you live from Las Vegas it's the cube covering you I pat forward America's 2019 brought to you by uipath welcome back everyone to the cubes live coverage of UI path forward here at the Bellagio in Las Vegas Nevada I'm your host Rebecca night co-hosting alongside Dave Volante we are joined by Gavin Jackson he is the senior vice president and managing director amia at uipath thanks so much for coming you are brand spanking new to brands thanking you AWS for four years yeah joined UI paths in September yeah I want to start this conversation by having you talk a little bit about what what appealed to you about UI path and what more do you want to make the leap after four years at AWS yeah so I had the privilege to be west of really having a really close proximity to enterprise customers and getting the opportunity to listen to what they really wanted when they were talking about their digital transformation journeys and as it turns out the sort of cloud first in the automation first eras if you will are operating models at to two sides of the same coin if you think about what the that the cloud proposition has been over the last number of years it's really been about sort of reducing or eliminating the undifferentiated heavy lifting so that builders can build and then that turned into an operating model principle and it became sort of cloud first it's the same thing for the automation world you know we are reducing and eliminating the undifferentiated heavy lifting of Tata a product of business processes and tasks and everything else whether they're complex tasks or simple tasks removing that so that builders can build and business people can innovate and given them the freedom to do what they need to do as business owners think about AWS we obviously follow them very closely yeah anybody but it strikes you didn't thank you such are filters yeah what's the analog so what I think we again I would say that we are we are providing tools so the builders could build but at the same time our our products that works across the entire business stack whether that is sort of automation first as an operating principle across all businesses or whether it's across a business persona whether it's a CFO or somebody in accounts or a salesperson or whatever might be we're building tools that take the mundane tasks away from those users so that they have the freedom to go and serve their customers or or innovate within finance or do the do the job that they really love doing and that's really important for the business it turns out there's not a lot of value and a lot of the work that people do every day so if we can remove some of that then innovation will have an exponential curve of progress and that's what we're focused on today yes yeah again there are similarities there so if I understand the you're shifting one date asked allowing people freeing them up to do so that they can have a strategic impact in their business yes yeah yeah I think it is so if you look at even the technology paradigms and how cloud and AWS evolved and then also the layer on how uipath is evolving in the same way so you have computing and compute power started really with the mainframe and went to distributed servers and then to virtual machines and then from virtual machines it went to hosted virtual machines in the cloud and then from then it went to containers and now we're in this world of server lists we're in the cloud right so effectively the logic lives in server lists and the infrastructure sort of disappears and that provides massive scale in the automation world you started off with big monolithic processes you then had sort of network processes with software and data in the middle of all of that networked RPA really came in as an early sort of tool to help automate a lot of that a lot of processes and now in the realms of sort of automation as a function where in the end like the end game really is where automation is the application and the the applications themselves the data sources the processes really disappear so that the best done analogy I can come up with a metaphor acting um up with is I'm a Marvel fan I'm a geeky kind of Marvel fan of my favorite character is his Iron Man or Tony Stark and more specifically the Jarvis AI so what's happening all the time with with Tony Stark in the Jarvis a is he's interacting with his AI user interface all the time and what's happening in the background is that Java she's working with probably you know a hundred different applications and a hundred different data sources and everything else and rather than having you know a human go and do what the integration work that robots are doing that for him and it's just coming back as a as an outcome yeah I'm gonna keep pushing on this yeah similarities and differences because where it seems to break down is where our PA is focusing on the citizen developer the the end-user I'm afraid of AWS I won't go near it I see that console I call it my techies hey you know AWS is you know you got to be you know pretty technical to actually leverage it at the same time I'm thinking well maybe not maybe my builders are building things that I can touch but help us square that circle yeah so I think you the world is trending towards as much automation as possible so if it can be automated or if you can reduce the the burden to get to innovation I think you know technology is moving that way even in coding I think the transit we're seeing whether it's AWS or anyone else is low to no code and so we we occupy a world within the RPA space or the intelligent automation space where we're providing tools for people that don't need a requirement or or a skill set to code and they can still manufacture a few world their own automations and particularly with a release that we're just announcing today which is Studio X it really kind of reduces the friction from a business user where's zero understanding of how to code to build their own automations whether it's kind of recording a process or just dragging and dropping different components into a process even like even I could do that and that's saying something I can tell you yes exactly yeah this idea of democratizing the the automation the building that you said yeah very much so what will this mean I mean what what does what does that bode for the future of how work gets done because that is at the core of what you're doing is typically understanding how and where work gets done or the bottlenecks where the challenges and how can our PA fix this so I think ultimately like a lot of technologies it's really about the the exponential curve of productivity and whether you're looking at a national level a global level a company level a human level every level productivity has declined really over the last number of years and technology hasn't done a great job to improve that and you can say that some