(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's continuous coverage of AWS reinvent 2021, I'm Lisa Martin. This is day four for theCUBE. We have two live sets, I'm here with Dave Nicholson, Dave two live sets, 100 guests on theCUBE for AWS Re:Invent 2021. >> Not all at the same time. >> Not all-- That's a good, he brings up a good point, not all at the same time, we are pleased to welcome Gretchen Peri who's going to be sitting down and chatting with Dave with me next. She is from Slalom, at the US State Local and Education, SLED leader. We're going to be talking about Slalom and AWS digital innovation in the public sector. Gretchen, it's a pleasure to have you on the program. >> Thank you for having me. >> For the audience that might not be familiar with Slalom before we dig into AWS and SLED in particular, talk to us about Slalom and what it is that you guys do. >> I'd love to. So Slalom's a modern business and technology consulting firm. We're headquartered in Seattle Washington, we have about 11,000 employees across 40 markets globally. And what's different about Slalom is we're local model firm, so our consultants live and work in the same locale, which means we're personally invested in our client's outcomes because they impact us directly in the communities in which we live. >> And you've been in a leader in SLED for a long time, talk to us about what's going on on SLED these days. Obviously the last 18, 22 months have been quite dynamic, but what's going on in the market? >> Absolutely. What we're seeing is an extra emphasis on data data data, obviously, data is king and data is queen right now, right? So when the pandemic hit, we saw a ton of digital innovation, as our SLED clients needed to get their services online. That had been going on for a long time but it absolutely accelerated when then pandemic it and then it was a public health hazard, to ask people to come into the location. So what we saw was for constituents, we saw just absolute blast of omni-channel service delivery, so we saw the advent of SMS and chat bots and the more tech services, right? Leveraging AWS Lex and Transcribe and other services of AWS really helped our SLED clients react to the pandemic and respond to make sure that their constituents were receiving the digital services they needed, and their employees were able to be productive at home. >> Well, that was one of the keys the employee productivity, the student productivity, when everything's went remote overnight, one of the most challenging things was the demand for collaboration tools. Then of course, there's security challenges, there was concerns there, but talk to us about, and we've seen so much innovation out of AWS in the last, I mean always, but even what they announced the last couple of days, the innovation flywheel of AWS is probably stronger than ever enabling organizations like SLED, FED, private sector, public sector to be data-driven. >> Absolutely. One thing that's really exciting right now is to see the evolution of how our SLED customers are thinking about data. So we've been working on like integrated visions in SLED for a long time, integrated justice, integrated health care, integrated eligibility, how do we bring all this information together so that we can supply the right information to the right people at the right time to deliver the right outcomes? And AWS has been a huge part of that. It's not the journey to get to the cloud, it's the destination once you get there, right? Because then you can leverage all their AIML tools, IOT, edge, container, blockchain. And so our customers, who have already made that switch to AWS, they're able to take advantage of that. It's not what you can do in the cloud anymore is what you can't do without it really, right? So we're seeing tons of advances, intelligent document processing is one area I'm really excited about for our SLED clients, and working very closely with AWS to make sure that we see our clients adopt that and achieve the value out of it. >> AWS is dominating the IT space, although what five to 15% of IT is in the cloud, which means the vast majority is still on premises. So there's a huge potential for growth. In this sort of wild, wild west that we're in, there are all sorts of different kinds of services and consultancy partners, that are seeking to bridge the gap between the technology that AWS delivers and the outcomes that customers desire. >> Right. >> Now I've had a couple of experiences actually with Slalom folks, that were very, very positive. And what I saw was that the Slalom people were embedded in a way that you don't see some other consultancies embedded. You mentioned that something that piqued my interest, you talked about the local nature, is that your superpower? Because it sure seemed to be powerful to see this person where some of these very, very large global companies had no idea who Slalom was, until they realized that Sally was the one who had the best relationship with the customer. So Sally's a fictitious name that I just came up with, but I want to hear a little more about Slalom and your superpower and your differentiation. 