(upbeat electronic music) >> Live from Bahrain. It's theCUBE. Covering AWS summit Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> And welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage here in Bahrain for the exclusive coverage of the AWS's summit and their announcement and their execution of a new region which should be online here in early 2019. I'm John Furrier, your host with SiliconANGLE Media theCUBE, extracting the signal from the noise, meeting all the people. First time the Middle East and the region should be a big impact, having a digital footprint as size of Amazon Web Services, bringing energy and entrepreneurship and innovation and economic revitalization and enablement. We'd love the coverage, we meet a lot of great people. Our next guest is Simon Martin who's the ambassador of the British embassy here in Bahrain. Simon, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thanks. >> Thanks for joining us. >> My pleasure. >> So, OK, so I want, I want to just kind of get your perspective. I met the US ambassador yesterday the last night at dinner. He's kind of new to the area and the job. >> But he's already, >> You've got experience, >> But he's already well informed, I can tell you (laughs). >> He's well informed (laughs). Birth by fire, thrown in the deep end. You've been here for a few years. >> Yeah, three. >> Take a minute to talk about the environment here, because we're first time here. We're learning or observing. I'm certainly surprised. My daughter was asking me: What are the women like there? We had a women's breakfast yesterday. 70 plus people. The energy, the diversity, interesting culture. Feels like very open, what's your thoughts. >> Well, very much so, I mean, Bahrain has been at the sort of crossroads of international travel for hundreds and hundreds of years. The UK's relationship with Bahrain, the formal one, goes back just over 200. And that was all to do with trade. Manama means the place of sleep. And it was the place that people used to stop to rest on their way across the Arabian subcontinent and towards the Indian subcontinent, and so on. So, it's a place which is naturally welcoming of foreigners and outside ideas. And I think that's what Amazon have found here. So, there is an often lot of change going on in this part of the world. Bahrain is relatively small economy compared to its neighbors. It was the place that oil was first discovered in the Gulf, but, actually, once they discovered it, they realized that she had rather less than most of the neighbors and, therefore, it's an economy which has had to adapt to keep, keep growing. In contrast, >> Mainly, mainly the dependence on oil, other oil-rich areas. >> Yeah. >> Right, is that it? >> Yeah. So, that's been the main stay of the economy for some time, but there is not the, there is not yet the potential for the growth that's needed in order to help develop an economy with its, with the necessary modern infrastructure. A growing population, a need for, for quality employment for young people which is something that we've heard a lot of in the last few years. >> Talk about your history, how long have you been in the job you're in, what's the background, what are some of the things that you've done >> OK >> at the government in the UK. >> Yeah, well, Thank you, so I've been here for three years. Before that, I was working, actually, for His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. And in that role, visited this part of the world on a couple of occasions, and so, and so the impact of that very important part of our relationship, royal family's relationship with the royal families in this part of the Gulf, and it just opened my eyes a bit to the, to the importance of having multifaceted relationships. And, again, this is what we're now, this is what we are now seeing here, that Amazon Web Services with the cloud region that they are building here have brought a new dimension, >> (laughs) The fly got... >> Not surprised, to the Bahraini economy. >> So, tell me about the multifaceted piece of news. What I'm fascinated by is the Dubai dynamic, right. You know, I see Dubai, a lot of events there, Blockchain events, AI events, a lot of tech events. Feels like New York to me, using the American metaphor. It's kind of like a Silicon Valery kind of vibe. But they all work, been working together for years. What's the historical relationships, how have they changed, and how does cloud computing make up for that? How does that play into it? >> Well, of course there've been, it's been a very collaborative and yet competitive relationship between the different, particularly the finance centers of the Gulf for many years. The economic success story of Dubai is very well known. Bahrain has continued to develop, but without the resources that underpin the UAE success, has done so on a more, more progressive way. But this is always be, going to be a much smaller economy and Bahrain has to, has to compete in niches in which it has the competitive advantage. And it's this, what we have now happening here, is creating a wonderful new niche opportunity for Bahrain. But, of course, I don't think am letting out any secrets to say that each of the countries in the Gulf would love to have been hosting the new cloud region. >> Yeah. >> So Bahrain had try incredibly hard to present an environment in which to host this kind of, this kind of investment which requires regulation. It requires openness and ease of doing business and it also requires an openness to developing the labor