the in the system. Right? And so and and with with not only that, but with the grading with um with the attendance, with with the behavior with um with a lot of things that we're creating within these stages. Uh It's gonna be, for example, let me give you a quick example. Um There's, for example, the system that we've created for the dropouts. Um The student doesn't come one day, two days, three days and automatically. Now it'll, it'll become an alert and it will start to shot emails and alerts to the different people involved in order to see, hey listen, this student has not come for the last week, two classes. Um, we need you to go and see what's going on, Right? So this is maybe it is something very small, but it can, it can change people's life and they can change students lives and um, and, and the fact of, of knowing where they are, how they are, how are they doing, how their grades are, where we can help them and activate these different types of alerts that, um, that the system allows them to, um, to do that. It helps incredibly, the life of the student in the future, of this, of this student. And uh, in that exact, that is exactly what we're trying to do here. At the end. It's not only, um, it's okay, all of the technological and all of the different efforts that we're doing, but at the end, that's what it matters. It's, it's the student, right? It's it's the fact that, um, that he can come and he can finish his school, he can graduate, he can go to college, he can, he can become an, uh, an entrepreneur and, and be some, some day here and I at AWS conference and give him give a conference, and, and and that is exactly what the Ministry of Education is looking at, what we are looking at the project per se. >>Yeah, I mean, that's a really excellent point that you're making. I mean, this technology is helping real people on the ground and actually shaping their lives for the better. So, I mean, it's really incredible, you know, I'd love to hear more now from Rafael, just a bit what insight he can provide to other ministries, who, you know, also, you know, ministers of Education, who also would consider implementing this kind of technology and also his own experience um with this project in the AWS. >>Well, the connectivity for us is really important, not only with within the institutions of the Ministry of Education, but we also have connections with the Ministry of Health, we also have connections with the software called Sienna Julia, which allows the identification of people within the country and the benefits provided by the stage. So the country where all by little is incorporating the pieces and these cloud services, we have found that before we developed everything AWS has a set of services that allow us to focus on the problem and instead of on the solution of the technology, because services are already available. So at the country level, other ministries are incorporating these services nowadays, for covid management, the Minister of Health has a set of applications that allowed to set links between people that has positive. So this has allowed us to associate the situation with that particular student in our classrooms. So little by little services are converting education and other services into a need that allows us to focus on the problem instead of on technological solutions because services are already there for us to consume >>terrific. You know, I'd love to now shift to our other guest um Jose could you give us some insight what is the next phase for your business when you look at 2021? You know, it's gonna be, I mean, we hope it's going to be a wonderful year. Uh post Covid. Uh you know, what's your vision? >>It's it's interesting that you're saying that Natalie um education has changed Covid has um has put an acceleration to um has accelerated the the whole shift of the technological change in in education. It will not, well I hope it will not go back to the same before Covid. Um it's all of these technologies that are being created that are being organized, that are being it developed um for education specifically um an area where everything has been done the same for a long time. Um we need it, it's crazy to say this, but we needed a Covid time in order to accelerate this type of of organizations right in and now like ministry, the ministries of Education, like like the Minister of Education of Costa rica, they've had this for a long time and they've they've been thinking of the importance of making changes and everything, but until now it became a priority. Why? Because they realized that without these technologies with another pandemic, oh boy, we're going to see the effects of this and, and, and it's going to affect a lot of countries and a lot of students. Um, but it's gonna help to accelerate and understand that for example, internet, it has to be a worldwide access, just like water or electricity is in some, in our countries right now. You know, the fact of a student not having internet, um, we're taking away lot of development for this student. So I believe that after this post covid time education is going to continue to do a lot of changes and you and you'll see this and you'll see this in all of the areas in elementary, in preschool, in university, in high school. Um, you're going to see the changes that this is, um, is starting to do and we've seen it and we've seen it, but now it's going to be at a 23 or four X. So we're pretty excited. We're pretty excited what what the world it's gonna what the world's gonna bring to this table and to this specific area which is education. >>Yeah. That's really terrific to hear a silver lining in this pandemic. And just real quick uh final thoughts from rafael, are you looking to ramp up further? Uh you know, in light of what Jose has said, you know, to ramp up the digital transformation process? >>Yes, I believe this is an opportunity. The country is facing the opportunity, the resistance that we had in the sector of education, the current emergency situation. And they need to use virtual tools Have flattened these curves and narratives. Since 2000 and 20, Costa Rica started a very strong uh teach that trainer process that every four years ago it was very difficult to set to involve all teachers. But nowadays all teachers want to get trained. So we are getting there with virtual trainings with new tools, with the implementation and the use of technology in the classroom. So these kinds of emergencies somehow we have to uh, we know the pain but we know that also the gain of this whole idea of this whole situation. So this opportunity for change is something that we have to take advantage of. Thanks to these cloud services, I believe this is nowadays available and the country realized that these things are closer than what we thought of. An innovation is here to stay and I believe we have to exploit this a little by little >>terrific. Well gentlemen, thank you so much for your insights, loved hearing about the innovations taking place in the classroom, especially overseas in Costa rica. And that of course was Rafael Ramirez, the Product Manager, Costa rica, Ministry of Education, as well as Jose monteiro, the ceo of Ecotech D central America. And of course, I'm Natalie ehrlich, your host for the cube for today's session for the 2021 AWS Global Public Sector Partner Awards. Thanks very much for watching. >>Mhm.

>> Announcer: From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto and Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a Cube Conversation. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in our Palo Alto Studios today, having a Cube Conversation, you know, with the COVID situation going on we've had to change our business and go pretty much 100% digital. And as part of that process, we wanted to reach out to our community, and talk to some of the leaders out there, because I think leadership in troubling times is even more amplified in it's importance. So we're excited to be joined today by two leaders in our community. First one being John Chambers, a very familiar face from many, many years at Cisco, who's now the founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures. John, great to see you. >> Jeff, it's a pleasure to be with you again. >> Absolutely. And joining him is Umesh Sachdev, he's the co-founder and CEO of Uniphore. First time on theCUBE, Umesh, great to meet you. >> Jeff, thank you for having me, it's great to be with you. >> You as well, and I had one of your great people on the other day, talking about CX, and I think CX is the whole solution. Why did Uber beat cabs, do you want to stand on a corner and raise your hand in the rain? Or do you want to know when the guy's going to come pick you up, in just a couple minutes? So anyway, welcome. So let's jump into it. John, one of your things, that you talked about last time we talked, I think it was in October, wow how the world has changed. >> Yes. >> Is about having a playbook, and really, you know, kind of thinking about what you want to do before it's time to actually do it, and having some type of a script, and some type of direction, and some type of structure, as to how you respond to situations. Well there's nothing like a disaster to really fire off, you know, the need to shift gears, and go to kind of into a playbook mode. So I wonder if you could share with the viewers, kind of what is your playbook, you've been through a couple of these bumps. Not necessarily like COVID-19, but you've seen a couple bumps over your career. >> So it's my pleasure Jeff. What I'll do is kind of outline how I believe you use an innovation playbook on everything from acquisitions, to digitizing a company, to dealing with crisis. Let's focus on the playbook for crisis. You are right, and I'm not talking about my age, (John laughing) but this is my sixth financial crisis, and been through the late 1990s with the Asian financial crisis, came out of it even stronger at Cisco. Like everybody else we got knocked down in the 2001 tech bubble, came back from it even stronger. Then in 2008, 2009, Great Recession. We came through that one very, very strong, and we saw that one coming. It's my fourth major health crisis. Some of them turned out to be pretty small. I was in Mexico when the bird pandemic hit, with the President of Mexico, when we thought it was going to be terrible. We literally had to cancel the meetings that evening. That's why Cisco built the PLAR Presence. I was in Brazil for the issue with the Zika virus, that never really developed much, and the Olympics went on there, and I only saw one mosquito during the event. It bit me. But what I'm sharing with you is I've seen this movie again and again. And then, with supply chain, which not many people were talking about yet, supply chain crisis, like we saw in Japan with the Tsunami. What's happening this time is you're seeing all three at one time, and they're occurring even faster. So the playbook is pretty simple in crisis management, and then it would be fun to put Umesh on the spot and say how closely did you follow it? Did you agree with issues, or did you disagree, et cetera, on it. Now I won't mention, Umesh, that you've got a review coming up shortly from your board, so that should not affect your answer at all. But the first playbook is being realistic, how much was self-inflicted, how much was market. This one's largely market, but if you had problems before, you got to address them at the same time. The second thing is what are the five to seven things that are material, what you're going to do to lead through this crisis. That's everything from expense management, to cash preservation. It's about how do you interface to your employees, and how do you build on culture. It's about how do you interface to your customers as they change from their top priority being growth and innovation, to a top priority being cost savings, and the ability to really keep their current revenue streams from churning and moving. And it's about literally, how do make your big bets for what you want to look like as you move out of this market. Then it's how do you communicate that to your employees, to your shareholders, to your customers, to your partners. Painting the picture of what you look like as you come out. As basic as that sounds, that's what crisis management is all about. Don't hide, be visible, CEOs should take the role on implementing that playbook. Umesh to you, do you agree? And have fun with it a little bit, I like the give and take. >> I want to see the playbook, do you have it there, just below the camera? (Jeff laughing) >> I have it right here by my side. I will tell you, Jeff, in crisis times and difficult times like these, you count all the things that go right for you, you count your blessings. And one of the blessings that I have, as a CEO, is to have John Chambers as my mentor, by my side, sharing not just the learning that he had through the crisis, but talking through this, with me on a regular basis. I've read John's book more than a few times, I bet more than anybody in the world, I've read it over and over. And that, to me, is preparation going into this mode. One of the things that John has always taught me is when times get difficult, you get calmer than usual. It's one thing that when you're cruising on the freeway and you're asked to put the brakes, but it's quite another when you're in rocket ship, and accelerating, which is what my company situation was in the month of January. We were coming out of a year of 300% growth, we were driving towards another 300% growth, hiring tremendously, at a high pace. Winning customers at a high pace, and then this hit us. And so what I had to do, from a playbook perspective, is, you know, take a deep breath, and just for a couple of days, just slow down, and calmly look at the situation. My first few steps were, I reached out to 15 of our top customers, the CEOs, and give them calls, and said let's just talk about what you're seeing, and what we are observing in our business. We get a sense of where they are in their businesses. We had the benefit, my co-founder works out of Singapore, and runs our Asia business. We had the benefit of picking up the sign probably a month before everyone else did it in the U.S. I was with John in Australia, and I was telling John that "John, something unusual is happening, "a couple of our customers in these countries in Asia "are starting to tell us they would do the deal "a quarter later." And it's one thing when one of them says it, it's another when six of them say it together. And John obviously has seen this movie, he could connect the dots early. He told me to prepare, he told the rest of the portfolio companies that are in his investment group to start preparing. We then went to the playbook that John spoke of, being visible. For me, culture and communication take front seat. We have employees in ten different countries, we have offices, and very quickly, even before the governments mandated, we had all of them work, you know, go work from home, and be remote, because employee safety and health was the number one priority. We did our first virtual all-hands meeting on Zoom. We had about 240 people join in from around the world. And my job as CEO, usually our all-hands meeting were different functional leaders, different people in the group talk to the team about their initiatives. This