'Cause it's a crowded space, you've got global systems integrators, you got all kinds of people. What makes you special? >> It's really the breadth of professional services that we provide, combined with AWS's cloud technologies and services. What we do I think a little bit differently is whereas AWS works back from the customer, we work back from our customer's vision. And so what we do with our, especially with our SLED clients, but with all of our commercial clients, is we say, what is your business strategy and your business vision, and how do we design the technology solutions, working back from that. So you're able to answer the business questions through data-driven tech technology, that's really important to you. And when we look at that, it's not just generating data to create information to then garner insights, but let's go one step further. And how do we create knowledge and how do we create wisdom this space, right? Where we understand situational awareness, common operating pictures, that's really what we want to do. When we talk about criminal justice and public safety, I love how we're thinking about joining data in new and different ways. It's not necessarily applications anymore, right? How do we create data as a service? How do we create documents as a service? Where we're pulling out the exact information that we need from semi-structured, structured and unstructured data and providing it to the right people to make the right decisions. >> Talk to us about intelligent document processing, a lot of buzz going on with that. What is it? Where are public sector agencies in terms of embracing it, adopting it and having it be part of that vision? >> Yeah, the promise is huge for IDP. What IDP is basically is leveraging AWS AI services to create intelligent automation solutions that help extract information from printed documents, digital documents, paper documents, right? So leveraging AWS services like Amazon Textract, Comprehend, Augmented AI, things like, and Kendra. What that does in combination, is it helps our clients unlock the data from, you can imagine government, it's heavy, heavy documents, and in criminal justice and public safety in particular, these documents represent key milestones and processes, right? So we're never going to get rid of documents in SLED, they're going to be used in perpetuity, it's important for accessibility and practicality and everything else. But what this does is it lets us unlock the data from those kind of stale documents and create it into usable formats for so that people can make decisions. >> That's critical because there's, I mean, we talk about in Amazon, AWS been this week have been talking about it and Dave, we have too. Every company, public sector, private sector, it needs to be a data-driven company, but they need to be able to extract that value from the data and the data isn't just digital. And that's something that, to your point, that's going to be persistent within SLED, they have to be able to extract the value from it quickly. >> Yes. >> To be able to see what new products and services can we deliver? What directions should we be going? And what outcomes should we be driving based on that visibility? And that visibility is critical. >> Exactly. And right now we absolutely have to support our communities. And we have a lot of our slide clients who are talking about this is a time where we don't just respond in a way that helps people kind of navigate this pandemic, we have to build resiliency as well in our communities and we do that through helping people through these hard times and making sure that we're moving our services to places where people can access them, in any language from wherever they are, right? We're having to actually go into people's homes on their couches, to deliver government services. Where we used to bring them into a single location. >> Right. >> Typically public sector has often been seen as lagging behind the private sector in some ways, the pandemic, as I'm sure ignited a fire with, especially with federal acknowledgement of things that need to happen, budgets flowing, are you seeing even more of an awakening from a cloud perspective within public sector? >> We are, we are and we're seeing really interesting initiatives pop up like, behavioral health initiatives, that are meant to address some really serious concerns in our country like nationwide 988 suicide prevention projects, right? And the federal government is providing a lot of funding to states and local governments so that they can help take care of our communities and also make sure that we're moving our services online so everyone can access them. >> I'm curious about that point, the funding. >> Yeah. >> Do you find yourself almost in the position of prize patrol? Where were some of the state local governments aren't necessarily as aware as Slalom might be of programs that are coming down immediately. Is that part of the conversation? >> It is part of the conv-- That's a great point because what we do is we look at what's coming down from the federal government, how is it going to flow to the states? How is it going to land ultimately, and then helping governments come up with a strategy for how to spend that money in the right way is really important, right? And we saw with some of the funding that come out, that there were delays on getting like eviction prevention funding out to folks. And so making sure that we have the technology to support those outcomes. >> It's all about outcomes. >> Yes. >> Speaking of outcomes, something I want to congratulate Slalom on is winning the first ever National Essay Partner of the Year for the US. >> Yes. >> Nice. >> That's awesome, congratulations. >> What does that mean for Slalom and what direction can we expect the Slalom and AWS partnership to go? >> Up and up. >> To the right? >> Yes. For us it's