force to support not only the Amazon, but all of the train of companies that we're expecting to invest along behind it. >> Well, Simon, I really appreciate your experience and candor here on theCUBE. Certainly, for us it's a new area and you have certainly a perspective for, for the Royal Family in the UK, and now being here. But one of the interesting things I'd like to get your perspective on is, you know, you look at globalization and you look at regulations, you look at digital, things like GDPR, you see all traditional things, you mean, you can go back when I was a young kid growing up, I remember the pound and the French franc and all the different currencies going on, and then EU comes together. And now you have Asia and cryptocurrency. So you have a whole another cloud computing generation coming where that might reimagine the political landscape, might imagine the economic relationships. These are opportunities, but also threats. And so how people handle it is interesting. So, how do you, when you look at that kind of dynamic, you got a little bit uncertainty and opportunity at the same time, depending how you look at it, it's the glass half full or the glass half empty. >> Exactly. >> How should executives and government officials start thinking about this new model, this new marketplace. London is certainly the center of the action and connects now into Bahrain, could be a different dynamic, frictionless, digital. >> Mhmm. >> People living across borders. These are new dynamics. What's your thoughts on this new melting pot of digital impact? >> Well, of course, everybody wants a piece of it, everybody wants to be at the center of a new melting pot. And for Bahrain, they're looking to be the of it within, within this region, but of course, the Dubai Finance Center and, you know, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, and so on are also, are also very keen, and no one, no one is expecting to be the dominant player. And certainly from Bahrain's perspective, it's very much about creating the environment in which companies will see, this is a good place to start. The Gulf region is a coherent region with an incipient single market, and so on, within the GCC, and so, naturally, investors from the outside are going to look at one place to start. And so what Bahrain has done, and I think it's, it's been very well founded, it's just taken place over the three years that I've been here, it's to dramatically increase the ease of doing business, and then find proportionate ways in which the government can support new companies to get them established. So, you mentioned GDPR and, you know, how's this going to affect a company in the Gulf. Well, I was at the launch of a very interesting new big data software project by one of the, in fact British owned new startups in the FinTech Bay here which is supported by the Economic Development Board. They're starting point is that the product that we are selling out of Bahrain is GDPR compliant, which gives you an idea of the way, >> Yeah. >> in which even from, from this relatively small island in the Gulf, >> Yeah. >> the global perspective has been taken. >> And certainly with, you know, digital currency, the Know Your Customer Anti Money Laundering is the big thing too, you got to get that right. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So, they have an opportunity with FinTech. Final question for you, as you look out and see the human capital market and the future of work. >> Yeah. >> It's a big conversation we're always having and certainly I live in Silicon Valley where everyone's, no secret that there's a migration out of Silicon Valley due to the prices of living there, but yet concentration of entrepreneurship. People are going to have engineering teams all over the world. so you have a disperse workforce now crossing borders and not just the domicile issue, that's one, you know, taxes, where to domicile, outside say the US or other countries. So, you have a combination of diverse workforces. >> Mhmm. >> This is big, this is a big opportunity too, challenge and opportunity. >> It is, it is. And, of course, there are not just big changes, now, there's constant fluctuation in the way the workforce and the populations in this part of the world and within the gulf are changing. Look at Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia, the big increase in the Saudi workforce, both through the policy of Saudization and through the creation of many more opportunities for women in the workforce. That's affecting Bahrain. But Bahrain has always been a place where people come to work and sometimes to work remotely, sometimes to live here and work across in Saudi Arabia. So, the Bahrainis feel that they are very, very attuned to these challenges. But I might just mention as well that this is not just about economics. And what impresses me about the reform program you see going on here is that, the idea is that we will create a broader and wider spread opportunity, particularly through the opportunities for young professionals working in AWS, but also in the environment all the way around it, for all communities in Bahrain, not just the wealthy, not just the sort of Ivy league equivalent graduates. >> Yeah. >> And so that's why the academy that they're setting up here can, >> And then network does emerge in social networking is going to bring people closer together. >> Yeah. >> OK, great to have you on. Final question is, as people look at this moment in time, maybe an inflection point, shot heard around