all-hands was almost entirely run by me, addressing the whole company about what's going to be the situation from my lens, what have we learned. Be very factual. At the same time, communicating to the team that because of the fact that we raised our funding the last year, it was a good amount of money, we still have a lot of that in the bank, so we going to be very secure. At the same time, our customers are probably going to need us more than ever. Call centers are in more demand than ever, people can't walk up to a bank branch, they can't go up to a hospital without taking an appointment. So the first thing everyone is doing is trying to reach call centers. There aren't enough people, and anyways the work force that call centers have around the world, are 50% working from home, so the capacity has dropped. So our responsibility almost, is to step up, and have our AI and automation products available to as many call centers as we can. So as we are planning our own business continuity, and making sure every single employee is safe, the message to my team was we also have to be aggressive and making sure we are more out there, and more available, to our customers, that would also mean business growth for us. But first, and foremost is for us to be responsible citizens, and just make it available where it's needed. As we did that, I quickly went back to my leadership team, and again, the learning from John is usually it's more of a consensus driven approach, we go around the table, talk about a topic for a couple of hours, get the consensus, and move out of the room. My leadership meetings, they have become more frequent, we get together once a week, on video call with my executive leaders, and it's largely these days run by me. I broke down the team into five different war rooms, with different objectives. One of them we called it the preservation, we said one leader, supported by others will take the responsibility of making sure every single employee, their families, and our current customers, are addressed, taken care of. So we made somebody lead that group. Another group was made responsible for growth. Business needs to, you know, in a company that's growing at 300%, and we still have the opportunity, because call centers need us more than ever, we wanted to make sure we are responding to growth, and not just hunkering down, and, you know, ignoring the opportunity. So we had a second war room take care of the growth. And a third war room, lead by the head of finance, to look at all the financial scenarios, do the stress tests, and see if we are going to be ready for any eventuality that's going to come. Because, you know, we have a huge amount of people, who work at Uniphore around the world, and we wanted to make sure their well being is taken care of. So from being over communicative, to the team and customers, and being out there personally, to making sure we break down the teams. We have tremendous talent, and we let different people, set of people, run different set of priorities, and report back to me more frequently. And now, as we have settled into this rhythm, Jeff, you know, as we've been in, at least in the Bay area here, we've been shelter in place for about a month now. As we are in the rhythm, we are beginning to do virtual happy hours, every Thursday evening. Right after this call, I get together with my team with a glass of wine, and we get together, we talk every but work, and every employee, it's not divided by functions, or leadership, and we are getting the rhythm back into the organization. So we've gone and adjusted in the crisis, I would say very well. And the business is just humming along, as we had anticipated, going into this crisis. But I would say, if I didn't have John by my side, if I hadn't read his book, the number of times that I have, every plane ride we've done together, every place we've gone together, John has spoken about war stories. About the 2001, about 2008, and until you face the first one of your own, just like I did right now, you don't appreciate when John says leadership is lonely. But having him by our side makes it easier. >> Well I'm sure he's told you the Jack Welch story, right? That you've quoted before, John, where Jack told you that you're not really a good leader, yet, until you've been tested, right. So you go through some tough stuff, it's not that hard to lead on an upward to the right curve, it's when things get a little challenging that the real leadership shines through. >> Completely agree, and Jack said it the best, we were on our way to becoming the most valuable company in the world, he looked me in the eye and said "John, you have a very good company." And I knew he was about to give me a teaching moment, and I said "What does it take to have a great one?" He said a near death experience. And I thought I did that in '97, and some of the other management, and he said, "No, it's when you went through something "like we went through in 2001, "which many of our peers did die in." And we were knocked down really hard. When we came back from it, you get better. But what you see in Umesh is a very humble, young CEO. I have to remember he's only 34 years old, because his maturity is like he's 50, and he's seen it before. As you tell, he's like a sponge on learning, and he doesn't mind challenging. And what what he didn't say, in his humbleness, is they had the best month in March ever. And again, well over 300% versus the same quarter a year ago. So it shows you, if you're in the right spot, i.e. artificial intelligence, i.e. cost savings, i.e. customer relationship with their customers, how you can grow even during the tough times, and perhaps set a bold vision, based upon facts and a execution plan that very few companies will be able to deliver on today. So off to a great start, and you can see why I'm so honored and proud to be his strategic partner, and his coach. >> Well it's interesting, right, the human toll of this crisis is horrible, and there's a lot of people getting sick, and a lot of people are dying, and all the estimations are a lot more are going to die this month, as hopefully we get over the hump of some of these curves. So that aside, you know, we're here talking kind of more about the, kind of, the business of this thing. And it's really interesting kind of what a catalyst COVID has become, in terms of digital transformation. You know, we've been talking about new ways to work for years, and years, and years, and digital transformation, and all these kind of things. You mentioned the Cisco telepresence was out years, and decades ago. I mean I worked in Mitsubishi, we had a phone camera in 1986, I looked it up today, it was ridiculous, didn't work. But now, it's here, right. Now working from home is here. Umesh mentioned, you know, these huge call centers, now everybody's got to go home. Do they have infrastructure to go home? Do they have a place to work at home? Do they have support to go home? Teachers are now being forced, from K-12, and I know it's a hot topic for you, John, to teach from home. Teach on Zoom, with no time to prep, no time to really think it through. It's just like the kids aren't coming back, we got to learn it. You know I think this is such a transformational moment, and to your point, if this goes on for weeks, and weeks, and months, and months, which I think we all are in agreement that it will. I think you said, John, you know, many, many quarters. As people get new habits, and get into this new flow, I don't think they're going to go back back to the old ways. So I think it's a real, you know, kind of forcing function for digital transformation. And it's, you can't, you can't sit on the sidelines, cause your people can't come to the office anymore. >> So you've raised a number of questions, and I'll let Umesh handle the tough part of it. I will answer the easy part, which is I think this is the new normal. And I think it's here now, and the question is are you ready for it. And as you think about what we're really saying is the video sessions will become such an integral part of our daily lives, that we will not go back to having to do 90% of our work physically. Today alone I've done seven major group meetings, on Zoom, and Google Hangouts, and Cisco Webex. I've done six meetings with individuals, or the key CEOs of my portfolio. So that part is here to stay. Now what's going to be fascinating is does that also lead into digitization of our company, or do the companies make the mistake of saying I'm going to use this piece, because it's so obvious, and I get it, in terms of effectiveness, but I'm not going to change the other things in my normal work, in my normal business. This is why, unfortunately, I think you will see, we originally said, Jeff, you remember, 40% maybe as high as 45% of the Fortune 500 wouldn't exist in a decade. And perhaps 70% of the start-ups wouldn't exist in a decade, that are venture capital backed. I now think, unfortunately, you're going to see 20-35% of the start-ups not exist in 2 years, and I think it's going to shock you with the number of Fortune 500 companies that do not make this transition. So where you're leading this, that I completely agree with, is the ability to take this terrible event, with all of the issues, and again thank our healthcare workers for what they've been able to do to help so many people, and deal with the world the way it is. As my parents who are doctors taught me to do, not the way we wish it was. And then get your facts, prepare for the changes, and get ready for the future. The key would be how many companies do this. On the area Umesh has responsibility for, customer experience, I think you're going to see almost all companies focus on that. So it can be an example of perhaps how large companies learn to use the new technology, not just video capability, but AI, assistance for the agents, and then once they get the feel for it, just like we got the feel for these meetings, change their rhythm entirely. It was a dinner in New York, virtually, when we stopped, six weeks ago, traveling, that was supposed to be a bunch of board meetings, customer meetings, that was easy. But we were supposed to have a dinner with Shake Shack's CEO, and we were supposed to have him come out and show how he does cool innovation. We had a bunch of enterprise companies, and a bunch of media, and subject matter expertise, we ended up canceling it, and then we said why not do it virtually? And to your point, we did it in 24 different locations. Half the people, remember six weeks ago, had never even used Zoom. We had milk shakes, and hamburgers, and french fries delivered to their home. And it was one of the best two hour meetings I've seen. The future is this now. It's going to change dramatically, and Umesh, I think, is going to be at the front edge of how enterprise companies understand how their relationship with their customers is going to completely transform, using AI, conversational AI capability, speech recognition, et cetera. >> Yeah, I mean, Umesh, we haven't even really got into Uniphore, or what you guys are all about. But, you know, you're supporting call centers, you're using natural language technology, both on the inbound and all that, give us the overview, but you're playing on so many kind of innovation spaces, you know, the main interaction now with customers, and a brand, is either through the mobile phone, or through a call center, right. And that's becoming more, and increasingly, digitized. The ability to have a voice interaction, with a machine. Fascinating, and really, I think, revolutionary, and kind of taking, you know, getting us away from these stupid qwerty keyboards, which are supposed to slow us down on purpose. It's still the funniest thing ever, that we're still using these qwerty keyboards. So I wonder if you can share with us a little bit about, you know, kind of your vision of natural language, and how that changes the interaction with people, and machines. I think your TED Talk was really powerful, and I couldn't help but think of, you know, kind of mobile versus land lines, in terms of transformation. Transforming telecommunications in rural, and hard to serve areas, and then actually then adding the AI piece, to not only make it better for the front end person, but actually make it for the person servicing the account. >> Absolutely Jeff, so Uniphore, the company that I founded in 2008. We were talking about it's such a coincidence that I founded the company in 2008, the year of the Great Recession, and here we are again, talking in midst of the impact that we all have because of COVID. Uniphore does artificial intelligence and automation products, for the customer service industry. Call centers, as we know it, have fundamentally, for the last 20, 30 years, not have had a major technology disruption. We've seen a couple of ways of business model disruption, where call centers, you know, started to become offshore, in locations in Asia, India, and Mexico. Where our calls started to get routed around the world internationally, but fundamentally, the core technology in call centers, up until very recently, hadn't seen a major shift. With artificial intelligence, with natural language processings, speech recognition, available in over 100 languages. And, you know, in the last year or so, automation, and RPA, sort of adding to that mix, there's a whole new opportunity to re-think what customer service will mean to us, more in the future. As I think about the next five to seven years, with 5G happening, with 15 billion connected devices, you know, my five year old daughter, she the first thing she does when she enters the house from a playground, she goes to talk to her friend called Alexa. She speaks to Alexa. So, you know, these next generation of users, and technology users will grow up with AI, and voice, and NLP, all around us. And so their expectation of customer service and customer experience is going to be quantum times higher than some of us have, from our brands. I mean, today when a microwave or a TV doesn't work in our homes, our instinct could be to either go to the website of the brand, and try to do a chat with the agent, or do an 800 number phone call, and get them to visit the house to fix the TV. With, like I said with 5G, with TV, and microwave, and refrigerator becoming intelligent devices, you know, I could totally see my daughter telling the microwave "Why aren't you working?" And, you know, that question might still get routed to a remote contact center. Now the whole concept of contact center, the word has center in it, which means, in the past, we used to have these physical, massive locations, where people used to come in and put on their headsets to receive calls. Like John said, more than ever, we will see these centers become dispersed, and virtual. The channels with which these queries will come in would no more be just a phone, it would be the microwave, the car, the fridge. And the receivers of these calls would be anywhere in the world, sitting in their home, or sitting on a holiday in the Himalayas, and answering these situations to us. You know, I was reading, just for everyone to realize how drastic this shift has been, for the customer service industry. There are over 14 million workers, who work in contact centers around the world. Like I said, the word center means something here. All