>> Live from Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Summit Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hello everyone, welcome back to live coverage here for theCUBE in Bahrain. We're in the Middle East first time ever. Making the trip out here as part of our exclusive coverage of Amazon Web Services. Public Sector Summit, for the first time we are seeing a region being deployed here in the Middle East in Bahrain and surrounding friendly countries. This is a watershed moment for AWS as they put a region, they announced it, it'll be operational in early 2019, in record time, a lot of build-up going on. It's going to have a major impact for entrepreneurship, society, and overall data. Data is the new oil, this is what's happening. This is theCUBE coverage, I'm John Furrier, your host. Our next guest is Mohammad Altura, who is the chief information technology sector in communications realtor authority at Kuwait. He's the CTO. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for coming on, I really appreciate it. So, tell us about the vision, because you guys have a 20/35 vision around digital transformation. In the United States, we always talk about data is the new oil. This is an oil-driven country that has created a lot of value and also enabled people through that resource. Now digital is the new resource, with connected society. This is the digital transformation. What's your vision? >> Well, thank you very much for hosting me. And thank you for AWS for making this great summit. Really helping people to accomplish their vision and develop economies as well. Well for Kuwait, we are very much excited about putting the technology in the center of our economy. As you know, now technology is being efficient everywhere. As individuals, we cannot live without smartphones. As corporations, we cannot live without a proper IT. And the same thing with economy. You have to deploy IT in your economy. And healthcare and education, ecommerce, public safety, government, so you make it dynamic and efficient. And it's less cost to sustain and open a huge potential of growth using that. And of course in Kuwait, we are thinking of, seriously everyday, to put the technology in the center of economy. And also create entrepreneur segment to sustain this type of economy as well. And that growth will definitely help us, not only in developing those sectors, but also the man power of those sectors that's going to manage this growth. >> So you're the chief in Kuwait for the CITRA, which stands for the Communications and Information Technology Regulatory Authority. So essentially, that's all the action. That's all the infrastructure, that's all the communications. This is the foundation for what the future society is going to be built on. >> Basically, for CITRA, they are a regulator for telecom and IT, and our main bottom line is to deploy those two technologies by regulations in our country, to get down to three things basically. To make people life easier, to develop and protect our economy, and to support innovation. And to do that, there are so many diversified initiatives that we have to take place. Such as entrepreneur programs, such as healthcare everywhere. Making healthcare goes to people as well. Such as education, generation change, and also the entrepreneur segment growth policies. They all come together, and they create the three bottom lines that we're talking about, which is make people life easy, develop and protect economy and support innovation. >> This is the reality now. It's not aspirational, it's actually reality. Also being from, first time in the area for us and theCUBE, we observe on the ground here, the ground troop. Which is a vibrant, robust culture. And some people might not have that. So, take a minute to explain the culture. Because with digital, it's not a radical transformation. It's an extension of the culture. How would you describe what's going on in Kuwait culturally, and what are you enabling and what's the early signals of what is a thing to come? >> There is a very much focus on ICT in terms of culture, because in our culture, worldwide, we have the highest number of smartphone subscribers, and LTE network subscribers. So we do have a digital society, you know, by DNA right now. In the old days, we use to train people and make awareness. Now, we don't have to do that. It's part of our DNA. You see small kids playing around smartphones and doing so many technological things that we never expected. And that actually is extending also to the mid-age, and the senior people. We see that they want to make sure they bridge the gap between the young generation and the old generation. So definitely the culture is there. The infrastructure is there. Our LTE networks today cover the entire geography of Kuwait, including the offshore islands. So, no matter where you go to Kuwait, you'll find the high speed access of the internet. Now we started to do trails on 5G as well. We love trendy technologies. Our entrepreneur program's going to focus on trendy things. Cloud computing, blockchain, artificial intelligence, an internet of things. These are the main drivers for our economy, versus traditional IT. Of course, we still have legacy in country. And we are looking at how we're going to transport that to the trendy technology, that's definitely going to be more efficient, more scalable, and much less cost, and opening a trend of economic development in the country as well. >> This is a reality. And I think you made a point about the LG and 5G. Perfectly preparation. You also made a comment about, you know, training people. I remember the days, like here's the terminal, here's the manual, read the manual, learn some IT server. Mobile has changed all that. So that's the reality changing. The question is, what's next? As entrepreneurs start to have access, and citizens have mobile, you have to really start thinking strategically and tactically around how to provide value to citizens. People in your country. Whether it's, you know, just getting services and communicating to other citizens or with a government. And then entrepreneurs who are creating and building things. >> You touched a very important point. Technology is supposed to make life people easier, because we have some government services that people have to go physically, or have to go online, where they always have to follow up themselves. Now we want to make technology to push things to people. To make it easier for them to interact with government, with healthcare, with commerce. That's very important. To make an easy environment for people, to implement their vision. And also, make it easier for the foreign investments, to come and work in Kuwait market as well. So, definitely technology will play a huge role of making people include and engage with the government. >> What exciting things from our world and the United States, that live in California, Silicon Valley, is you look at the globalization of entrepreneurship, check. The mobile penetration, check. And the innovation is not so much the technology anymore, it's business models. It's how money's being deployed and