about validating the relationship that we have, right? It's really, when we walk into a client conversation, what we want to do is develop trust that our clients know we're looking for their best interest and their best outcomes. We're not trying to sell them something we're trying to solve their problems together. And it validates that for us, our partnership with AWS obviously is so important. And what we're doing in terms of making sure that we have a strong bench full of certifications and we can go to market together in the right way for our clients. This is a huge award and the recognition is very powerful for us. >> Well, congratulations. And so last question, you mentioned AWS and we always talk about when we talk with them at their event, we talk about their customer obsession, right? They work backwards, as you said, from the customer. And you guys from customer vision. Talk to me about when you go in jointly together, work with the customer, what does that alignment look like? >> Absolutely. So what we typically do is, Slalom will focus on what is the business outcome that we want to generate? And we will help design, how are we going to go about solving that problem? And how is AWS going to help support us with enabling technology? And so we will go into client conversations together, say, what is the outcome we want from this initiative together? And how are both partners going to get aligned to support the client in that conversation, in that product. >> That alignment is (indistinct). Gretchen, thank you for joining Dave and me today, talking about Slalom, what you guys are doing, how you're really helping organizations in SLED transform and not just survive challenging time but really thrive and be data-driven. We appreciate your insights and congratulations again on the National Essay Partner of The Year. >> Thank you so much. >> All right. For Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE, the global leader in live tech coverage. (lively music)

>>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.

(upbeat music) >> Hello and welcome to today's session of the 2021 AWS Global Public Sector Partner Awards Program. This session's award is going to be profiling the Most Customer Obsessed Mission-based Win in the education domain. I'm your host, Donald Klein, with theCUBE. And today we are joined by Fernando Castillo. He's the Business Development Manager at CloudHesive, and then also Luis Muñoz, who's the Information Director at the Unibersidad de Los Lagos. >> Okay, everyone. Welcome to today's session. All right. Fernando, thanks for taking some time out and joining us today. Wanted to start with you and wanted to hear a little bit of background about CloudHesive. Obviously, you're a company that had won an award last year, but you're back on this year, again. Want you give us some a little bit of the story of CloudHesive, and what kind of services you provide? (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Thank you very much, Donald. Yes, CloudHesive is a managed consulting service provider in the cloud. We are AWS Partner and since 2014 we have been providing solutions focusing on security, trustability, and scalability in the cloud. Accompany companies to their main objective, which is reducing operational costs and increasing their productivity as they move forward in the adaption of cloud services. >> Very good. Okay. And then Luis, I'm going to turn to you now, want you talk to us a little bit about your role there at the Unibersidad de Los Lagos, and how you started this project? (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Good afternoon. I belong to the academic department of the engineering department at the University of Los Lagos and the director of the IT of this school. For several years, for about five years, we've been analyzing the deployment of these automation at universities of Chile. Since it's not a common item in the country, we've done several benchmarking worldwide, especially in Spain, Mexico, Columbia, and places where it's more developed. And eventually, we have to take some demos that allowed us to make some decisions. This topic was not going to be considered in 2020, but it happened because of a political situation, social political in Chile in 2019. So we have to move forward the process, but we had already made a global analysis and this was one of the reasons why we have to get closer to AWS Partners and this allowed us to move this process forward within the university. >> Okay. Very good. All right. Well then, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to come back to you, Fernando, and I want you to talk a little bit about the overall goal of what you were trying to help the university with. (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Well, within the main objectives we had in the project was to have a platform that would support a concurrent load of thousands of students, especially in University of Los Lagos. They had requested to have around 15,000 students and the main complication or the main challenge was to keep a virtual attendance, which is now known as learning management system, but also having the possibility of having video classes in two days, something similar to what we are doing today, but with 50 or up to 100 students. This was one of the main objectives of the project. >> Okay, understood. So the goal is here to deploy this platform and open source platform and make it available for about 15,000 students. Okay. Now coming