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Sebastien De Halleux, Saildrone | AWS re:Invent 2019


 

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering AWS re:Invent 2019. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and Intel, along with its ecosystem partners. >> Well, welcome back here on theCUBE. We're at AWS re:Invent 2019. And every once in a while, we have one of these fascinating interviews that really reaches beyond the technological prowess that's available today into almost the human fascination of work, and that's what we have here. >> Big story. >> Dave Vellante, John Walls. We're joined by Sebastien De Halleux, who is the CEO, oh, COO, rather, of a company called Saildrone, and what they feature is wind-powered flying robots, and they've undertaken a project called Seabed 2030 that will encompass mapping the world's oceans. 85% of the oceans, we know nothing about. >> That's right. >> And, yeah, they're going to combine this tremendous technology with 100 of these flying drones. So, Sebastien, we're really excited to have you here. Thanks for joining us, and wow, what a project! So, just paint the high-level view, I mean, not to have a pun here, but just to share with folks at home a little bit about the motivation of this and what gap you're going to fill. Then we'll get into the technology. >> So I think, you know, the first question is to realize the role of oceans and how they affect you on land and all of us. Half the air you breathe, half the oxygen you breathe, comes from the ocean. They cover 70% of the planet and drive global weather, they drive all the precipitation. They also drive sea-level rise, which affects coastal communities. They provide 20% of the protein, all the fish that we all eat. So, you know, it's a very, very important survival system for all of us on land. The problem is, it's also a very hostile environment, very dangerous, and so, we know very little about it. Because we study it with a few ships and buoys, but that's really a few hundred data points to cover 70% of the planet, whereas on land, we have billions of data points that are connected. So, that's why we're trying to fundamentally address, is deploying sensors in the ocean using autonomous surface vehicles, what we call Saildrones, which are essentially, think of them as autonomous sailboats, seven meters, 23 feet, long, bright orange thing with a five-meter-tall sail, which is harnessing wind power for propulsion and solar power for the onboard electronics. >> And then you've got sonar attached to that, that is what's going to do the-- >> The mapping itself. >> The underwater mapping, right, so you can look for marine life, you can look for geographical or topographical anomalies and whatever, and so, it's a multidimensional look using this sonar that, I think, is powered down to seven kilometers, right? >> That's right. >> So that's how far down, 20,000, 30,000 feet. >> That's right. >> So you're going to be able to derive information from it. >> You essentially describe it as, you're painting the ocean with sound. >> That's absolutely right, whereas if you wanted to take a picture of land, you could fly an airplane or satellite and take a photograph, light does not travel through water that well. And so, we use sound instead of light, but the same principle, which is that we send those pulses of sound down, and the echo we listen to from the seabed, or from fish or critters in the water column. And so, yes, we paint the ocean with sound, and then we use machine learning to transform this data into biomass, statistical biomass distribution, for example, or a 3-D surface of the seabed, after processing the sound data. >> And you have to discern between different objects, right? I mean, you (laughs) showed one picture of a seal sunbathing on one of these drones, right? Or is there a boat on the horizon? How do you do that? >> It's an extremely hard problem, because if a human is at sea looking through binoculars at things on the horizon, you're going to become seasick, right? So imagine the state of the algorithm trying to process this in a frame where every pixel is moving all the time, unlike on land, where you have at least a static frame of reference. So it's a very hard problem, and one of the first problems is training data. Where do you get all this training data? So our drones, hundreds of drones, take millions of pictures of the ocean, and then we train the algorithm using either labeled datasets or other source of data, and we teach them what is a boat on the horizon, what does that look like, and what's a bird, what's a seal. And then, in some hard cases, when you have a whale under the Saildrone or a seal lying on it, we have a lot of fun pushing it on our blog and asking the experts to really classify it. (Dave and John laugh) You know, what are we looking at? Well, you see a fin, is it a shark? Is it a dolphin? Is it a whale? It can get quite heated. >> I hope it's a dolphin, I hope it's a dolphin. (Sebastien laughs) All right, so, I want to get into the technology, but I'm just thinking about the practical operation of this. They're wind-powered. >> Sebastien: Yes. >> But they just can't go on forever, right? I mean, they have to touch down at some point somehow, right? They're going to hit water. How do you keep