of them, right now, are working remote. This industry was never designed to work remote. Enterprises who fundamentally didn't plan for this. To your point Jeff, who thought digitization or automation, was a project they could have picked next year, or they were sitting on the fence, will now know more have a choice to make this adjustment. There's a report by a top analyst firm that said by 2023, up to 30% of customer service representatives would be remote. Well guess what, we just way blew past that number right away. And most of the CEOs that I talked to recently tell me that now that this shift has happened, about 40% of their workers will probably never return back to the office. They will always remain a permanent virtual workforce. Now when the workforce is remote, you need all the tools and technology, and AI, that A, if on any given day, 7-10% of your workforce calls in sick, you need bots, like the Amazon's Alexa, taking over a full conversation. Uniphore has a product called Akira, which does that in call centers. Most often, when these call center workers are talking, we have the experience of being put on hold, because call center workers have to type in something on their keyboard, and take notes. Well guess what, today AI and automation can assist them in doing that, making the call shorter, allowing the call center workers to take a lot more calls in the same time frame. And I don't know your experience, but, you know, a couple of weekends ago, the modem in my house wasn't working. I had a seven hour wait time to my service provider. Seven hour. I started calling at 8:30, it was somewhere around 3-4:00, finally, after call backs, wait, call back, wait, that it finally got resolved. It was just a small thing, I just couldn't get to the representative. So the enterprises are truly struggling, technology can help. They weren't designed to go remote, think about it, some of the unique challenges that I've heard now, from my customers, is that how do I know that my call center representative, who I've trained over years to be so nice, and empathetic, when they take a pee break, or a bio break, they don't get their 10 year old son to attend a call. How do I know that? Because now I can no more physically check in on them. How do I know that if I'm a bank, there's compliance? There's nothing being said that isn't being, is, you know, supposed to be said, because in a center, in an office, a supervisor can listen in. When everyone's remote, you can't do that. So AI, automation, monitoring, supporting, aiding human beings to take calls much better, and drive automation, as well as AI take over parts of a complete call, by the way of being a bot like Alexa, are sort of the things that Uniphore does, and I just feel that this is a permanent shift that we are seeing. While it's happening because of a terrible reason, the virus, that's affecting human beings, but the shift in business and behavior, is going to be permanent in this industry. >> Yeah, I think so, you know it's funny, I had Marten Mickos on, or excuse me, yeah, Marten Mickos, as part of this series. And I asked him, he's been doing distributed companies since he was doing MySQL, before Sun bought them. And he's, he was funny, it's like actually easier to fake it in an office, than when you're at home, because at home all you have to show is your deliverables. You can't look busy, you can't be going to meetings, you can't be doing things at your computer. All you have to show is your output. He said it's actually much more efficient, and it drives people, you know, to manage to the output, manage to what you want. But I want to shift gears a little bit, before we let you go, and really talk a little bit about the role of government. And John, I know you've been very involved with the Indian government, and the French government, trying to help them, in their kind of entrepreneurial pursuits, and Uniphore, I think, was founded in India, right, before you moved over here. You know we've got this huge stimulus package coming from the U.S. government, to try to help, as people, you know, can't pay their mortgage, a lot of people aren't so fortunate to be in digital businesses. It's two trillion dollars, so as kind of a thought experiment, I'm like well how much is two trillion dollars? And I did the cash balance of the FAANG companies. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet, just looking at Yahoo Finance, the latest one that was there. It's 333 billion, compared to two trillion. Even when you add Microsoft's 133 billion on top, it's still shy, it's still shy of 500 billion. You know, and really, the federal government is really the only people in a position to make kind of sweeping, these types of investments. But should we be scared? Should we be worried about, you know, kind of this big shift in control? And should, do you think these companies with these big balance sheets, as you said John, priorities change a little bit. Should it be, keep that money to pay the people, so that they can stay employed and pay their mortgage, and go buy groceries, and maybe get take out from their favorite restaurant, versus, you know, kind of what we've seen in the past, where there's a lot more, you know, stock buy backs, and kind of other uses of these cash. As you said, if it's a crisis, and you got to cut to survive, you got to do that. But clearly some of these other companies are not in that position. >> So you, let me break it into two pieces, Jeff, if I may. The first is for the first time in my lifetime I have seen the federal government and federal agencies move very rapidly. And if you would have told me government could move with the speed we've seen over the last three months, I would have said probably not. The fed was ahead of both the initial interest rate cuts, and the fed was ahead in terms of the slowing down, i.e. your 2 trillion discussion, by central banks here, and around the world. But right behind it was the Treasury, which put on 4 trillion on top of that. And only governments can move in this way, but the coordination with government and businesses, and the citizens, has been remarkable. And the citizens being willing to shelter in place. To your question about India, Prime Minister Modi spent the last five years digitizing his country. And he put in place the most bandwidth of any country in the world, and literally did transformation of the currency to a virtual currency, so that people could get paid online, et cetera, within it. He then looked at start-ups and job creation, and he positioned this when an opportunity or problem came along, to be able to perhaps navigate through it in a way that other countries might struggle. I would argue President Macron in France is doing a remarkable job with his innovation economy, but also saying how do you preserve jobs. So you suddenly see government doing something that no business can do, with the scale, and the speed, and a equal approach. But at the same time, may of these companies, and being very candid, that some people might have associated with tech for good, or with tech for challenges, have been unbelievably generous in giving both from the CEOs pockets perspective, and number two and three founders perspective, as well as a company giving to the CDC, and giving to people to help create jobs. So I actually like this opportunity for tech to regain its image of being good for everybody in the world, and leadership within the world. And I think it's a unique opportunity. For my start-ups, I've been so proud, Jeff. I didn't have to tell them to go do the right thing with their employees, I didn't have to tell them that you got to treat people, human lives first, the economy second, but we can do both in parallel. And you saw companies like Sprinklr suddenly say how can I help the World Health Organization anticipate through social media, where the next spread of the virus is going to be? A company, like Bloom Energy, with what KR did there, rebuilding all of the ventilators that were broken here in California, of which about 40% were, out of the stock that they got, because it had been in storage for so long, and doing it for all of California in their manufacturing plant, at cost. A company like Aspire Foods, a cricket company down in Texas, who does 3D capabilities, taking part of their production in 3D, and saying how many thousand masks can I generate, per week, using 3D printers. You watch what Umesh has done, and how he literally is changing peoples lives, and making that experience, instead of being a negative from working at home, perhaps to a positive, and increasing the customer loyalty in the process, as opposed to when you got a seven hour wait time on a line. Not only are you probably not going to order anything else from that company, you're probably going to change it. So what is fascinating to me is I believe companies owe an obligation to be successful, to their employees, and to their shareholders, but also to give back to society. And it's one of the things I'm most proud about the portfolio companies that I'm a part of, and why I'm so proud of what Umesh is doing, in both a economically successful environment, but really giving back and making a difference. >> Yeah, I mean, there's again, there's all the doctor stuff, and the medical stuff, which I'm not qualified to really talk about. Thankfully we have good professionals that have the data, and the knowledge, and know what to do, and got out ahead of the social distancing, et cetera, but on the backside, it really looks like a big data problem in so many ways, right. And now we have massive amounts of compute at places like Amazon, and Google, and we have all types of machine learning and AI to figure out, you know, there's kind of resource allocation, whether that be hospital beds, or ventilators, or doctors, or nurses, and trying to figure out how to sort that all out. But then all of the, you know, genome work, and you know, kind of all that big heavy lifting data crunching, you know, CPU consuming work, that hopefully is accelerating the vaccine. Because I don't know how we get all the way out of this until, it just seems like kind of race to the vaccine, or massive testing, so we know that it's not going to spike up. So it seems like there is a real opportunity, it's not necessarily Kaiser building ships, or Ford building planes, but there is a role for tech to play in trying to combat this thing, and bring it under control. Umesh, I wonder if you could just kind of contrast being from India, and now being in the States for a couple years. Anything kind of jump out to you, in terms of the differences in what you're hearing back home, in the way this has been handled? >> You know, it's been very interesting, Jeff, I'm sure everyone is concerned that India, for many reasons, so far hasn't become a big hot spot yet. And, you know, we can hope and pray that that remains to be the case. There are many things that the government back home has done, I think India took lessons from what they saw in Europe, and the U.S, and China. They went into a countrywide lockdown pretty early, you know, pretty much when they were lower than a two hundred positive tested cases, the country went into lockdown. And remember this is a 1.5 billion people all together going into lockdown. What I've seen in the U.S. is that, you know, California thankfully reacted fast. We've all been sheltered in place, there's cabin fever for all of us, but you know, I'm sure at the end of the day, we're going to be thankful for the steps that are taken. Both by the administration at the state level, at the federal level, and the medical doctors, who are doing everything they can. But India, on the other hand, has taken the more aggressive stance, in terms of doing a country lockdown. We just last evening went live at a University in the city of Chennai, where Uniphore was born. The government came out with the request, much like the U.S., where they're government departments were getting a surge of traffic about information about COVID, the hospitals that are serving, what beds are available, where is the testing? We stood up a voice bot with AI, in less than a week, in three languages. Which even before the government started to advertise, we started to get thousands of calls. And this is AI answering these questions for the citizens, in doing so. So it goes back to your point of there's a real opportunity of using all the technology that the world has today, to be put to good use. And at the same time, it's really partnering meaningfully with government, in India, in Singapore, in Vietnam, and here in the U.S., to make sure that happens on, you know, John's coaching and nudging, I became a part of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum, which is truly a premier trade and commerce body between U.S. and India. And I, today, co-chaired the start-up program with, you know, the top start-ups between U.S. and India, being part of that program. And I think we got, again, tremendously fortunate, and lucky with the timeline. We started working on this start-up program between U.S. and India, and getting the start-ups together, two quarters ago, and as this new regulation with the government support, and the news about the two trillion dollar packages coming out, and the support for small businesses, we could quickly get some of the questions answered for the start-ups. Had we not created this body, which had the ability to poll the Treasury Department, and say here are questions, can start-ups do A, B, and C? What do you have by way of regulation? And I think as a response to one of our letters, on Monday the Treasury put out an FAQ on their website, which makes it super clear for start-ups and small businesses, to figure out whether they qualify or they don't qualify. So I think there's ton that both from a individual company, and the technology that each one of us have, but also as a community, how do we, all of us, meaningfully get together, as a community, and just drive benefit, both for our people, for the economy, and for our countries. Wherever we have the businesses, like I said in the U.S., or in India, or parts of Asia. >> Yeah, it's interesting. So, this is a great conversation, I could talk to you guys all night long, but I probably would hear about it later, so we'll wrap it, but I just want to kind of close on the following thought, which is really, as you've talked about before John, and as Umesh as you're now living, you know, when we go through these disruptions, things do get changed, and as you said a lot of people, and companies don't get through it. On the other hand many companies are birthed from it, right, people that are kind of on the new trend, and are in a good position to take advantage, and it's not that you're laughing over the people that didn't make it, but it does stir up the pot, and it sounds like, Umesh, you're in a really good position to take advantage of this new kind of virtual world, this new digital transformation, that's just now waiting anymore. I love your stat, they were going to move X% out of the call center over some period of time, and then it's basically snap your fingers, everybody out, without much planning. So just give you the final word, you know, kind of advice for people, as they're looking forward, and Umesh, we'll get you on another time, because I