back to you, Luis, there was a time constraint here, correct? You needed to get the system going very quickly. Maybe you could explain why you needed to accelerate this program so quickly. (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Well, literally, the pandemic conditions in the country started to be more evident and more severe since the first week of March in 2020. And so we have to make the decision, the double-sided decision of choosing an infrastructure that we could not buy at that time, given the emergency, logistic emergency of the pandemic at the server's room and to keep a stable platform for that number of users, student and professors of university. So we started conversations to make this scale up and move everything to the cloud. This was the first decision. So we decided to use Amazon and with CloudHesive, we were able to organize the academics charter in the same platform. So as to move no longer than three weeks so that we could give classes, online classes with the students while we were learning this new normal, which was virtual distance education. This was very difficult of every morning, afternoon, and evening of work, but this allowed us not to fall behind in the first semester of the educational needs of the students. With this modality, we have around 5% more students that we used to last year in 2020, in March 2020. And this allowed us to have a more visible structure for those who were questioning this new modality and we were applied to take this new modality in the end. >> Okay. So because of the pandemic, you had to accelerate the deployment of this learning management system very quickly. And you had to learn how to manage the system at the same time that you were deploying it. Okay. Understood. So a lot of challenges there. All right. So then maybe coming back to you, Fernando. Wanted you talk about your role and how CloudHesive helped with this sort of this very rapid deployment of this LMS system. (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Well, talking about the challenges and how we were able to get to the objective, within the plan, deployment and development have to accompany the University of Los Lagos not only with the use of the platform, but also how to change management. One of the biggest challenges was to do a security audit, the deployment of scalable infrastructures. And one of the main topics was, one of the main challenges for CloudHesive that we can now talk about and obtained objective was to do the tests from the point of view of scalability and security getting into 15,000 students, concurrent students, stimulating the workload of the university, keeping 99.5 availability of the platform. Going back to the challenges, it's not only the scalability and stability. Nowadays, the University of Los Lagos platform can continue to grow, as Luis mentioned, without the need to look for new resources. But with our implementation, deployment and development, we already have a scalable resource as they increase the number of professors and students to their university. >> Okay. Understood, understood. Now, maybe talk a little bit just to continue with that point. Maybe talk for a minute about how you leverage the AWS platform in order to be able to accelerate this project. What aspects of your partnership with AWS enabled you to deploy the system so quickly? (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Well, talking about that, we based on a referential architecture of AWS, which is an open source middle platform, and within these competencies and within things, they belong to the education. We also have the problems, the presence of (indistinct), which allows us to deploy new solution and new integrations. So this allowed us as the team to, within weeks, to develop new features that would allow us to deal with each of the requirements of the universities, specifically. So within the first week, the University of Los Lagos had the connectivity with the academic sector. On the second week, they had the infrastructure to support out two-way videos. And on the third week, they already had the platform completely deployed with all the security safeguards that we already have in all of our products and services. So having worked hand-in-hand with AWS allowed us to have success in time with this platform. >> Wow. So that's fantastic. You were able to deploy this entire system from the connection with the academics to the video infrastructure to actually getting all the security implementations in place. You were able to do that in a three week cycle, is that correct? >> Yeah, that's correct. >> Fantastic. Okay. So Luis, coming back to you then, so working with CloudHesive as a partner to help deploy the platform on AWS gave you fantastic speed and agility to get the system working. Maybe talk a little bit now about the challenges of getting students and educators to adapt the system, and what kind of successes you had? (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: First of all, they have to, we need to need to know the geography, the landscape of the university. The geography is very varied. We have mountains and lakes and so forth, and connectivity concepts are very difficult in this area. In addition, University of Los Lagos has the characteristic of receiving students from very poor sectors within the region. So this means that more than 80% have a free education, as there are few universities that exist in the country. So one of the technological challenges was