this operational when you've got weather situations, you've got some days maybe where wind doesn't exist or there's not enough there to keep it upright, keep it operational, I mean. >> It's a very good question. I mean, the ocean is often described as one of the toughest environments in the universe, because you have corrosive force, you have pounding waves, you have things you can hit, marine mammals, whales who can breach on you, so it's a very hard problem. They leave the dock on their own, and they sail around the world for up to a year, and then they come back to the same dock on their own. And they harvest all of their energy from the environment. So, wind for propulsion, and there's always wind on the ocean. As soon as you have a bit of pressure differential, you have wind. And then, sunlight and hydrogeneration for electrical power, which powers the onboard computers, the sensors, and the satellite link that tells it to get back to shore. >> It's all solar-powered. >> Exactly, so, no fuel, no engine, no carbon emission, so, a very environmentally friendly solution. >> So, what is actually on them, well, first of all, you couldn't really do this without the cloud, right? >> That's right. >> And maybe you could describe why that is. And I'm also interested in, I mean, it's the classic edge use case. >> Sure, the ultimate edge. >> I mean, if you haven't seen Sebastien's keynote, you got to. There's just so many keynotes here, but it should be on your top 10 list, so Google Saildrone keynote AWS re:Invent 2019 and watch it. It was really outstanding. >> Sebastien: Thank you. >> But help us understand, what's going on in the cloud and what's going on on the drone? >> So it is really an AWS-powered solution, because the drones themselves have a low level of autonomy. All they know how to do is to go from Point A to Point B and take wave, current, and wind into consideration. All the intelligence happens shoreside. So, shoreside, we crunch huge amounts of datasets, numerical models that describe pressure field and wind and wave and current and sea ice and all kinds of different parameters, we crunch this, we optimize the route, and we send those instructions via satellite to the vehicle, who then follow the mission plan. And then, the vehicle collects data, one data point every second, from about 25 different sensors, and sends this data back via satellite to the cloud, where it's crunched into products that include weather forecasts. So you and I can download the Saildrone Forecast app and look at a very beautiful picture of the entire Earth, and look at, where is it going to rain? Where is it going to wind? Should I have my barbecue outside? Or, is a hurricane coming down towards my region? So, this entire chain, from the drone to the transmission to the compute to the packaging to the delivery in near real time into your hand, is all done using AWS cloud. >> Yeah, so, I mean, a lot of people use autonomous vehicles as the example and say, "Oh, yeah, that could never be done in the cloud," but I think we forget sometimes, there are thousands of use cases where you don't need, necessarily, that real-time adjustment like you do in an autonomous vehicle. So, your developers are essentially interacting with the cloud and enabling this, right? >> Absolutely, so we are, as I said, really, the foundation for our data infrastructure is AWS, and not just for the data storage, we're talking about petabytes and petabytes of data if you think about mapping 70% of the world, right, but also on the compute side. So, running weather models, for example, requires supercomputers, and this is how it's traditionally done, so our team has taken those supercomputing jobs and brought them into AWS using all the new instances like C3 and C5 and P3, and all this high-performance computing, you can now move from old legacy supercomputers into the cloud, and so, that really is an amazing new capability that did not exist even five years ago. >> Sebastien, did you ever foresee the day where you might actually have some compute locally, or even some persistent-- >> So on the small Saildrones, which is the majority of our fleet, which is going to number a thousand Saildrones at scale, there is very little compute, because the amount of electrical power available is quite low. >> Is not available, yeah. >> However, on the larger Saildrone, which we announced here, which is called the Surveyor-- >> How big, 72 feet, yeah. >> Which is a 72-foot machine, so this has a significant amount of compute, and it has onboard machine learning and onboard AI that processes all the sonar data to send the finished product back to shore. Because, you know, no matter how fast satellite connectivity's evolving, it's always a small pipe, so you cannot send all the raw data for processing on shore. >> I just want to make a comment. So people often ask Andy Jassy, "You say you're misunderstood. "What are you most misunderstood about?" I think this is one of the most misunderstood things about AWS. The edge is going to be won by developers, and Amazon is basically taking its platform and allowing it to go to the edge, and it's going to be a programmable edge, and that's why I really love the strategy. But please, yeah. >> Yeah, no, we talked about this project, you know, Seabed 2030, but you talked about