want to go deep diving in natural language, I think that's just a fascinating topic in the way that people are going to interact with machines and get rid of the stupid qwerty keyboard. But let me get kind of your last thoughts as we wrap this segment. Umesh we'll let you go first. >> Umesh, you want to go first? >> I'll go first. My last thoughts are first for the entrepreneurs, everyone who's sort of going through this together. I think in difficult times is when real heroes are born. I read a quote that when it's a sunny day, you can't overtake too many cars, but when it's raining you have a real opportunity. And the other one that I read was when fishermen can't go out fishing, because of the high tide, they come back, and mend their nets, and be ready for the time that they can go out. So I think there's no easy way to say, this is a difficult time for the economy, health wise, I hope that, you know, we can contain the damage that's being done through the virus, but some of us have the opportunity to really take our products and technology out there, more than usual. Uniphore, particularly, has a unique opportunity, the contact center industry just cannot keep up with the traffic that it's seeing. Around the world, across US, across Asia, across India, and the need for AI and automation would never be pronounced more than it is today. As much as it's a great business opportunity, it's more of a responsibility, as I see it. There can be scale up as fast as the demand is coming, and really come out of this with a much stronger business model. John has always told me in final words you always paint the picture of what you want to be, a year or two out. And I see Uniphore being a much stronger AI plus automation company, in the customer service space, really transforming the face of call centers, and customer service. Which have been forced to rethink their core business value in the last few weeks. And, you know, every fence sitter who would think that digitalization and automation was an option that they could think of in the future years, would be forced to make those decisions now. And I'm just making sure that my team, and my company, and I, am ready to gear to that great responsibility and opportunity that's ahead of us. >> John, give you the final word. >> Say Jeff, I don't know if you can still hear me, we went blank there, maybe for me to follow up. >> We gotcha. >> Shimon Peres taught me a lot about life, and dealing with life the way it is, not the way you wish it was. So did my parents, but he also taught me it always looks darkest just before the tide switches, and you move on to victory. I think the challenges in front of us are huge, I think our nation knows how to deal with that, I do believe the government has moved largely pretty effectively, to give us the impetus to move, and then if we continue to flatten the curve on the issues with the pandemic, if we get some therapeutic drugs that dramatically reduce the risk of death, for people that get the challenges the worst, and over time a vaccine, I think you look to the future, America will rebound, it will be rebounding around start-ups, new job creation, using technology in every business. So not only is there a light at the tunnel, at the end of the tunnel, I think we will emerge from this a stronger nation, a stronger start-up community. But it depends on how well we work together as a group, and I just want to say to Umesh, it's an honor to be your coach, and I learn from you as much as I give back. Jeff, as always, you do a great job. Thank you for your time today. >> Thank you both, and I look forward to our next catch up. Stay safe, wash your hands, and thanks for spending some time with us. >> And I just want to say I hope and pray that all of us can get together in Palo Alto real quick, and in person, and doing fist bumps, not shake hands or probably a namaste. Thank you, it's an honor. >> Thank you very much. All right, that was John and Umesh, you're watching theCUBE from our Palo Alto Studios, thanks for tuning in, stay safe, wash your hands, keep away from people that you're not that familiar with, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for watching. (calm music)

>> Announcer: Live from Barcelona Spain, it's theCUBE! Covering Cisco Live 2020, brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back, this is theCUBE's live coverage of Cisco Live 2020 here in Barcelona, Spain. I'm Stu Miniman, my cohost for this segment is Dave Vellante, John Furrier is also in the house. We're doing about three and a half days, wall-to-wall coverage. The surface area that we are covering here is rather broad and I use that term, my guest is laughing, Vikas Butaney, who is the Vice President of IoT, of course. Extending the network to the edge, to the devices, and beyond with Cisco. Thank you so much for joining us. >> It's great to be here. >> All right, the IoT thing. I've worked with Cisco my entire career, I've watched through the fog computing era for a couple of years. Edge of course, one of the hottest conversations, something that I bought up in many of the conversations, the across the portfolio but Liz Centoni was up on the main stage for the day one keynote talking a lot about IoT and IT and OT and your customers of the like. So let's start there, what's new, and how does IoT fit into the overall Cisco Story? >> Absolutely. So as Liz was on the main stage and David talked about the cross domain and multi-domain architecture; Now, IoT and our operational environment is one of the key domains within that environment. And what Liz announce yesterday are two pieces of news that we are releasing at Cisco Live. First of them is an IoT security architecture which ties together the capabilities with cyber vision and then integrates it within the rest of our IT security portfolio and the second part that I'm also excited to talk about is Edge Intelligence. It's about how we are helping our customers extract the data at the edge, then deploy and move it to wherever the applications are in the multicloud environment. >> You know, we definitely want to dig into those pieces, but IoT is such a diverse solution set so it's often helpful to talk about specific industries, any customer examples so what can you share with us there to help illuminate where Cisco's helping the customers love the security angles and edge? >> That's right. Just a level set, when we think about industrial IoT we're really talking about the heavier industries, plant environments for a manufacturing company. We're thinking about roadways for a public sector customer. We're thinking the grid for utility environments. We're thinking refineries and oil extraction upstream environments, right. So this is the kind of spectrum in which we are working in, where customers have real businesses, real assets where the operations is the heart of the enterprise that they are running. And the technology can really be a revolutionary change for them to help them connect and then extract the data and then make sense of the data to improve their business practice so industrial IoT, whether you're a roadway in Austria like Asfinag, you're a utility in Germany like NRG, or EDF in France as an example. Enel in turn in Italy, all of these industries and all of these customers are using industrial IoT technologies in running their businesses better today. >> Where are we in terms of that critical infrastructure being both connected and instrumented? Where are we on the adoption curve? >> Sure, look and many of these industries we have talked about SCADA systems, right, that have been here for thirty plus years for our customers and most of those is really a one-way flow of information, right. And typically customers stood up separate side load networks which weren't really connected to the rest of the enterprise so, Rockwell has a saying from the shop floor to the top floor, right like how the digital enterprise where all of these environments are coming together is where customers are. Critical infrastructure, as you said, in this day and age with security and other kind of threats, customers are a little hesitant about how they connect it all together. But Cisco is working with these customers and helping them think through the benefits they can get but also make sure, from a cyber security point of view, that you're helping protect assets, manage these environments because you can't just arbitrarily connect them because IT tool sets just are not ready to manage these environments. >> I love that all the examples you gave were European, of course, being here in Europe. I'm curious, there's some technologies where North America might take the lead or Asia might take the lead. Is IoT relatively distributed? Is Europe kind of on-par or with the rest of the world when it comes to general adoption? >> What we have found in Europe, because of many countries like Germany leading in the renewable energy effort, and the climate is a big focus here. Data privacy and concerns around data sharing are much more top-of-mind in Europe, so we find those kind of use cases getting adopted much much faster. In Germany, as an example, NRG which is one of our customers, and they were here with us last year at Cisco live and we launched a capability with them. They are trying to manage the real time flow of energy in their grid environment, such that make sure there are no outages, no brownouts in these environments. So utilities and customers like that across Europe are adopting technology faster. Manufacturing, as always, is a leading use case. There we see some of the automotives in US are leading a little bit more in getting environments connected to their environment but overall, IoT is a global market. We work, we have over 70,000 enterprise IoT customers today at Cisco so we are fortunate to be able to serve these customers on a global basis across the range of industries I talked about earlier. >> In a lot of respects too, I would say the US is behind, right, when you look at public policy from a federal standpoint, the US doesn't really have a digital strategy from an overall perspective whereas certainly India does and countries in Europe. You look at the railway systems in Europe. >> Vikas: Much more advanced, yeah. >> Beautiful and shiny and advanced. So I would say the US has a little bit of work to do here, in my perspective. >> That's right, in India Prime Minister Modi started the effort around One Hundred Smart Cities, right, and Cisco is working with many of those smart cities with our Cisco Kinetic for Cities to kind of create, connect all of the sensor networks. Video surveillance, safety, environmental sensors, managing the flow of that data and digitizing those environments, right, and in Europe we've been working in France, Germany, Italy, UK. I think we are seeing much more adoption in these specific industries but it's a global market and again, like I said, 70,000 customers, we get to see quite a bit of the landscape around the globe. >> What should we know about the architecture? Can you give us kind of a high-level summary? What are the basics? >> Sure, so in the comprehensive IoT security architecture we released this week, it really starts with, you have to be able to identify the devices, right. In IT environments, you know, to your laptop and to your PC, they have been managed by MDM technologies for years but in the industrial environment I might have a programmable logic controller that I deployed 15 years ago. It's not ready for modern capabilities so what you really have to start with is identifying all of these assets in the communication baselines that are happening there, that's step one. Step number two is really, now that I know that this is a PLC or that's a controller, I need to come up with a policy, a security policy which says this cell in a plant environment can only talk to the other cell but doesn't need to talk to a paint zone. So I'll give you an example in automotive, if I'm welding a car, I'm building a car, the welding robots need to be communicating with each other. There's no real reason that the welding robot needs to talk to the paint shop, as an example. So you can come up with a set of policies like that to keep these environments separate because if you don't, then if there is one infection, one malware, one security, then it just traverses your whole factory. And we know customers in Europe that their networks have gone down and they've impacted 150 to 200 million dollars of downtime impact. >> Well we had a real world use case 10 years ago or so with Stuxnet with Siemens PLC and boom it went all over the world, I mean it was amazing. >> Exactly right, so again back to identification then I create the policy, then I implement the policy within our switching or a firewall network but you're never done so you have to keep monitoring on a real time basis as the landscape changes. What's happening, how do I keep up with it? And that's where things like anomaly detection are super important, right, so those are the four steps off the architecture that I want to talk about. >> So it sounds like something like cyber security is both a threat and an opportunity of bringing together IT and OT. Bring us inside a little bit those dynamics, we know it's one of the bigger challenges in the IoT space. >> Yeah, I mean I think, look, both parties whether I'm an operational person or an IT person, both of us, both audiences have their own care-abouts. If I'm a plant manager, I'm measured on number of units I'm producing, the quality, the reliability of my products. If I'm in IT I really am measured on downtime of the network or the cyber security threat. There aren't really common measurable capabilities but cyber and security, it kind of brings both the parties together. So when we use our cyber vision product, we're able to provide to that plant manager visibility to what's happening, how are their PLC's performing, did anybody change my program, is my recipe for my given product I'm making secure and safe? So you have to appeal to the operational user with what they care about. IT really cares about to manage the threat surface, don't let that threat kind of propigate. Now at the board level because the board sees both sides of it, they're asking these teams to work together because they have a complimentary skill set. >> Well I think that's critical because, rhetorical question, who's bigger control freaks? Network engineers or operation technology engineers? They both, you know, keep that operation going and are very protective of their infrastructure. So it's got to come from top down and it is a board level discussion, right? >> Yeah that's right, we have customers where, you know, the board, the CEO has mandated to say listen, whether it's for the national threat actors or other corporate espionage, I need to protect the corporate intellectual property. Because it's not just a process, it's also about safety of employees and safety of their assets that comes into play, right. So when some of the customers we're working with, where the CEO has kind of dictated that the IT teams help the operational environments, but it is a two-way street, like, there has to be value for both parties to come together to solve these challenges. >> Okay so we talked a little bit about the threat, also when we're talking IoT, there's all that data involved. What's