for these students to receive the mechanisms and technology to have the connectivity they needed. After that, we had a very big training plan with the deployment company, CloudHesive, with the permissions, and eventually together, we were able to go beyond students and professors. And I remember we had 50% students and professors logged in to the platform, and nowadays, we have 100% students and professors logged in having classes in the platform. But most importantly, nowadays, we have an analytical control because of an integration with CloudHesive, with certain tools that allow us to gather data in real time. And we can do a follow-up of the student that is closer actually from the previous situation when we didn't have this technology. If the student is not logged in, we can reach them directly or indirectly to know, what is happening with his meeting, which is the kind of support, academic, social or economic support that they need. Before, it was harder to get this. So we have a communion between technology and social services that we can provide as a university. And of course, the adaptability of CloudHesive in as much as most of the requirements that we needed. So as to have a good response, they've been very providing, they provided a very robust service in this terms. >> Fantastic. So you were able to reach 100% percent of your target audience very quickly. Is that correct? Great. >> Yes. >> And maybe just to kind of follow up one more. Just talk a little bit about the future of your program. Now that you've worked so hard to establish the system and to connect your students and your teachers and to optimize the system, what is your plan to use it going forward? Are you looking to expand it? What would you say are your goals? (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: First of all, for better or for worse, this modality came here to stay. The pandemic may end, but it generated opportunities that nationwide, it moved forward at least seven or eight times faster, these kinds of possibilities. So it's hard to use or waste this opportunity with the face-to-face classes. The university nowadays, thanks to the platform and the work done by CloudHesive and AWS, the university won ministry projects from the Ministry of Education in the country, have a strengthening plans for other kinds of services that were not incorporated before, like the idea of virtual library, research work, academic development work, of training and cultural transformation as well. But eventually, they are happening in this virtually environments. And the university won this possibility through the ministry, bridging the gap between the academic sector and the students. And in order to elaborate a little bit more from the previous question, we did a survey last year and ended not long ago. And most professors said that 80%, more than 80% said that the virtual environment was considered as good or very good. So we have a very good assessment in order to participate in this project that were won by the university and they are nowadays being applied. So this generates development in the academic sector, in research, in library, in content creation, global communication, working together with other universities with work postgraduate courses and other universities without the need of getting out of home. So this is a very competitive advantage that we didn't have before. And since 2020, we were able to develop. >> Fantastic. Well, congratulations on a really well put together program. And I'm excited to hear that you've won an award in your country and that you're planning to expand the system more broadly. I think that's a fantastic success story. So maybe just to wrap this up here with you Fernando, why don't you talk a little bit about, so obviously, you guys were very critical in helping this system be deployed very quickly, but very securely at the same time. How do you see your role going forward in enabling these types of situations, this distance learning type formats? (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Well, just as Luis said, taking this project with the University of Los Lagos, this showed the importance of looking at technological advances and to improve the universities and research centers and how to focus on innovation and bringing the future education down. For us, the data generated in this virtual interactions are very valuable and having a clear perspective, so as to organize this data for, to make more effective decisions that allow us to act in real time. This is what we are focusing on right now. So as to keep, I mean, prove, and being able to provide new tools, the research centers and universities to operate quickly, safely, and cost effectively. >> Okay, fantastic. So really, the real lesson learned here is by working with a partner like yourself, you were able take an open source learning management system and then deploy it very quickly, manage it, and then secure it in a way that allowed the university then to do their work. So I think that's a really great end-to-end delivery story. So I think, maybe if you want to make one last comment, Fernando, about your role in any kind of future expansion for this type of work. (speaking in foreign language) >> Translator: Yes, of course. I would like to thank Amazon and University of Los Lagos, of course for giving us the chance to work together and develop this project successfully. And answering your question, I would like to say that this is a good incentive to build more robust solutions, as long as we have our focus on our clients, when working and as a final comment, I would just would like to thank you and hope to see you again with a new project. >> Okay, well, congratulations to you both on winning this award. And for CloudHesive, this is your second year in a row of winning a Public Sector Award. So with that, I'm going to sign off today and I'm going to thank you both for attending. Today, we've had Fernando Castillo, the Business Development Manager from CloudHesive and then Luis Muñoz, the Information Director at the Uniberisdad de Los Lagos, and thank you both for attending. This is Donald Klein for theCUBE, until next time. (bright music)