weather forecasts, and whatever. Your client base already, NASA, NOAA, research universities, you've got an international portfolio. So, you've got a whole (laughs) business operation going. I don't want to give people at home the idea that this is the only thing you have going on. You have ongoing data collection and distribution going on, so you're meeting needs currently, right? >> That's right, we supply governments around the world, from the U.S. government, of course, to Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, the European Union, well, you name it. If you've got a coastline, you've got a data problem. And no government has ever come and told us, "We have enough ships or enough data on the oceans." And so, we are really servicing a global user base by using this infrastructure that can provide you a thousand times more data and a whole lot of new insights that can be derived from that data. >> And what's your governance structure? Are you a commercial enterprise, or are you going-- >> We are a commercial enterprise, yes, we're based in San Francisco. We're backed by long-term impact venture capital. We've been revenue-generating since day one, and we just offer a tremendous amount of value for a much cheaper cost. >> You used the word impact. There's a lot of impact funds that are sort of emerging now. At the macro, talk about the global impact that you guys hope to have, and the outcome that you'd like to see. >> Yeah, you know, our planetary data is all about understanding things that impact humanity, right? Right now, here at home, you might have a decent weather forecast, but if you go to another continent, would that still be the case? Is there an excuse for us to not address this disparity of information and data? And so, by running global weather model and getting global datasets, you can really deliver an impact at very low marginal cost for the entire global population with the same level of quality that we enjoy here at home. That's really an amazing kind of impact, because, you know, rich and developed nations can afford very sophisticated infrastructure to count your fish and establish fishing quarters, but other countries cannot. Now, they can, and this is part of delivering the impact, it's leveraging this amazing infrastructure and putting it in the hands, with a simple product, of someone whether they live on the islands of Tuvalu or in Chicago. >> You know, it's part of our mission to share stories like this, that's how we have impact, so thank you so much for-- >> I mean, we-- >> The work that you're doing and coming on theCUBE. >> This is cool. We talk about data lakes, this is data oceans. (Dave laughs) This is big-time stuff, like, serious storage. All right, Sebastien, thank you. Again, great story, and we wish you all the best and look forward to following this for the next 10 years or so. Seabed 2030, check it out. Back with more here from AWS re:Invent 2019. You're watching us live, right here on theCUBE. (upbeat pop music)

Published Date : Dec 7 2019

SUMMARY :

Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and Intel, into almost the human fascination of work, 85% of the oceans, we know nothing about. a little bit about the motivation of this Half the air you breathe, half the oxygen So that's how far down, be able to derive information from it. You essentially describe it as, to take a picture of land, you could fly an airplane And then, in some hard cases, when you have a whale All right, so, I want to get into the technology, How do you keep this operational and then they come back to the same dock on their own. so, a very environmentally friendly solution. And maybe you could describe why that is. I mean, if you haven't seen So you and I can download the Saildrone Forecast app of use cases where you don't need, is AWS, and not just for the data storage, So on the small Saildrones, which is the majority so you cannot send all the raw data for processing on shore. and allowing it to go to the edge, that this is the only thing you have going on. the European Union, well, you name it. and we just offer a tremendous amount and the outcome that you'd like to see. and getting global datasets, you can really and coming on theCUBE. Again, great story, and we wish you all the best

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Matthew Cornelius, Alliance for Digital Innovation | AWS Public Sector Online


 

>> Announcer: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCUBE conversation. >> Hi, everyone. Welcome to theCUBE Studios here in Palo Alto, California. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're here for coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit. This is theCUBE Virtual with our quarantine crew going out and covering the latest posts of the Virtual Summit where our next guest is Matthew Cornelius, Executive Director for the Alliance for Digital Innovation. Matthew, thanks for joining me today for part of AWS virtual Public Sector Summit. >> That's great, thanks, John. Appreciate you having me. >> I know that John Wood and I have been talking about this organization and some of the ambition and the relevance of it. So I think it's a super important story. I want to get your thoughts on this in an unpack kind of the mission but for starters, tell us what is the Alliance for Digital Innovation? When were you formed? What's the mission? What do you do? >> Sure. Yeah, so ADI was formed about two years ago, to create a new advocacy group that could focus explicitly on getting cloud forward, commercial, highly innovative companies into the public sector. So the government technology space has traditionally been dominated by a lot of legacy vendors, folks that are very happy with vendor lock-in, folks that have an outdated business model that would not suffice in the commercial sector. So why does it have to be that way for government and ADI started with about eight members has since grown. We're approaching two dozen now. So we've had a lot of growth and I think a lot of the response that you've seen in the public sector, especially to the COVID crisis, and the response and relief efforts have made this organization and our mission more relevant now than ever. There's no way that you can go back to the previous way of doing business, so adopting all these commercials technologies, changing your business model, changing your operating model, and really use an emerging technology to deliver all these missions services is critical. >> You know, one of the things that I've been reporting on for many, many years is this idea of modernization. Certainly on the commercial side with cloud, it's been really important and Amazon has done extremely well, from a business standpoint. We all know that where that's going. The issue that's happening now is the modernization is kicking in. So the government has started to move down this track, we've seen the procurement start to get more modernized. Move from buying manuals to actually having the modern stuff and in comes COVID-19. You couldn't have accelerated, you couldn't have pulled the future forward fast enough to an already struggling federal government, in my opinion, and I've talked to many people in DC and the young crowd saying, "Hey, old government get modern", and then this comes. It's almost like throwing the rock on your back and you're sinking. This is a problem. What's your take on this? Because you're trying to solve a problem with modernizing, but now you got COVID-19 coming in, it compounds the complexity and the challenge. What's your chosen reaction to that? >> Yeah, so it there's a multifaceted response to this. So part of it is what I like to say is the government's done more in the past four months than it's done in the past 14 years when it comes to modernization and adopting commercial capabilities. I think with individual agencies, you've seen those those agencies, I will name a couple like the Small Business Administration, the General Services Administration, where I used to work, folks that were already heavily invested in cloud, heavily invested in modern digital tools and modern digital processes, they were able to weather this storm and to deal especially in SPS case, with a dramatic increase in their mission. I mean, running the paycheck Protection Program is something unlike an organization that size has ever seen. And from a technology standpoint, they have a lot of good stories that are worth telling and I think it's because they were so cloud forward. I think one of the other interesting points that as really come to light over the past four months is so many of the issues around modernization were cultural. Now, of course, there are some that are legal, there's acquisition, there's the way agencies are appropriated and financed and the way they can spend their money, but by and large, all of these agencies had to move to maximum telework, they had to get rid of all of these outdated on premise processes, these paper based processes that they had. And although surely there were some bumps in the road, and that was not easy, especially for these folks working around the clock to keep their agencies operational to make sure citizens are getting the services, they need, especially during this crisis, I think there's a lot of great success stories that you see there and because of this, no one even if they're allowed to go back into the office or when they're allowed to go back in the office, people are going to understand how much more productive they are, how much more technologically capable they are. And that's not just CIO officers that's people on programs in the front lines delivering services that mission response. We've really seen it powerful word over the last four months. >> You know, Matthew, I've been very vocal given that I'm kind of the old guy, get off my lawn kind of commentary. (Matthew laughs) I've seen that the waves and I remember coming in when I was in my late 20s and 30s old school enterprises, the commercial business wouldn't do business with startups, you had to be approved or you were in entrenched vendors supporting those things and then in comes the web, in comes the 90s, and then the web came there's more agile, you had startups that were more open and working with commercial vendors. It seems like we're seeing that movie play out in public sector where you have the entrenched incumbents, they got the town wired, who knows what's going on. It's been called the Beltway bandits for years and Tris and Curson and I talk about that all the time, but now the government can be agile, and startups need to be product to these new