the opportunity there for customers with data, how's Cisco involved? >> Absolutely, look, I think one of the reasons customers are doing digitization projects is because they're trying to use the data to make better business decisions. It has to improve, yield, and meet their KPI's of their industry. So far what we have seen is that all of the data is really trapped in all of these distributed environments. Gartner tells you that 75% of the data will be produced at the IoT edge. But our customers to date have not had the tool set to be able to get access to the data, cleanse the data at the edge of the network, bring the right data that they can create insights with, and improve their businesses so it's been a heterogeneous environment, lots of protocols, lots of legacy, so that's kind of what our customers are struggling with today. >> Yeah, absolutely and most of that data is going to stay at the edge so I need to be able to process the edge. Heck I even went to a conference last year, talked about satellites that are collecting all of the data, I need to be able to have the storage, the processing, the compute there because I can't send all of the data back, as fast as it is. So it's a changing architecture as to where I collect data, where I process data. We think it is very much additive to traditional cloud and data center environments today, it's just yet another challenge that enterprises need to deal with. >> That's right, so the work that Cisco is doing in the IoT edge environment is we are enabling these customers to connect their remote terminal units, their machines, and their robots and providing them the tool set with four capabilities. First, extract the data. So we have a set of protocols like Modbus, like OPC UA where they can extract the data from their machine so that's step number one. Second is to transform the data, as you said, over an LTE circuit or over a connection, I'm not going to be able to send all of the data back so how do I transform the circuit, transform the data where I maybe take an average over the last five minutes or I kind of put some functions, and we are providing, as we are in the Devnet zone, we are providing developers the capability such that they can use visual studio, they can use Javascript to write logic that can run right at the edge of the network so now you have extracted the data, you have transformed the data. Governance is a key topic, who should have access to my data, especially here in Europe where we're concerned about privacy, we're concerned about data governance. We are enabling our customers to come up with the right logic by which if there's a machine data and you are the supplier, I'm only going to give you the data, the temperature, the vibration, the pressure that you need to support the machine, but I'm not going to give you the number of units I produce. I'm not going to give you the data about my intellectual property. And then you have to integrate to where the data is going, right. So what we're doing is we are working with the public cloud providers, we are working with software ISVs, and we are giving them the integration capability and the benefit of this for the customer is we have done pre-integration on the extraction part and we have done pre-integrations on the delivery part, which allows the projects to go faster and they can deliver their IoT efforts. >> So how do you envision the compute model at the edge, I mean, probably not going to throw a zillion cores so maybe lighter weight components, and I have some follow up on that as well. >> Sure, absolutely. Look, Moore's law is a friend of ours here, right, like with every cycle, every generation of CPU technology, you get more and more compute capabilities. So the IoT gateways that we provide to our customers today have four ARM cores in them. We are using a couple, two of those ARM cores for the networking function but those cores are available for our customers. We have designed an extra memory for them to be able to process these applications and we give them SSD and some storage at that so we can provide up to sixty gigs or one hundred gigs of storage so now that gateway, that communication device, a router, a switch that's at the edge of the network can kind of do a dual purpose. It can not only process and provide you security for the communications but is now an edge processing node so we call them IoT gateways and I can tell you, we are deploying these kind of products on buses. You know, in a mass transit bus, we all ride these buses, there are over six systems that are on that bus. A video surveillance system, I'm going to monitor the tire pressure, I want to monitor if the driver is going over the speed limit. We have now connected all of these systems and we are running logic at the edge such that the riders have a safer experience and then they can get real time visibility to where the bus is as well. >> Yeah and my follow up was on persisting, so you mentioned storage, you know, flash storage at the edge and then you also referred to earlier the challenges this data today is locked in silos or maybe it's not even persisted, it's analog data sometimes. So do you envision, if you think about successful digital companies, kind of born digital, data's at the core and traditionally big manufacturing firms, large infrastructure, the manufacturing plant is the center of the universe and data sort of sits around it. Do you envision a period where that data is somehow virtualized and we have access to it, we could really build digital businesses around that data, what are your thoughts? >> Absolutely. So we have been working with a customer, it's a steel manufacturer in Austria, the heartland of Europe as an example. And they make high quality steel, right, and when they're building the high quality steel, they have two hundred different machine types and like you're saying, the data is trapped in there. This customer is trying to digitize and trying to do that but they have been struggling for the last two years or so to be able to get the data because it's a variety of machines and they want to use our IoT services but they haven't been able to pipeline the data all the way to their cloud environments so that was one of our lighthouse customers and we worked with them like, you know, roll up your sleeves and kind of designed the system with them. And we worked to get that data such that now, they're not quite a born-digital company but they are a hard manufacturing company, they can get the best of the tool sets and analytics and all of the things that contemporary tech companies use and they can bridge them into this digital environment. >> Yeah and this is how the incumbents can compete with the sort of digital natives, right I mean it's an equilibrium that occurs. >> That's right, I mean look we love the digital companies but they're not really, they don't have physical assets there or out there working. They're working in a more physical or more of the real economy whether if you are an oil company and you're getting, extracting oil from a pumpjack, right, well you need to still have the capability to do that better. So that's what we're doing, whether you're a transportation, like the bus example I gave you, an oil and gas company whose trying to extract oil from the ground or you are a manufacturer or you're a utility, if we improve use of our digital technologies and operate, improve the efficiency of the business, a 0.1%, a 1%, that has got a much much bigger implication for us as a society and the world at large. But just making them better and more efficient. >> Huge productivity gains. >> Exactly right, that's right, right. >> Massive, yeah. >> So I think that technology and IoT technologies can benefit all of these industries and you know Cisco is kind of invested and kind of helping our 70,000 customers to get better with all of these capabilities. >> Awesome, congratulations. 70,000 customers, big number, rolling out IoT solutions. Look forward to keeping track of Cisco's IoT solutions. >> Super excited to be here, thanks again. >> For Dave Vellante, I'm Stu Miniman, back with lots more wall-to-wall coverage here at Cisco Live 2020 in Barcelona. Thanks for watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)

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

>> Live from Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Summit Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hey, welcome back everyone, we're here live in Bahrain in the Middle East. This is theCUBE's exclusive coverage, here for the first time, covering Amazon Web Services, AWS' Public Sector, and the breaking news around their new region that they announced a while ago, going to be deployed here in the early 2019 time frame. An Amazon region really is the power source of digital. It has a track record of creating so much value and innovation. And I'm here with Teresa Carlson, who's the head-- she's the chief of public sectors, she's the head of Amazon Web Services' Public Sector globally, except for China but that's a different territory. Teresa Carlson, it's great to see you. >> It's so great to have you here with us, oh my goodness. >> So I got to say, you told me a few years ago we're going to really go international, we're doubling down outside North America, we're going to have regions, Andy Jassy, the CEO of AWS, said the same. This is the strategy of Amazon. But the Middle East was your baby. This was something that you did spend a lot of time on, and a lot of decisions. Everyone wants to know why Bahrain? Why did you choose this region? And what do you see happening? And how's it going? >> Well, you know, it's interesting because, well I have had a lot of people say why Bahrain as the first region that you've put in the Middle East? Because it doesn't seem like the first place somebody would choose. And the thing that kept coming back to me is Jeff has always said we're willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time. And I think this is probably one of those times where people just didn't quite understand why Bahrain. Well, here's why. I met the Crown Prince, we talked about digital innovation and the economy here and he immediately got that they needed to go through a digital transformation. They are not a country that has a lot of oil. They are a smaller country and they really are a working class country that is looking for how do they have sustainment? And they've done things in the past around financial services that really got them going. They would spear head things. And I think he saw the opportunity that this could help them jump-start the economy and they could kind of be a hub for innovation. So they created the right policies around Cloud First. They created the right telecommunications policy. They were one of the first to deregulate. They had good pricing for utilities. They were friendly toward businesses. And they had a culture that we felt could fit well with us, as well as our partner community. >> Couple of observations, being the first time here, so thank you for inviting us and allowing us to cover you here. One, they're a learning culture, they speak multiple languages, why not add programming to it, software? Two, they like to move fast. They just built a track in 14 months, they're not afraid to go faster. >> They go fast. >> That's Amazon. Amazon, you guys move at a speed of a whole 'nother cadence. And then, my observation again, compared to other areas as I look around is that the percentage of the population of Bahrainians is large, is a lot of people live here, that are native, and they're talented. >> Well, one of the things you said that I think is key is that they move fast, they're used to being frugal on how they do things and they're very scrappy. And that really fits with their culture because, again, they have to do things different than some of the other minimalist countries who are-- they're not quite as rich. But they have this culture of really moving fast and they took down blockers like crazy. I mean, as we came in and were making a decision on-- >> What were some of those blockers? Like, stumbling blocks, are they more hurdles? What were they? >> They were stumbling blocks but they were-- we had to really come in and talk about why telecommunications, policies and pricing had to change because in an old-school model of Telco, there's a lot of big charges. And when you have a digital economy coming in, if you think about, you have a few transactions for a lot of money in an old-school. In a new-school world, you have millions of transactions for a little bit, 'cause you've got to be able to transact a lot, and that's why your telecommunications industry's got to be set up as well as you want it deregulated. They'd already deregulated it so they worked with us to open it up, to set the policies, and now Batelco, who is one of our major telecommunications partners here, is doing manage services on AWS, they've gotten all kinds of people trained. And it's just an example of how they look at an opportunity and say we have got to innovate and make changes if we want to have a sustainment in the 21st century economy. >> And you guys are bringing a lot of goodness to the table, they're quick learners, they're smart, they've got their entrepreneurial vibe. They're not afraid to put some funds of funds together and get some professional investment going on. So that's going to level up the entrepreneurship base. The question is when will the region be ready? How's that going? It's under construction. We've been hearing it's been impacting and, frankly, bringing in to this country an agenda item of sustainability and sustainable energy. Well, why would they need sustainable energy if they've got oil? >> Well they-- (laughs) [John] - Why burn it if you can sell it? That's what the British Prime Minister-- >> Well they do and they've had a new find but I think they have to get to the new oil that they've found but they're not-- I think, what I understand, they're not banking on that, they're going to bank on a digital economy. So they know this is kind of a guaranteed way to really grow what they're doing and bringing out outside others. There's two big elements they're doing. One is they're creating policies for data that allows other countries to put their data here safely and with the right laws. That is game changing. So that's one big thing they're doing. The second thing is they have the spirit of teaching and training so they're getting other countries to come in and talk to them about what they're doing. And remember, John, they're already moving the government to the Cloud and they don't even have their Cloud here yet. So they've done all their homework and they're already moving more work loads into the Cloud that they don't feel need to be here. But they've looked at security design, compliance practices, and they're like, we're moving, we're not waiting. >> They're Cloud First. >> They're Cloud First. >> Okay, so when do you expect the construction to be ready? Ballpark, I know you can't probably give an exact date but when-- >> We expect it'll be ready by Q1 of 2019 and we're excited. It's going to be one of the most innovative regions. And by the way, I dunno if you saw, I had a big star on the map today in my presentation. We have literally, at AWS, had a big hole in the world with no