the Gulf, if you will, of Amazon, certainly they did this with CIA in our country, the said success is coming in, and kind of changing how things do, reimagining value creation and value capture. What do you see as the impact of the, a diverse region have been in this area and the geography? Just your thoughts on what the impact's going to be. >> Well, of course, this is a virtual world and a cloud region is the virtual concept, so it's easy to say, well it shouldn't take an Amazon Web Services cloud region to transform the way in which governments work here. In practice, what AWS have seen wherever they have established cloud regions, it's a magnet for other businesses to develop around it, and it provides the reassurance that governments need to take that step forward. I don't know whether you heard Max Peterson and his presentation this morning saying he was amazed at the speed with which the entire Bahraini government system has embraced the move to the cloud which, indeed, my own government is doing as we speak. And this, I think, is going to be one of the really big, the really big impacts which will allow governments to get smaller and more efficient and more transparent >> And serve their citizens in a different way, in a better way. >> But one last thing, John. Because, you may not have heard about this is, we're hearing a lot about the shift towards renewable energy in this part of the world, and people say, why on earth would we need renewable energy which is, you know, so much of the world's petrol carbon resources are based here, but, of course, if you don't burn them, you can sell them. And that's very simple economics. The fact is that it has taken longer than other parts of the world for the transition to renewable energy, even though we have so much sunshine and at times quite a lot of wind. The government here just put out a tender for a 100 megawatt solar farm. And the driving force behind that is because AWS have said: we want to power our cloud region from renewable energy. And this is an example of industry and the big investors actually applying a positive force to speed up the direction of the government policy already. And it's something that has been well. >> It's happened fast, this private partnership public relationship, that's a success story. >> And I think there are lots of other ways we will see this happening, as I say, you can't have over 2000 people here all focusing on the cloud technology without bringing an awful lot of extra attention to and focus on what else is going on in Bahrain. >> Yeah. >> From my perspective, the Bahrain government is saying we welcome, we welcome this, this publicity, and we look forward to explaining ourselves. And I think we'll see a lot of further development in this area. >> Simon that's a great point. Sustainable energy and the trade-off between industry, private industry trying to make money, but contributing technology and a co-creation with the government. >> Yeah. >> I mean, data center, it's hot here, you need cooling, you got sun power, you see, you got to have that solution. >> Absolutely, yeah. >> You can't burn it, you can sell it, so good opportunity. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Simon Martin, ambassador, the British ambassador to the embassy here in Bahrain. Thank yo for sharing your insights and color commentary. >> Pleasure to meet you, John. >> Appreciate it. Okay, live coverage here. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE bringing you all the new observations. Our first time in the Middle East region well coherent structure, great economics, great society benefits, cloud computing, Amazon Web Services region opening up in 2019. Exclusive coverage. Stay with us fore more after this short break. (upbeat electronic music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's the Cube. Covering ServiceNow Knowledge 2018. Brought to you by ServiceNow. >> Welcome back, everyone, to the Cube's live coverage of ServiceNow Knowledge '18. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight along with my co-host Dave Vellante. We're joined by Nick White. He is a principal at Deloitte Australia. Thanks so much for coming on the Cube, Nick. >> Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. >> So we've been having great conversations before the cameras were rolling, but tell us a little bit about D.Assist, which is a new technology you're unveiling at this conference. >> Yeah, so it's a solution that we've built, which is essentially a voice-enabled solution to allow patients and nurses to communicate. Essentially we're targeting identifying critical patient needs, critical patient requests, and getting help to them as fast as possible. >> Okay, so tell us a little bit more about the technology behind it. >> Yeah, sure. Well, let me go back and tell you about where it came from. One of my colleagues was in hospital with his father who unfortunately passed away while he was in hospital. And through that experience, he was observing what was going on in the hospital and afterwards he and I sat down and started to go through it and understand where were the challenges that the hospital had in that ward experience and the recovery. And we identified that if you look back at the history of the call bell, it hasn't changed in about 150 years. Florence Nightingale came up with the idea of a bell for patients, but that was in a ward environment where you had 30 or 40 beds in a room and you could look across the room and you could see that patient, okay, I can