solutions, like whether it's video conferencing or virtual events, things like we do. New solutions are coming that need to come in, it's hard. Can you share how a company whether it's a startup or a new solution can come in and work with the government? Because the perception is, it's impossible. >> Yeah, and part of why ADI exist is to break that down. One to recruit more members to join us to really help drive commercial innovation in the government. And we have some very large companies like AWS and others that do an awful lot of work with the government. And we have a lot of smaller startups that are interested in dipping their toe in there. And so we try to help them demystify how it is that you go about working with the government. I think there have been again, some good success stories on this one. I think that there are lots of places like the Department of Defense, a lot of the folks in the intelligence community, some other agencies, they have authorities, they have partnership programs that make it easier for folks to adopt commercial innovation. They have unique authorities like other transaction authorities or commercial solutions offerings that really lowers the barrier for new technologies to be piloted and potentially scaled inside government. But that's not the case across lots of agencies, and that's why we advocate broadly for getting the acquisition process to move at the speed of technology. If there are good authorities that work in some agencies, let's get into everybody, let's have everybody try it because the people in the agencies, the acquisition professionals, the technical professionals, they have to be committed to working with industry, so the industry is committed to working with them. And as a former federal employee, myself, I worked at the Office of Management and Budget and the General Service Administration, I always was upset at the fact that the government is very good at speaking to industry, but not very good at working with industry and listening, and so we see a lot more of that now and I think part of that is a response to COVID, but it's also the recognition that you can't do things the way you used to do it, the traditional butts in seats contracting business model where everybody in between a federal employee and that outsourced service provider. You don't need all those people there, you can do it yourself and be just as effective and get all the real outcomes you're looking for with commercial innovation. >> It sounds like ADI your priorities is to make things go fast and be modernized. So I have to ask you, the question that's on my mind, probably on everyone's mind is, what are the key conversations or messages you provide to the agencies, heads or members of Congress to get them excited about this, to take action to support what you're doing? Because let's face it, most of these guys up on the Hill are girls now, most of them have a law backgrounds, they don't have a tech background. So that's a complaint that I've heard in the hallways in DC is, the guy making all the decisions doesn't know jack about tech. >> No, it's it's a great point. When we advocate up on the Hill there's a law that I don't think a lot of folks pay in awful lot of attention to. Everybody likes the nice new things that are coming from Capitol Hill but there's a great piece of legislation from 1994 for the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act. We actually did some tremendous original research at ADI, about a year ago and released an interesting report that got a lot of uptick here. And most people don't even understand that the law requires you to do market research and see if there's a commercial product or service that meets your need before you go down building any sort of specific requirements or building out some sort of long procurement process. And so a lot of what we're doing is educating folks, not just on what the law says, but on why these can lead to better outcomes for agencies. I mean, I truly believe that most of the folks in government whether they're technical folks or not want to do the best thing, but if you're a company trying to do business with the government, you have to go through what is often a five or six or sometimes 10 person human supply chain. There's someone in government who wants your solution because it addresses a particular problem, and between them, and you the company, there's all sorts of additional bureaucratic overlays and folks that are not technical, that have other incentives and other priorities that don't always lead to the most optable procurement outcome. So there's an educational component, there's a cultural component. We need more champions inside government. We need not just better technology that's wanting to work with the government but we also need smarter, better people inside that understand the technology and can get to it the way they need to get to it so that they can deliver mission. >> As someone like me who's in the technology business, who loves entrepreneurship, loves business, loves the impact of technology, I'm not a public servant, and I'm not at that up to speed on all the government kind of inside baseball, so I kind of look at it a little bit differently. I've always been a big proponent of public private partnerships that's been kicked around in the