region in the Middle East or Africa, and now we are going to have this region so it is exciting, and I know that the region itself is really anxious to get going. >> Well not only are you an amazing executive, I've seen you work, I've seen what you've done, checking the boxes, doing the hard work, getting down and dirty and doing hustling and scrapping, but you also made some good strategic bets. This one really is successful because I think, two things, you bring a region to the area for AWS but you guys are doing it in a way that's partnering with the government, you're actually-- as industry contributing. I think that's a case there that's going to probably be recognized down the road when people figure that out. But that's going to be a great one. But the cultural win, for you, is pretty amazing and I have to say, yesterday I went to the women breakfast that you hosted and I've never been at a women breakfast, and I've been to a lot of them because I like to be involved, where I got kicked out of a table because they need the space, so it was so crowded. Sorry guys, you're out, I got booted. I didn't leave the room, I had to just move, because they had workshops. Take a minute to explain the women breakfast you had because I think that was extraordinary and a proof point that the narrative of the region, women don't go to school, all this nonsense that's out there, take a minute to clarify this, this is a cultural shift. There might be some cultural things going on. >> Well, the women are here, #SmartIsBeautiful. They are amazing. And they are very educated and in fact, 53% of the government work force here are females at high level jobs too, they're not just low level. And I actually met with the King this week who told me that he was able-- he has the first Supreme Court Justice, that's a female, in the Middle East. And he said it was against culture but he did it because he said this woman was so amazing and she was so talented and she fit the role, she had the job description down. And he said it's gone great, so the women here are smart, they're talented, they're educated, and they actually get degrees in Computer Science. Here in Bahrain, 60% of the Computer Science students are females. Now, what is not happening, is their not always getting out and getting these jobs. And the second thing is, right now, we're still working with them to teach the right skills. A lot of skills are actually outdated tech skills and I know, John, you see this too, even in the US. You have universities that are still teaching the wrong skills for Cloud, so we are working with them at the university and the high school level that actually teach and certify on the right skills. But the women are talented, they're amazing. There are some cultural things that we're going to work together on but there's really no reason we can't have an amazing and talented workforce of women here in the Middle East. >> We had Mohammed on, who's the chief executive of the IGA, the Information e-Government Authority. He told me that any citizen can get a certification for free in this country. >> Yes! Oh my gosh, so I've never seen this. So our partner here, Tamkeen, who's like The Labour Fund, about a year and a half ago, agreed that any citizen that got a certification on AWS, it would be 100% paid for. And then we just announced today that they're actually also going to pay 100% of Bahraini companies that want to move to the Cloud. They're serious about this, they are serious. And they are being a role model and, again John, why are they doing it? They are doing it because they realize that they want to be a true digital economy and grow their businesses here and create new. They got to move faster because they're smaller. They've got to be scrappier, they got to move faster, they got to do things a little bit different. >> The other thing I want to point out, you can't really see it on the camera, but behind us you have, essentially, a mix of commercial and public sector. The show here is so, so crowded, couldn't get into the keynote speech, overflow of room was packed, this is attracting everyone from the Gulf region here. Not just public sector, but commercial businesses. This is not a one time thing, this is a-- the pent-up demand is here. What do you expect is going to happen when the region gets here built out? >> Well, if you look at all the partners around, I mean you have Trend Micro over here, and others, many of them have come because they're excited about us putting a region here. And Andy Jassy and I both have had many of our partners say when are you going to have a region in the Middle East? So we expect a lot more partners are going to come. Just like you they're going to see the value of being here. But, additionally, I don't know what we're going to do for our conference, our summit, because we've already out-grown this space and you're right, we have delegates here from Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, of course Bahrain, Kuwait, the US. So many different groups are being represented here and I think also South Africa, we have some folks from South Africa. >> Well theCUBE is here, we're making great observations and great commentary. I got to say that you're even attracting amazing talent from the US, besides theCUBE. General Keith Alexander was here. >> Yes he was. >> John Wood from Telos, and all these partners, all visionaries who see the opportunity. This is important, you're not being misunderstood by the people who know Amazon. >> No, I agree. And you made a point earlier that I think is important. Even though I'm kind of here for this conference, leading it, this is not a public sector conference, it's a AWS Summit. It has tons of commercial, tons of public sector. The thing that's a little bit different when you get to some of these countries is they are more government lead, so that is the reason it's important to have this relationship with government if you really want to, but you don't want to surprise them. And you want to work with them to help make sure that they and the country are successful. >> Well Teresa, it's been fun to observe and watch your successes continue to raise the bar here in your job. This is a whole 'nother level when you talk about really filling a hole, you see a hole, you fill it. >> Yep, find a whole, fill it (laughs). >> I heard someone say that once in a motivation speech. Oh, that was you, "You see a hole you fill it. "Oh, we got to hole in the Middle East, fill it!" You have a region here, you've got great success in Washington, DC, CIA, other governments. Congratulations, and thanks for all your support-- >> Thank you John for being here, thank you. >> Thank you, live coverage here. We are here in Bahrain in the Middle East of CUBE's first time. I'm John Furrier, your host here, covering the exclusive Amazon Web Services Summit, and covering the historic launch of the new region in the Middle East. This should change the game, this is going to be a digital hub. It's going to have impact to entrepreneurship, economics and society. We'll be covering it at theCUBE. Stay with us for more after this short break. (jubilant music)

(techy music) >> Live from Toronto, Canada, it's theCUBE covering Blockchain Futurist Conference 2018, brought to you by theCUBE. (techy music) >> Hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is the live CUBE coverage here in Toronto, Ontario here in Canada for the Untraceable Blockchain Futurist Conference. This is day two of wall-to-wall CUBE coverage. We've got great presentations going on, live content here on theCUBE as well as in the sessions, great networking, but more important all the thought leaders in the industry around the world are coming together to try to set the standards and set up a great future for cryptocurrency and blockchain in general. Our next two guests are very special guests for theCUBE and we're excited to have them on, the Honorable Wayne Caines, Minister of National Security for the government of Bermuda, and Kevin Richards, concierge on the Fintech business development manager, part of the Bermuda Business Development Agency. Thank you guys for coming on, really appreciate the time. >> Thanks very much. >> Thank you for having us. >> Why this is so important is that we heard your presentation onstage, for the folks, they can catch it online when they film it and record it, but the Bermuda opportunity has really emerged as a shining light around the world, specifically in the United States. In California, where I live, Silicon Valley, you guys are now having great progress in hosting companies and being crypto-friendly. Take a minute to explain what's happening, what's the current situation, why Bermuda, why now, what's developing? >> This has all happened over the last eight months. We were looking in November of 2017 to go in the space. In January we went to the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland. When we went to Davos in Switzerland something very interesting happened. People kept coming up to us, I was like the Hound of the Baskerville, or the Pied Piper if you please, and so, so many people were coming up to us finding out more information about Bermuda. We realized that our plan that we thought we could phase in over 18 months, that it had to be accelerated. So, whilst we were at the World Economic Forum in Davos we said to people, "Listen, if you want to change the world, "if you want to help Bermuda to grow, if you're serious," this is a Thursday, "Meet us in Bermuda on the Monday morning." On the Monday morning there are 14 different people in the room. We sat in the room, we talked about what we wanted the world to be, how could Bermuda be in place, what are the needs in this industry, and by the Wednesday we had a complete and total framework, and so we split up into industries. Number one was ICOs, we wanted to look at how to regulate the ICO market. Number two, we wanted to look at digital asset exchanges or cryptocurrencies or how do we regulate security tokens and utility tokens and what do exchanges look like, how do we do exchanges in Bermuda, and then we wanted to talk about education and setting up incubators. And so, come fast forward to July, August, we have an ICO bill in place that allows us to look at setting up ICOs in Bermuda. We wanted to focus on the legal and the regulatory framework, so this is a nascent space. A number of people are concerned about the dark actors, and so we wanted to set up a jurisdiction that traded on our international reputation. Now, remember for the last 60 years reinsurance, finance, captives, hedge funds, people in the financial services market have been coming to Bermuda because that's what we do well. We were trading on the reputation of our country, and so we couldn't do anything to jeopardize that. And so, when we put in place the ICO legislation we had consultants from all over the world, people that were bastions and beasts in industry, in the ICO industry and in the crypto world came to Bermuda and helped us to develop the legislation around setting up an ICO. So, we passed the ICO legislation. The next phase was regulating cryptocurrencies, regulating digital assets, and we set up a piece of legislation called the Digital Asset Business Act, and that just regulates the digital asset space exchanges, and the last piece we wanted to do was a banking piece, and this is the last and we believe the most significant piece. We were talking to people and they were not able to open up bank accounts and they were not able to do, so we said, "Listen, "the Bermuda banking environment is very strong." Our banking partners were like, "Listen, "we love what you guys are doing, "but based on our corresponding banking relationships "we don't want to do anything to jeopardize that space," but how could we tell people to come to Bermuda, set up your company, and they can't open bank accounts? And so, we looked at, we just recently passed creating a new banking license that allows people to set up their business in Bermuda and set up banking relationships and set up bank accounts. That simply has to receive the governor's Royal Assent. As you know, Bermuda's still a British pan-territory, and financial matters have to get the okay of the Queen, and so that is in the final stages, but we're excited, we're seeing an influx, excuse me, a deluge of people coming to Bermuda to set up their companies in Bermuda. >> So, the first two pieces are in place, you have the legislation... >> Mm-hm. >> Mm-hm. >> You have the crypto piece, and now the banking's not yet, almost approved, right? >> It's there, it simply has to get the final sign-off, and we believe that it should take place within the next two weeks. So, by the time this goes to air and people see it we believe that piece will be in place. >> So, this is great news, so the historical perspective is you guys had a good reputation, you have things going on, now you added on a new piece not to compromise your existing relationships and build it on. What have you guys learned in the process, what did you discover, was it easy, was it hard, what are some of the learnings? >> What we've learnt is that KYC, know your customers, and the AML, anti-money laundering, and terrorist financing pieces, those are the critical pieces. People are looking in this space now for regulatory certainty, so when you're talking about people that are in the space that are doing ICOs of $500 million or exchanges that are becoming unicorns, a billion dollar entity in three months, they want a jurisdiction that has regulatory certainty. Not only do they want a jurisdiction with regulatory certainty, they want to open up the kimono. What has this country done in the past, what do they have to trade on? We're saying you can go to a number of countries in the world, but look at our reputation, what we're trading on, and so we wanted to create a space with regulatory certainty, and so we have a regulatory body in Bermuda called the Bermuda Monetary Authority, and they are an independent regulator that they penned the Digital Asset Business Act, and so the opportunity simply for people around the world saying, "Listen, we want to do an ICO, "we want to set up an exchange. "Where's a country that we can go to that has a solid reputation? Hold on, how many countries have law surrounding"-- >> Yeah. >> "The Digital Asset Business Act, how many ICO countries have laws. Guess what, Bermuda becomes a standout jurisdiction in that regard. >> Having a regulation signaling is really important, stability or comfort is one, but the one concern that we hear from entrepreneurs, including, you know, ourselves when we look at the market is service providers. You want to have enough service providers around the table so when I come in and domicile, say, in Bermuda you want to have the banking relationships, you want to have the fiduciary-- >> Yes. >> You want to have service providers, law firms and other people. >> Yes. >> How are you guys talking about that, is that already in place? How does that fit into the overall roadmap for your vision? >> I don't want to beat a horse (laughs) or beat a drum too much, that is what we do as a country. So, we have set up, whether it's a group of law firms and the Bermuda, excuse me, the Bermuda Monetary Authority, the Bermuda that's the register of companies that sets up the companies. We