used. Cost to capital. So I got to ask you, because now software is eating the world, okay? And you have software money, and data is the new oil, data is money. This is a very interesting time. So if software is money, how do you view that? Because now that you have the infrastructure, cryptocurrency, blockchain, these are new opportunities to digitize your supply chain, create a new fintech environment. What's you vision on this? Because this is happening really fast. >> This actually is very important, to make your market efficient. And what I mean by that is you can get things going much easier than the old ways. And definitely we wanted to make sure that everybody is included. I mean, there is no one left behind. Awareness definitely can be done much easier than before. In order for you to innovate, before you had to have a set up of labs, investment. Now, you just go into the cloud, and find your innovative environment, whether you are healthcare, education, biomed, you know, all types of fields. Oil and gas is very important in Kuwait, as it is number one industry still. And it's all going to depend on definitely technology. >> Every sector is being disrupted. >> Yes. >> (laughs) Okay, so talk about your relationship with AWS. Also, you have I think some news. You guys have had release with Amazon. A memorandum of understanding, or MOU, as they call it. Describe the relationship with Amazon that you guys have. I know it's a very productive one. What is it all about? How do you see it unfolding? >> MOU was signed on last September 4th, in Washington, D.C., between CITRA CEO and Teresa, the VP worldwide for public sector in AWS. And it's focusing on mainly three parts. Economic development, entrepreneur development in Kuwait, so that we can develop the ICT economy, and of course, the protection of all this, which is the cyber security. Now, with these three main areas that we're working on, definitely healthcare education are priority, and creating the right policies, as the regulators, to make sure that we all going to match the vision of 2035. As well as the... (coughs) Sorry. The new trends of technology, which is IoT, which is, you know, the robotics, the artificial intelligence. All of these going to really contribute great for the economy and the relationship between us and AWS, and we're very excited, actually, to kick off this. We are now, since we just did it three weeks ago, we are developing an execution plan, Between us and AWS, so that we can progress this MOU as quickly as possible. And we have many stakeholders as well. So we already brought some stakeholders here as a kick off with healthcare education. And definitely on the coming days, we will engage more people from Kuwait. >> Education, certainly great. healthcare, you need that. Citizen interfacing with the government, all good. Obviously Kuwait, oil and gas you mentioned, big, important. IoT and cyber security are now go hand in hand. Super important, this is very important. This is something that you guys see very big part of, instrumenting a lot of the pre-existing operations of the government, and also the facilities. This is a part of your plan? IoT? >> Yup. >> And security. Talk about the role of cyber security in IoT, because IoT is a surface area. You have to protect it. It's hard. >> As we already started the trial of 5G, of course 5G definitely gives you advantage on speed, but 5G without IoT, I don't think it makes a huge difference. So, you know, imagine if you have your healthcare system built on IoT. So you can track the patients, track everybody, real time. Anything goes wrong, you'll see all the components come together, to make the fix for the patients, as much quicker than before. For example, if we talk about some processes in the government that takes some time. With blockchain technology and IoT, it's definitely, you're going to solidify the relationship between all parties. And it becomes real type relationship. And we're very excited because that would actually make, the economy becomes more vibrant. And when it becomes like this, then more money's going to be generated in the GDP. >> Wireless is critical for IoT, you're saying. Especially 5G. 'Cause now you've got a blanket of RF, radio frequency, powering the devices. Great, love it. Question for you, role of data. Data is now the new way to interact, because cloud makes data. You got analytics, you got people who are immobile and moving around, healthcare's tapping in. Real time information is super important. You got the 5G high speed wireless overlay. How do you view the role of data? >> We're working with AWS on a policy called data classification policy and GDPR, which is Data General Regulatory Policy regulation. And that will help us, actually, to make sure the data, whatever class it is, it's in the right place. So, because you know, some people think that if you put your data in public cloud, then you have some issue with privacy. Which is not actually, because now you can classify. If you have a public data, then you have a classification, it's everybody's, can access it. If you have a private data, the cloud can give you a secure place to store it, and make sure no body gets into anybody's privacy. >> Making it addressable is really important. >> Yes. >> And making it real time, low latency. Okay final question for you. I really appreciate your time. I know you got a hard stop. We're here with the chief of the CITRA in Kuwait. A super big time opportunity for you guys with digital and AWS. But I want you to share to the folks watching, that are watching live and on demand. What should they know about what's going on in Kuwait? The culture, the technology, the digital transformation, that they might not know about. Share your perspective of what's happening in Kuwait. >> I would say, I mean, now the clouds awareness is being very much obvious among Kuwait people. And you see a lot of cloud adaption is happening as we speak. I mean, our organization started about four years ago, and we adopted the cloud from day one. Also, you think about the things that we need to do more awareness in Kuwait, I think, is the IoT and AI, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Because these are new trends and people still not fully aware of what good things they can do to our economy. >> Mohammad Altura, thank you for spending the time on your very busy schedule here at this amazing event. Oversold, really crowded. We're looking forward to being in the region with theCUBE. We're looking forward to following up with you on the cool AI, blockchain, and IoT. We love that here, we love talking about it. Thanks for sharing you insights here. >> Thank you very much, thank you. >> I'm John Furrier here at theCUBE. You can reach me on Twitter, @Furrier. Also, online I'm everywhere. Just search my name and if you want to reach out, send me some messages, happy to talk about it. CUBE coverage here, in Bahrain, for theCUBE's new ground we're covering in the Middle East. All the innovations happening here, right around AWS's new regions, here in the Middle East. Stay with us, after this short break. (upbeat music)