past. It's kind of like digital transformation, kind of cliche, but there's been some pockets of success there, but look at the future. The role of influence and the commercial impact just China, for instance, just riffing the other day with someone around China doesn't actually go through government channels for how they deal with the United States. There's a little commercial, they have intellectual property issues going on, people saying they're stealing, they're investing in the United States. So there's a commercial influence. So as the government has to look at these commercial influences, they then have to modernize their workforce, their workloads, their applications, their workplaces. The work is not just workloads, it's workplace, workforce. So if you had your way, how would you like to see the landscape of the federal technology piece of this look like in five years? Because there's now new influence vectors coming in that are outside the channels of federal purview. >> No, it's a great question, and I appreciate you bringing up the other complexities around nation state actors in China and everything else. Obviously, supply chain security and being able to deal with legitimate security threat is critical when you're inside government. I mean, your first sort of purpose is to do no harm and to make sure that you're keeping citizen data, whether it's classified or unclassified secure. We think at ADI that there's a great balance to be heard there and part of that is if you're working with American companies, and you're adopting the best and most agile and most innovative commercial technology that America has to offer, that's going to make our industry more competitive and position it better in the commercial market and it's also going to make government agencies more effective. They're going to be able to meet their mission faster, they're going to be able to lower costs, they're going to be able to shift what are going to be tighter and tighter budgets over the next four or five or 10 years to other areas because they're not wasting so much money on these old systems and this old business processes, this old way of doing business. So you that is one of the balances that we have to take from an advocacy standpoint. We have to understand that supply chain security, cybersecurity are real issues, but security can also be an enabler to innovation and not an impediment and if a lot of the commercial capabilities that are coming out now and a lot of these companies like the ones ADI represents, want to do business with the government, and their commercial products can inherently be more secure than a lot of these old bespoke systems or old business practices. That's good for not just federal agencies, that's good for citizens and that's good for our national defense and our economy. >> You know, I look at our landscape and being an American born here, looking at other emerging countries, certainly China's one example of becoming very world digital native, even other areas where 5G and then telecom has made great internet access, you're seeing digital native countries, so as we modernize, and our lawmakers have more tech savvy and things become digital native, the commercial enabling piece is a huge thing, having that enabling technology, because it creates wealth and jobs and other things so you got three things, digital native country, enabling technologies to promote good and wealth and engine of economic value, and then societal impact. What's your take on those three kind of pillars? Because we're kind of as a country coming into this world order and look at the younger generation, they're all screaming for it, we're digital native, and all kinds of arbitrage there, fake news, misinformation, then you got enabling technology with the cloud, and then you get societal benefits, future of elections and everything else. So what's your thoughts? 'Cause it sounds like you're thinking about these things in your Digital Innovation Alliance. >> Yeah, absolutely. The one thing I will say and as someone that was a former federal employee, the one thing we need more of whether you're on the executive branch or in Congress, we need more people that like you said, are digital natives that understand technology that also want to be inside government either running programs or dealing with policy issues. We need as many good new ideas and folks with real, legitimate, necessary and current skills in there. Because if you don't understand the technology, you don't understand, like you said the societal impacts, you don't understand the business impacts of government decision making and the government can drive markets. I mean, especially in the middle of Coronavirus, we're spending trillions of dollars to keep folks afloat and we're using technology primarily as a way to make that happen. So the first thing I would say is, we need, we continue, need to continue, sorry, we need to continue to recruit and retain and train the best and the brightest to go into government service because it is a joy and a privilege to serve government and we've got to have better smarter technical people in there or we're going to keep getting these same outcomes, like you've mentioned over the past 30 plus years. >> I think we're in a JFK moment where John F. Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, "what you can do for your country". Moment in the modern era and that was the 60s, that we saw the revolution of that happen there, we're kind of having a digital version of that now where it's an opportunity for people to get involved, younger generations and make change rather than arguing about it. So I feel fairly strongly about this so I think this is an opportunity. Your reaction to that? >> No, that's a fantastic point. I hadn't really thought about the JFK resemblance. From an industry standpoint, I think that is what is happening with these emerging technology companies and even some of the large companies. They understand that this is their way to contribute to the country whose R&D dollars and these public private partnerships helped a lot of these folks to grow and become the companies they are now. At least started them down that road. And so for us at the Alliance for Digital Innovation and the companies that are a part of us that is sort of purposeful to who we are. We do what we do and we want the government to build stronger relationships and to use this technology, because it does serve mission. I mean, we exclusively focus on the public sector. Focus of these companies and it's tremendously valuable when you see a federal agency who spent five or 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars and still not solving a problem and then they can pick up the commercial off the shelf technology from a company that we represent, and can solve that problem for $5 million and do it in six months. I mean, that's truly rewarding and whether you're inside government or out, we should all celebrate that and we should find ways to make that the norm and not the exception. >> And take all that hate and violence and challenge it towards voting and getting involved. I'm a big proponent of that. Matthew, thank you so much for taking the time. I'll give you the last word. Take a minute to put a plug in for the Alliance for Digital Innovation. Who are the charter members, who's involved? I know John Wood from Telos is a charter member. Who's involved, how did it all start? >> Yeah. >> Give it taste of the culture and who's involved. >> Yeah, thanks, John. So, yeah, like you mentioned, we have tremendous members, AWS is obviously a great partner. We have a lot of big companies that are involved, Google Cloud, Salesforce, Palantir, Palo Alto Networks. We also have great midsize and small companies. You think of Telos, you think of SAP NS2 and Iron Net, you think of Saildrone. We've got companies that whose technology product and service offerings run the range for government needs. We all come together because we understand that the government can and should and must do better to buy and leverage commercial technology to meet mission outcomes. So that is what we focus on. And, frankly, we have seen tremendous growth since COVID started. I mean, we are 24 members now we were at 18, just four months ago, but I like to say that ADI is an organization whose mission is more important and more resonant now, not just in the technology, parts of government, but at the secretary level at the Chief Acquisition Officer level, in Congress. We are folks that are trying to paint the future, we're doing a positive vision for change for what government can and should be. And for all of those other technology companies that want to be a part of that, that understand that the government can do better, and that has ideas for making it work better and for getting commercial innovation into government faster, to solve mission outcomes and to increase that trust between citizens and government, we want you. So if folks are interested in joining you got people that are watching out there, you can go to alliance4digitalinnovation.org. We're always accepting interested applicants and we look forward to continuing this message, showing some real outcomes and helping the government for the next year, five years, 10 years, really mature and modernize faster and more effectively than it has before. >> Great mission, love what you're doing. I think the future democracy depends on these new models to be explored, candidly and out in the open, and it's a great mission, we support that. Thanks for taking the time, Matthew. Appreciate it. >> Thanks, John. Have a great Public Sector Summit. >> Okay, this is theCUBE coverage of AWS Public Sector Virtual Summit. I'm John Furrier here in theCUBE Virtual. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more coverage. (gentle music)

Published Date : Jun 30 2020

SUMMARY :

all around the world, this and covering the latest Appreciate you having me. and some of the ambition and the response and relief efforts and the young crowd saying, and the way they can spend their money, and startups need to be and the General Service Administration, in the hallways in DC is, and can get to it the way So as the government has to look and if a lot of the and look at the younger generation, and the government can drive markets. and that was the 60s, and become the companies they are now. for the Alliance for Digital Innovation. Give it taste of the and helping the government and out in the open, Have a great Public Sector Summit. of AWS Public Sector Virtual Summit.

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