have Kevin, and Kevin will tell you about it, he leads our concierge team. So, it's one throat to choke, one person that needs, so when you come to really understand that the ease of business, a county that's business-friendly with a small country and with a small government it's about ease of reference. Kevin, tell us a little about the concierge team. >> It's like the Delaware of the glove, right? >> Absolutely. >> Come in, domicile, go and tell us how it works. >> I'll give you a little bit of background on what we do on the concierge side. So, one thing that we identified is that we want to make sure that we've got a structure and a very clearly defined roadmap for companies to follow so that process from when they first connect with the BDA in Bermuda to when they're incorporated and set up and moved to Bermuda to start running their business is a seamless process that has very clearly identifiable road marks of different criteria to get through. So, what I do as a concierge manager is I will identify who that company needs to connect with when they're on the ground in Bermuda, get those meetings set up for when they come down so that they have a very clearly mapped out day for their trip to Bermuda. So, they meet with the regulator, they meet with the government leaders, they meet with the folks who've put together legislation that, obviously you mentioned the service providers, so identifying who's the right law firm, corporate service provider, advisory firm on the ground in Bermuda, compliance company, and then making sure that depending on what that company wants to achieve out of their operation in Bermuda they've got an opportunity to connect with those partners on their first trip so that they can put that road map together for-- >> So, making it easy... >> Making it very easy to set up in Bermuda. >> So, walk me through, I want to come down, I want to do business-- >> Yeah. >> Like what I hear, what do I do? >> So, you send me an email and you say, "Listen, Wayne, we're looking at "doing an ICO launch in Bermuda. "I would like to meet with the regulator. "Can you put a couple law firms in place," in an email. I zip that over to Kevin or you go on our Fintech.bm website-- >> Yeah, I was going to say... >> Fintech.bm website, and Kevin literally organizes a meeting. So, when you come to Bermuda for your meeting you have a boardroom and all the key players will be in the boardroom. >> Got it. >> If you need somebody to pick you up at the airport, if you need a hotel, whatever you need from soup to nuts our team actually makes that available to you, so you're not running around trying to find different people to meet, everyone's there in the room. >> And the beauty of Bermuda is that, you know, the city of Hamilton's two square kilometers, so your ability to get a lot done in one day is, I think, second to nowhere else on the planet, and working with the BDA concierge team you're, you know, we connect with the client before they come down and make sure we identify what their needs are. >> The number one question I have to ask, and this is probably the most important for everyone, is do they have to wear Bermuda shorts? (laughs) >> When you come you tell us your size, you tell us what size and what color you want and we'll make sure, so the... I tell this story about the Bermuda shorts. The Bermuda shorts, Bermuda's always had to adapt and overcome. Bermuda, we have something called the Bermuda sloop and it's a sailing rig, and so we... The closest port to Bermuda is Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and we wanted to cut down the time of their voyage, so we created a sailing rig called the Bermuda rig or the Bermuda sloop. Over the years that has become the number one adopted rig on sailing boats. We've always had to adapt and become innovative. The Bermuda shorts were a way to adapt and to get through our very hot climate, and so if you look at just keep that in mind, the innovation of the Bermuda sloop and the Bermuda shorts. Now, this Fintech evolution is another step in that innovation and a way that we take what's going on in the world and adapt it to make it palatable for everyone. >> What's the brand promise for you guys when you look at when entrepreneurs out there and other major institutions, especially in the United States, again, Silicon Valley's one of the hottest issues around-- >> Yes. >> Startups for expansion, right now people are stalled, they don't know what to do, they hear Malta, they hear other things going on. What's the promise that you guys are making to the law firms and the people, entrepreneurs out there trying to establish and grow? >> The business proposition is this, you want a jurisdiction that is trading on years of solid regulation, a country and a government that understands business, how to be efficacious in business. When you come to Bermuda you are trading on a country that this is what we've done for a living. So, you don't have to worry about ethical government, is your money going to be safe. We have strong banking relationships, strong law firms, top tier law firms in Bermuda, but more importantly, we have legislation that is in place that allow you to have a secure environment with a clear regulatory framework. >> What should people look for as potentially might be gimmicks for other countries to promote that, you know, being the Delaware for the globe and domiciling, and what are some of the requirements? I mean, some have you've got to live there, you know, what are some of the things that are false promises that you hear from other potential areas that you guys see and don't have to require and put the pressure on someone? >> When you hear the people say, "We can turn your company around in the next day." That we don't require significant KYC and AML. Red flags immediately go up with the global regulatory bodies. We want when a person comes to Bermuda to know that we have set what we believe is called the Bermuda Standard. When you come to Bermuda you're going to have to jump through some legal and regulatory hoops. You can see regulation, the ICO regulation and the Digital Asset Business Act on BermudaLaws.bm. BermudaLaws.bm, and you can go through the legislation clause by clause to see if this meets your needs, how it will affect your business. It sets up clearly what the requirements are to be in Bermuda. >> What's the feedback from business, because you know, when you hear about certain things, that's why Delaware's so easy, easy to set up, source price all know how to do in a corporation, let's say in the United States-- >> We don't have the SEC handicaps that they have in America, going from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. You're dealing with a colony that allows you to be in a domicile that all of the key players finances... We have a number of the key elements that are Bermuda. We're creating a biosphere that allows a person to be in a key space, and this is, you have first move as advantage in Bermuda. We have a number of things that we're working on, like the Estonia model of e-residency, which we will call EID, that creates a space that you are in Bermuda in a space that is, it's protected, it's governed. We believe that when companies set up in Bermuda they are getting the most secure, the strongest business reputation that a country could have. >> The other thing I would add, I'll just say, you know, quality, certainty, and community is what that brand represents. So, you know, you've got that historical quality of what Bermuda brings as a business jurisdiction, you have the certainty of the regulation and that pathway to setting your company up and incorporating in Bermuda, and then the community piece is something that we've been working on to make sure that any of the players that are coming to Bermuda and connecting with Bermuda and setting up there, they feel like they're really integrated into that whole community in Bermuda, whether it be from the government side, the private sector side. You can see it with the companies that have set up that are here today, you know, they really have embraced that Bermuda culture, the Bermuda shorts, and what we're really trying to do as a jurisdiction in the tech space. >> What can I expect if I domicile in Bermuda from a company perspective, what do I have to forecast? What's the budget, what do I got to do, what's my expectation? Allocate resources, what's going to be reporting, can you just give us some color commentary? >> So, with reference, it depends what you're trying to do, and so there will be different requirements for the ICO legislation. For the ICO legislation a key piece of the document actually is the whitepaper. Within the whitepaper you will settle what your scope of business is, what do you want to do, what you know, everything, everything that you require will be settled in your whitepaper. After the whitepaper is approved and if it is indeed successful, you go to the Bermuda Monetary Authority and they will outline what they require of you, and very shortly thereafter you will able to set up and do business in Bermuda. With reference to the digital asset exchanges, the Digital Asset Business Act, such a clear guideline, so you're going to need to have a key man in Bermuda, a key woman in Bermuda. >> Yeah. >> You're going to need to have a place of presence in Bermuda, so there are normal requirements-- >> There's levels of requirements based upon the scope. >> Absolutely. >> So, if you run an exchange it has to be like ghosting there. >> Yeah, yeah, you need boots on the ground. >> And that's why the AML and the KYC piece is so important. >> Yeah. Well, I'm super excited, I think this is a great progress and this has been a big uncertainty, you know, what does this signal. People have, you know, cognitive dissonance around some-- >> Yes. >> Of the decisions they're making, and I've seen entrepreneurs flip flop between Liechtenstein, Malta, Caymans. >> Right. >> You know, so this is a real concern and you guys want to be that place. >> Not only, we will say this, Bermuda is open for business, but remember, when you see the requirements that we have some companies won't meet the standard. We're not going to alter the standard to accommodate a business that might not be what we believe is best for Bermuda, and we believe that once people see the standard, the Bermuda Standard, it'll cascade down and we believe that high tides raises all boats. >> Yeah. >> We have a global standard, and if a company meets it we will be happy for them to set up and do business in Bermuda. >> Well, I got to say, it's looking certainly that leaders like Grant Fondo in Silicon Valley and others have heard good things. >> Yeah. >> How's been the reaction for some of the folks on the East Coast, in New York and around the United States and around the world? What has been some of the commentary, what's been the anecdotal feedback that you've heard? >> We're meeting three and four companies every day of the week. Our runway is full of Fintech companies coming to Bermuda, from... We have insurtech companies that are coming in Bermuda, people are coming to Bermuda for think tanks, to set up incubators and to do exploratory meetings, and so we're seeing a huge interest in Bermuda the likes have not been seen in the last 20 years in Bermuda. >> Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you and thanks for sharing the update and congratulations. We'll keep in touch, we're following your progress from California, we'll follow up again. The Honorable Wayne Caines, the Minister of National Security of the government of Bermuda, and Kevin Richards, concierge taking care of business, making it easy for people. >> Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. >> We'll see, I'm going to come down, give me the demo. >> We're open for business and we're looking forward to seeing everybody. (laughs) >> Thank you for the opportunity. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Major developments happening in the blockchain, crypto space. We're starting to see formation clarity around, standards around traditional structures but not so traditional. It's not your grandfather's traditional model. This is what's great about blockchain and crypto. CUBE coverage here, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching, stay with us. More day two coverage after this short break. (techy music)

>> Narrator: From New York, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. (digital music) >> Hello, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE coverage here on the ground. Here in New York City for Consensus 2018, sold out event. This is the premiere show for the Crypto Blockchain world. It's part of Blockchain Week, New York City, #BlockchainweekNY, for New York. A lot of events going on. Everyone's here, a lot of breaking news. I'm here with CUBE alumni, Dan Bates, ImpactPPA. He was on with us in our show in Puerto Rico, at CoinAgenda. Dan, great to see you, thanks for comin' in. >> Thanks, John. Glad to be here. >> So, you've got some hard news. Tell us a little about the conversation we had about, couple weeks ago, in Puerto Rico. You got a great mission, renewable energy. You got a token. You've been busy. You got a concrete deal. You're doing business. You're not just saying it, you're doing it. >> Yeah, shocking. >> Take a minute. What's the hard news? >> All right, so we're really proud to announce today, that we signed a deal with the Indian government, which is essentially going to lift 50 million people out of poverty. Women. How they're going to do that is they're going to help restart their textile industry. It's called Harit Khadi. It's an old craft of India, spinning cotton into really high quality fabric. What they're going to do is they're going to put an energy efficient loom in a woman's home. It's going to be powered by our technology. And the whole process, all supply chain and payment will be managed by our token. >> Take a minute real quick, to explain the technology. I know it's recycling. We've done it before. But for this first, while we're going to get context for this big news, what's, real quickly, what do you guys do? >> We install renewable energy systems on rooftops. In this case, it'll be a rooftop. In many cases, it's large microgrids. So, we use wind and solar technology to drive to batteries. And then we allow people to pay for power on an as needed or pay a you go model. It's very much like what M-PESA does in Africa. We've de-centralized electricity. De-centralized M-PESA for electricity. >> You took an economics utility, great thing. By the way, state of California, where I live, just mandating all new construction have solar panels. Not sure they're going to tokenize it. They might be getting it all wrong. But, you do an amazing mission. Great technology. But I'm amazed by the real deals you're doing. You got a PO in hand, real business. >> Yes. >> Signed. >> Yes. Sealed and delivered. >> Yes. >> What is it? How much, what's goin' on? This is big news. >> Yeah, the purchase order that we have is going to represent one quarter of 1% of this project. It's designed to put 125,000 women to work. I can tell you the number has a lot of zeros on it. >> So there's real cash in the barrel? >> This is a nine-figure-- That's right. This is nine-figure purchase order, that we have out of them. It's a big deal. 