see what they need. Either I rush to their aid, or I can get to them in a minute. Hospitals today, we've gone and put walls up, curtains, and you've lost that visual cue. But all we've done to support the nurses is we've made that bell electronic. And we put a light above the door. So we looked at that system and we saw at all of the different points where you could have a failure along there, that essentially then would compromise patient care at no fault of the nurses whatsoever, and we thought, how can we better support the nurses to give that care that they work so hard to give? And we came up with the idea of having a voice-based solution that a patient can actually state their request, we could process that request, and we could present it to the nurses and try and give some guidance as to what the next best action for the nurse might be. And allow them to essentially provide accelerated care those people really in need. >> All right, so explain the system. It's fascinating what you guys do. How are you using NLP and ServiceNow. >> Yeah, so the solution is enabled by AWS and ServiceNow. So at the front end of the solution we've got a smart speaker in the room. That essentially passes the speech that the patient has made once they've woken the device through to the AWS platform. From there we pull out the intent. So we convert that speech to text, pull out the intent, and then that intent is passed through to ServiceNow. And once we've got it in ServiceNow, we can do all sorts of things with it. So we can apply a set of business rules, we can smart route it to the most appropriate person to meet the patient's needs. We can look at the prioritization that the hospital wants to give that sort of query and we can push it up or down in the queue based on that prioritization. Then we present that to the nurses using a dashboard on the nurse station, but we've also got the mobile app deployed. So the nurses have actually got a mobile in their pocket, which buzzes when the patient makes a request, they're able to whip the phone out, have a look at what the patient's need is, and make a decision. >> I'm always fascinated when a company like Deloitte comes up with a solution like this. It's not like you went to the client, and the client said, this is what we want. So how did you go about figuring all this out? What was the process you used? >> That's a really good question. For us it was, it's not about us designing the solution. We saw the problem and we're problem solvers. That's really what we do. We went and engaged with one of the local hospitals in Australia. We said to them, listen, is this right? Have we actually cottoned on to something that is a real problem here? And it really resonated with them. And they gave us access to their top 30 nurses and also their simulation hospital. It's a hospital that's used for training and development. And in that environment, we iterated the design with the nurses and built a solution essentially by nurses for nurses. So the idea was that it was as intuitive to use as your iPhone. Because nurses aren't like IT guys. They're not sitting behind computers all day. It's not native to them to use that sort of interface. So we wanted to make it as simple as I touch, drag, drop, and I let go, and I've done the job that I need to do. And so the nurses' feedback from the implementations that we've done so far have been, this is so easy to use. That's the phrase they've given us. This is just so easy to use. >> And then what's the feedback from the patients? How are they using it specifically? >> Yeah so, I'll give you the example of the spinal ward we've gone into at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney. The Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation heard about what we were doing and they identified the opportunity to fund us to go into the spinal ward. And when you think about spinal patients' traumatic injury and often these patients are in hospital for months if not years. In a very isolating environment trying to recover from a traumatic injury. Not only that though, they may not have full access to their limbs anymore to be able to press a call button. And the hospital foundation saw this opportunity to place our solution in the hands of these patients or in these patients' rooms. And it has been overwhelmingly successful. We've got 26 beds rolled out in the ward. We've been in there for little over a month now. And on the very first day we had a patient who was in the bathroom in a precarious situation, needed help, couldn't reach the call bell, and was able to wake up the device from the bathroom, ask for help, and have two nurses rush to their aid. We've had a patient who was suffering severe pain after their injury and is now able to alert the nurses that the request that they were making is about pain and they were able to come in a much faster time. We've also seen complaints about nurse response time go from a decent level to nothing. And whether those were real complaints or not, is beside the point. The patients were feeling like they were waiting a period of time and that was uncomfortable for them. Now they're not complaining at all. So that patient experience has really shifted. >> That's great. And it's such a miraculous technology. This is really impressive. Best of luck to you, Nick. This is really fun having you on the show. >> Thank you very much. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante. We will have more from ServiceNow Knowledge '18 just after this. (upbeat music)