(upbeat music) >> Voiceover: Live from the Javits Center in New York City It's theCube covering Inforum 2017 Brought to you by Infor. >> Welcome back to theCube's coverage of Inforum. I'm your host Rebecca Knight along with my cohost Dave Vellante. We're joined by Martine Cadet. She is the Infor Vice President and head of the Education Alliance Program. Thanks so much for joining us. >> Martine: Thank you for having me. >> So let's start out by talking about what the Education Alliance Program is and how it came about, it's not very old. >> No, it's not old. Actually, we'll be three years in September. The Education Alliance Program came about, oh gosh, it was an idea that Charles Phillips, our CEO had a while back, he was looking about, how do we actually get more talents within Infor. How do we get people to even know, quite frankly, who Infor is, and drive some more market awareness. How do we make sure people are excited about our products and solutions long term, right. So, the future customers, the future partners, hopefully the future employees as well. So, through that what we started to do was, he created this position and luckily I was hired into the role. And we've built this program where we partner with colleges, universities, as well as nonprofit organizations. We invest in them to invest in their students. So, essentially the same products and solutions and technologies that our customers here are basically learning about and paying for, we train students on. So, through their professors they learn hands on immersive technologies that businesses run on each and every single day and then hopefully they'll get excited and they'll want to come to work for Infor, one of our customers or one of our partners. And actually, they can actually, probably work for any IT company or any company in general because ERP is so pervasive. >> So, have you seen, you said this started a few years ago. >> Martine: Yes. >> Are you seeing results yes? >> Yes, we are starting to see results. We are actually really, really excited. So, we've hired I believe 24 students at Infor. Our partners are starting to hire students as well. In fact, we had somebody hire one of the graduates just last week and we had our first talent fair on Sunday, which was exceedingly well attended, so there's been a ton of excitement. We have, I believe there are about 12 partners who are in our formal Partner In Education Program where we actually bring the partners in, they engage in the classroom and the training and have hands on experiences with the students themselves. And the students get to shadow them in real life situations. So, things like consulting, which are pretty hard. I mean in IT part of what we are challenged with is SAP and Oracle and Infor, we all seem to hire from the same talent pool and the folks basically go from company to company to company. >> Hundred people, 99 seats. >> Yes, thank you. And what you see is customers want somebody who's got 20 years of deep industry expertise and so we get it. But you need an opportunity to actually start building that industry expertise so what we've been doing is actually creating that pathway for the students to be able to do that and our partners and our customers are actually much more open to that then they were before. So, we're starting to see that pipeline truly grow. By the September of this year, I believe we'll have close to a hundred students who've taken our first series of implementation consulting courses at QNE, which we launched this winter. So, that's one of the biggest things that we've done. As well as we've got our Center of Excellence that we've also opened up at City University of New York. So, we've got a practical experience course, we've got students who are also going very deep around analytics and just kind of building from there. And I think the last time we had spoken last year, I think we had about 16 or less institutions. We've grown to 33 institutions worldwide. We have eight, I believe in Amia, seven in the APAC area and they represent over 400 colleges and universities. So, it's been, it's been really exciting. >> So Martine, can you frame the parameters of the type of candidates that you are recruiting? How do you find them, what are the requirements? >> It's a combination. So, it can be anywhere from a business student who's actually possibly thinking of being in finance who hasn't even thought about a career in IT or technology. But those are the ones with a business mindset that we actually want to get interested because they will make amazing consultants over time. To somebody who's transitioning from roles, right, so maybe they've worked for a couple years in an industry and they've decided, you know, "I really don't want to do the marketing piece," or, "I'm burnt out on the finance piece "and I want to do something different." We have them in our continuing education courses as well. And they bring a very different view to that course. Because they're now learning those practical skills for being either a consultant or a sales person or or whatever they've actually decided to go about and do. And our employers actually get way excited about them as well because they are able to think not just as a technologist or not just as a business person, but within that kind of gray area which is where the industry is going, you have to know a little of all of it in order to be supremely effective. Especially on this consulting side. >> So, big theme, AI at the show, the hard question, median income in 1999 United States was $55,000 dollars, it's now around $50,000 dollars. Man versus machine, right. Now humans have always been replaced by machines, but it's the first time, really in history, that it's cognitive functions that are being replaced. Thoughts, I mean many people believe, I think they're correct, that education is the answer to that gap. Education, creativity, the combinations of those things are what will help solve that problem. Your thoughts on just that topic in general and what role education plays. >> I think what we're doing around AI is so exciting and it's just amazing to work at a company, one, that has named AI Coleman after the women who were in Hidden Figures, but from an education perspective I think you're spot on. I think the only way that we can actually continue to compete as a nation is if we make sure that we fix the education problem and I'm really excited to work for an organization where we're taking a very active role in doing that. So, by changing the model of having people just sit in a classroom learning something where there's really no context for how it's being used in business and it's more about what's being taught today for the roles that are today. What we're trying to do is imbed this kind of thought, leadership into the classroom, open the students' perspectives on what's possible and get them ready to be thoughtful about, okay, how do we embrace technology? How do you think it differently? How do you become agile? Because a lot of the jobs that are here today weren't here when I graduated, right so, how do we change the idea of what we go to school for and what we get educated on that we are actually producing people who are able to be thoughtful and to merge and to find different ways to use technology to come up with different pathways that have not been thought about before. We've never thought that way, right? >> And to evolve as the jobs change. So, we're preparing people for jobs that don't exist yet and they need to versatile in their own approach to how-- >> And excited about it, right? Not be fearful. >> And not fearful. >> Exactly, not be fearful, yeah. >> Well I wanted to congratulate you too because you were recently honored by Network Journal as one of the 25 most influential black women in business. Congratulations! >> Thank you. >> What does that mean to you especially when you think about young black women coming up in business, in technology, and in other industries, at a time where, there's questions about really how much opportunity... >> It's surreal, it was exceedingly humbling. It's on the backs of an amazing team. Who has done a lot of work, I've got some really great people behind me that I push really hard and I am very grateful for. I also have an exceedingly strong family. Who, when I was getting the award I made the comment that I don't feel like I've achieved anything that my parents have achieved, my parents are physicians. They came from Haiti, they came to the U.S. to give us better opportunities and they've done that. And that's what drives me, and in terms of people of color, we've got such a long way to go, but we've come so far. And I just wish that when you look at the history of the U.S. and the world, slavery was not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, and every time the U.S. takes two steps forward, sometimes you take a step back and it might feel like we're taking a step back right now, but if you stay focused on moving forward we will get there. And we will get further because doors are opening and people are doing amazing things and we need to do, I think, a better job when we are in positions where we are more visible in making sure we open doors for other people and not being apologetic about doing so. Because I think there's coded language sometimes that you hear about on, "Well, I can't have a diverse pipeline," "Oh, that means I'm lowering standards," that's bull, quite frankly. There are plenty of people looking for opportunities perhaps they don't fit the profiles that have always put in place, but when we talk about technology and careers the one thing we've talked about and we know is things are ever evolving and changing, and there is no one set profile or standard. So you might find that this kid who's actually been out there doing very different things in the community and just showing themselves as a leadership person in that community is the person that you need in your org. But because we're not having sometimes those conversations across our very safe ponds and we kind of stay with the same people a lot of times, it makes it hard to make those connections. But if we just start talking to each other a little bit more and the ones of us who are actually in these roles be unapologetic about making sure we're having those conversations and opening up doors, I think things will continue to move forward. >> So, what is your advice to companies in technology and in other industries about getting those people, who as you say, do not quite fit the profile, the standard profile of what they think they're looking for but that do add new perspectives and new ideas and new insights into companies. I mean, what would your advice be to employers? Do they need to start an Education Alliance Program? Is that the beginning? >> That can be part of it, but they just, they need to stop being corporate and stop being political. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. Change is hard, and you can do all of the right things, but if a hiring manager is still going to hire everybody who looks just like them then it's not going to change. And I don't think people do it all the time thoughtfully. It just kind of happens. You have to make the change, it has to come from the top. It also has to come from within the ranks. You have to have the tough conversations. It has to be an embedded part of what companies say they actually value and then they actually have to back it up. 'Cause lot of times people talk about it, but it doesn't come with the, "Okay, well I'm going to give you the approvals." Or, "I'm going to mandate that, yes, "when you have 20 open positions "that you actually have a diverse pipeline." Not a, "I'm going to set aside X number of seats "for one type of person," but you should at least interview a diverse pipeline. Perhaps you'll be surprised in what you see come out. We don't thoughtfully, in general, do that, and I think that's one of the key areas companies can be thoughtful about, and then the other thing is actually looking for talent outside of the same five schools or the same five places that people go to. It's getting out of your comfort zone. >> Can we tell the story, just to get it on record, of Coleman and how it was named, how it was announced this morning? Because not everybody in our audience was watching. >> Okay, so I hope I do it justice. (laughs) I was one of the people in the audience, but essentially for the folks who hopefully have seen Hidden Figures the movie, and it was about the women who were monumental, fundamental, the reason why we were able to make it to the moon. So, when we were having issues and we weren't sure if we had all our calculations in place and they were really thinking, okay, can we do this? Are we going to not be the first ones to get there? Our astronaut said, "Okay, I need this woman. "I need Miss Coleman to actually check these calculations. "If she says these are right, then we're good. "If not, I'm not going." >> Goosebumps, Martine. >> Right? That was amazing, that was amazing. And our CEO had the foresight, the idea, and the chutzpah I should say, (laughs) to decide, okay, when we're thinking about AI and we're thinking about visionaries, we're thinking about what we need to quantum leap what's happening in technology, we're thinking about having that level of insight and intelligence, that is who he wanted to name the product after, and I was telling my team, you know, I was tearing up, like, I'm so proud to work in an organization where our CEO would stand up unapologetically and say, this is how I'm going to name my product and this will be, you know, go down for quite some time. And the family was there which was so cool. And we had a standing applause, the first standing applause in the room. So it was amazing. >> Well it's not often you get a standing ovation at a tech conference. >> At a product announcement. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> So I want to also just quickly talk about, piggy back off of this, and that is the culture of Infor. And you know, the things that we keep hearing about. It's a culture of learning, a culture of education, a culture that really starts at the top of bringing in different perspectives and also understanding the importance of, yes, of naming a new product after this black woman who toiled in obscurity and really was a hero of getting us to the moon, how do you create that culture? I mean and how to do you kind of keep it going? >> I think it comes down to leadership. I think it comes down to people you hire. It has to be every level of the organization. I think Charles does set the tone by doing things like this as well as other things like having an Education Alliance Program, quite frankly. And the way our program is scheduled we don't look just to the Harvards or the Princetons. We're looking to partner with community colleges that have amazing talent that possibly did not have the same access, but they still have the same possibility. So I think doing all of that is how you create the culture. Then making sure it is embedded in the people that you continue to bring into the organization and giving them the time and the freedom to have these sorts of conversations and embed it into the work that they do. So we've got creative people, like Hook and Loop, that in itself, so cool. How many IT companies said, oh, you know what, I'm going to bring over some artists, I'm going to bring over some film producers, that's the kind of thinking that gets you to diversity. >> Great, Martine thanks so much. It's been a pleasure having you on the show. >> Thank you so much. Thank you guys so much for the time, I appreciate it. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante, we will have more from Inforum after this. (upbeat music)