100 million plus. >> Yeah, 100 million plus. >> Just as a POC. >> Just on the POC, yeah. What we're going to be doing is we're setting this deal up now. End of June, early July, we will doing the inauguration on the first textile facility in Kahana, which is a city in India. And Prime Minister Modi is slated to cut the ribbon, to set this project in motion. His goal, and the Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises, Minister Singh, whom I met with a couple of weeks ago, they are committed to bringing 50 million people out of poverty. >> So this is really high impact, in my opinion, pun intended. You got a ImpactPPA. You got a mission-driven organization, real problem, growing middle class, by the way, is coming fast and furious. >> Exploding. >> You're connecting energy with token economics. Real money's on the table. Real impact to people's lives, with democratization. In this case, it's not, but it could apply to any other thing. This is just one example. >> That's right. This is the largest, in my opinion, from my view, from my vantage point, this deal alone, the pilot actually, that quarter of 1%, is the largest commercial blockchain project in the world. I can't see of anything else that's even close, right now. >> The claim has been made. The largest commercial blockchain deal in the world done by Dan Bates, ImpactPPA. Congratulations. Great stuff. Great to have you on theCUBE. >> Thank you, John. >> We want to ask you now, shift gears to the event. You were out late last night, networking celebrating the success, doing more business. What are you doing here? Obviously, you're not done. It's the beginning of a big deal. There's only one deal. What other things you got goin' on? >> Oh, we got projects. We just signed a partnership with the Earth Day Network. They're responsible for launching Earth Day, 48 years ago. We've got a project with them, 50 by 50. We're going to be doing 50 installations around the world with our partnership by their 20th, or their 50th anniversary in 2020. We're here talking to protocols. We're here talking to strategic partners at Consensus. And it's an amazing show. The energy around here is just unbelievable. >> You know what I love about your project? And you know, we've talked before, but for the folks watching, you combine a mission-driven, high-need deal, electricity, with technology. I mean, it's.... If I'm a young person, I want to be in this business. How're you onboarding people? You guys are hiring? What kind of people are you hiring? >> Well, of course, we're looking for developers to help us with the token piece of it, the blockchain piece. We're also looking for guys who can help us get this thing to scale. That's going to be really critical. So we're talking to a whole bunch of guys around protocol to see who can bring on board, in this case, 125,000 people, like tomorrow. We're also looking for energy guys, engineering guys, because we've got projects all over the world. Don't forget, we're still doing those 42 cities in Haiti. Microgrids all up and down the West Coast of Haiti to help these people lift themselves out of darkness. We do that too. >> Dan, congratulations. You guys're doing great work. >> Thank you. >> I'm proud to know you, and I really believe in what you're doing. Thanks for doing it. >> Great. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you very much, John. >> theCUBE coverage here in New York City. Big news. The largest commercial blockchain deal that we know of, that we've seen. If there's others out there, come challenge that and let's see it. Real offers being done. Dan Bates, ImpactPPA, CUBE coverage, here in New York at Consensus Blockchain Week. Be back with more, thanks for watching. (digital music)

>> From Phoenix, Arizona, theCUBE. At Catalyst Conference. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. A great little conference, about 400 people, it's going to be 600 next year. I think (inaudible), it's her fourth year. Rather than coming down and seeing what's going on, it seems to be a hot bed of of Women in Tech issues here in Phoenix. We were here two years ago for our first Grace Hopper conference so we're excited to come down and get a feel. And our next guest, Laura Williams, welcome. >> Thank you. >> So you are, as we said off camera, you're the lone government representative. You're the eDiplomacy Officer at the US Department of State. >> Right. >> So, first off, what is eDdiplomacy? >> eDiplomacy was founded by Secretary of State, Colin Powell. I actually started on the same day as he did at the State Department. We took different cars to work that day. But, I was a new hire when he was coming on at Secretary of State and he very quickly identified that State Department needed a tech upgrade. But he also combined that with a culture upgrade. He said, you know, "It's not just about needing new technology but it's needing new technology that allows us to collaborate." And he, sort of, blew peoples' minds when he said, "You know it's not about need to know anymore it's about need to share." State Department, still is a very bureaucratic, sort of, hierarchical culture. So, this initially didn't rest so well. People said there's no way, you know, the first thing that eDiplomacy did to bring in a Wiki into the internal part of the State Department's network. And I said, "Well, that will never work. We're a clearance culture and all this stuff." We have 22,000 Diplopedia articles, you know, running now. So, it did work. We brought blogs into the Department in order to tell stories across bureaucratic and geographical divides. I mean, if you think of the State Department, we're working in 190 countries and we have 275 offices spread throughout those countries. So, we needed collaboration we needed technology like this. >> So that's really interesting coming from Colin Powell you know, Head of the the Joint Chiefs, Chiefs, right? >> Yep. >> Just got off of war, going into the State Department. Which, still today there's this issues on, you know, Hillary's emails and this and that. It is a culture of need to know. So how did the barrier break down. >> Yeah. >> Did we have, like, the security overlay on the Wiki. >> Yeah. >> Did everything kind of happen, you know, outside or at some kind of great level in terms of clearance. >> Yeah. >> So it could, kind of, spread. That's really-- >> Yeah. >> --an interesting story. >> Two things: first of all when Colin Powell came to the State Department, most people didn't even have their Internet on their desktop. >> This probably-- >> This is in 2001. >> --probably a security-- >> Yeah. >> --was it a security thing or just-- >> --well, that's what everybody said. >> --old computers? >> That's what everybody said, right? >> Everybody said, "we can't do that, it's not secure." Well, Colin Powell- right, the guy who knows all about security, also happened to be on the board of AOL, right? And so, he knew technology and he knew that you could make it secure. It's not like the Department of Defense didn't have access to the Internet. He said, "Yeah, you got to make it secure. So we're talking about hardening the department's internal network and adding access to it, but of course, adding a layer of security on top of it." So, he, it took that kind of leadership, that personality to come in and say, "Oh yes, we will do this. And you all need to figure out how to do it But we will do it." >> But that's nothing compared to the cultural change though, right?-- >> The cultural change is the hardest. >> --to get people to publish. >> Right. >> So was there a couple of people who were just wildly successful. I mean how, again,-- >> Yeah. Yeah. >> --it's a complete mindshift. >> Yeah. I think that we haven't been totally successful, even all these years later, 15 years later there are definitely people that do not contribute to Diplopedia. There are people that definitely believe that information is power and they would rather share less than more. But, if you look at the world around you today and State Department does a lot of that, right? >> Right, right. >> It's out job to interact with people. Even that business of diplomacy has changed. It is no longer the Secretary of State meeting with the Foreign Minister of another country- Well, of course that happens and treaties are made but all of us now are expected to preform diplomacy. It's people to people diplomacy, not just envoy to envoy. And how do we do that, how do we do that on a massive scale? Technology. Of course, technology is a big part of that. >> Well, how do you do all the people that you're not interacting with at work? I mean-- >> Right. >> --that's what we see over and over again as the consumerization of IT, right, >> Yeah. >> and the expected behavior of things-- >> Yeah. >> --that work to behave like they are when I'm not work-- >> Yeah. >> I wonder if some of the -- >> Yeah. >> --younger people have come in-- >> Yeah. >> --to the government, like what, of course, you, why, why do we have these things? >> Right. It's an awesome source of friction (laughing) Can I say that, I mean, it is definitely a friction, like every other CIO of an organization as large as the State Department's. There is a constant worry about security. A constant worry about being able to manage a diverse tool set. But, if you don't provide the technology that your organization needs, you're going to create even bigger security problems. You're going to have a shadow IT. >> Right. Right. >> People are going to start using their person Gmail accounts instead of their State.gov accounts so we need to find ways to bring collaborative technology and technology that we use everyday in our personal lives, inside the safety of our network so that people have the kind of tools they need to do their jobs. >> That's great. We interviewed, Michelle K. Lee, who is the Under Secretary of Commerce at the USPTO Office. She came from Google, so again, another one of these kind of moves from the tech world into the government. But let's shift gears a little bit. Why are you here? What were you talking about here at this conference? >> Right, so, first of all, I've learned so much from being at this conference. You know, I was a little bit unsure when Adriana, the CEO of Girls in Tech, you know, invited me to talk as you mentioned, at the outset, I'm the only govie here. >> (laughing) The govie. >> So, I though, like, how is my story going to really resonate with the women that are present. And I spoke today, yesterday, story after story, presenter after presenter, I felt more and more confident I said, "Oh my goodness, the challenges are the same in private sector. They're the same if you're at a startup or at a big fancy company, like Intel or IBM. A lot of the stories are the same if you're in government so I'm just going to be authentic and tell my story." So, we did two things, we talked about, you know, IT innovation in government at the Federal level and how President Obama has invited, you know, West Coast high speed, low drag people to come help us fix our IT systems. But then I talked about my story. I had a degree in international ielations but moved out of that field in the mid 90s when it seemed everybody was doing something with tech. You know, it was an uncomfortable move at first because, you know, I was really wedded to whoa, I've studied international relations, I should be in this business. But I had one of those post-collegiate bubble bursting experiences where, you know, I was working at USAID and I thought, "I don't know this theory that I learned in school doesn't seem to be playing out in the field." And I shared an office with the IT guy, right? Uh, he was so annoying. You know. (laughing) But uh-- >> Funny how things work out, right? >> Right. So, a few months later he called me up. He said, "Hey, you still thinking about a career change, right?" Three years out of college, we have careers, right? So, I said," Yeah." And he said, "I'm in a different embassy every month. We're unplugging the old computer system, putting a new one in and we need you." And I said, "I don't know anything about tech." And he said, "But you know about the business. You've studied international relations. You are a people person. We need someone who can relate to people, who can sit in a meeting with the Ambassador and explain to him what the importance of tech rollout and explain it in plain language. Not in dorky, tech talk. And then we'll teach you the dorky, techy talk after-hours." I ended up really liking it. I liked that if there was a problem, I could fix it. And that has led to a career in the State Department where I'm certainly in between the org chart. The hardcore zero and one techies, they don't consider me a techie. The international relations majors that are doing the business of diplomacy, they're like, "You're not one of us either." But, I've made a sweet spot out of being in between orgs, org chart and it's really worked out for me. >> It's such a great story on so many levels. You are still in international relations-- >> Yes, very much so. >> --Except you work for the State Department. >> Yeah. >> It doesn't get much more international relations than that. >> Yeah. >> But you found your own niche. >> Yeah. >> And, I think a very important lesson for people considering a career in tech. You don't necessarily have to be a hardcore techie. >> Right. >> You don't have to know coding to get a job-- >> Yeah. >> --and get paid to play in this really fun and exciting and rapidly moving world. >> Yeah, that's true. There have been a lot of stories here over the past couple of days about that. There's a lot of people in that room who don't have a degree in engineering or computer science and in fact, I got to a place in my career where I stopped being shy about being that person who spoke both tech and International Relations and said, you know, in the State Department, you change your assignment every couple of years so you're constantly, sort of, lobbying or bidding for a new job. And I went to apply for a job in the operations center. That's the 24/7 nerve center of the State Department where we alert and brief the Secretary of State and other officials on events around the world. And, the guy interviewing me, who would later become my boss said, "You know, you're not a traditional candidate for this job." But, by this point in my career I said, "That's right. And that is exactly why I'm the best person for this job. Because I have this blend of skills that's going to take this place to the next level." So- >> And you got the job. >> I got the job and we changed the way, you know, the department receives, you know, alerts and briefs about events that are happening all around the world. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. >> Well congratulations. >> Thanks. >> Great story and really great inspiration for people looking for a great story. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> So I appreciate you taking a few minutes out of your time, representing the government, representing the State Department here at the conference and thanks for stopping by theCUBE. >> Thanks so much. >> Absolutely. >> Thanks for having me. >> All right, Laura Williams, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching the CUBE. We're at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. Thanks for watching.