technologies have done a good job again I'd use a TBS is a good job in terms of the proliferation or the how prolific you can get more code out and more more progress there but overall productivity has declined so our sort of view of the world is if you can democratize automation if you can use or add a digital workforce to your to your to your teams then you'll have an exponential curve of productivity which a human level is important company level is important a national level is important and probably at global level is important you know you guys might be right place right time as well yeah because I remember you know all the spending in the 80s said receive growth everywhere except the Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow yeah [Laughter] [Music] you guys are hitting it right at the right time yeah you be able to take credit for a lot of it but yeah your thoughts on that in terms of productivity depending yeah I think it is pent up I think that is where where we're at right now and it's ready to be unleashed and I think that these technologies are are the technologies that will unleash it I think really what's happened over the last number of decades probably is that the six trillion dollar IT industry they exist today has largely kind of increased productivity or performance of other technologies it hasn't really increased output so whether it's sort of you know the core networking when Cisco started core networking there was a big increase I would imagine in connectivity and outputs then the technologies that were laid on top of that maybe less so and it was just really kind of putting bad band-aids on problems so it was really technology solving technology problems rather than technology solving human output problems and so I think that this is now the most tangible technology category that really is turning technology into value and productivity for technology really unlocking a lot of value one of the things that your former boss Jeff Bezos said was bet on dreamy businesses that have unlimited upside these these dreamy businesses customers love them they grow to very large sizes they have strong returns on capital and they can endure for decades I wonder if you could put you iPad in that context of a dreamy business what does he know right I mean nobody right I mean so and this is one of the reasons I was attracted by the way to DUI path because I think I think that the robots themselves if you can just kind of look at the subcategory of the robot I think it's on a similar curve to how Gordon Moore was talking about the Intel microprocessor in 1965 and the exponential curve of progress I think we were on that similar curve so when I sort of project five years from now I just think that the amount the robots will be able to do the cognitive kind of capabilities it will be able to do are just phenomenal so and customers customers give us feedback all the time about to two things they love and they value what we do the value is important because it's very empirical for the first time they can actually deploy a technology and see almost an immediate return on their technology whether it's a point technology solving one process or a group of processes they can see an immediate empirical return the other thing that I like to measure I quite like is that they value it so they think they love it they love and value it so they love it meaning it actually induces an emotion so when you when you watch the robots in action and they watch something that has been holding your team back or there's been stifling productivity or whatever it is people get giddy about it it's quite fascinating to see comment about Gordon Moore and Ty that's a digital transformation when I think of digital transformation I think of data yeah what's the difference in a business in a digital business it's how they use data yeah they put data at the core and four years we march to the cadence of Moore's law and that's changed its that that's not what the innovation the engine is today it's it's machine intelligence it's data and it's cloud for scale where do you guys fit I mean obviously AI is a piece of that but but maybe you could add some color to where our PA fits in that equation so I think that's an important point because there's a lot of miscommunication I think about really what it means when you talk about digital transformation and what it means to be digitally transformed and really to see transformed you're really talking about a category of customers which are large more institutional enterprises and governments because they have something to transform what they're transforming into is more of a digital native sort of set of attributes more insurgent mindsets and these companies are to your point they're very data hungry they harvest as much data as they can from from value from data they're very customer centric they focus on the customer experience they use other people's resources oh the cloud being one great example of that and the missing point from what you said is they automate everything they've to meet it so part of the digital transformation journey is if it can be automated it will be automated and anything that's new will be born automated so let me ask a follow-up on that is there a cultural difference in amia versus what you're seeing in North America in terms of the receptivity to automation I mean there are certain parts of of Europe which are you know more protective of jobs do you see a cultural difference or are they kind of I mean we do see even some resistance here but when you talk to customers they're like no it's it's wonderful I love it what are you seeing in Europe so I don't I don't see much of a cultural difference there and I see don't I don't see yet I haven't seen any feedback yes Peres I'm very new still but I haven't seen anybody talk about really that this technology is a technology to take jobs out I think most people see this technology as a way of getting better performance out of humans you know pivoting them towards more so I would say like in some markets in my in my in my prior life in in many prior lives I would say that there's some countries like France for example that would have been a little bit more stayed within their approach to new technologies and adoption not so with regards to automation they see this as a real and game productivity increase thank you I think that's true for people who have tasted it yeah but I do think there's still some reticence in the ranks until they actually experience it that's why we'll talk to some customers about it they'll have bought a Thon's and just a yeah to educate people and what's possible to let them try to build their own robots and then people then the light bulbs go off that it's taking away the aggravations the frustrations the mundi the drudgery and then you said people get giddy about those things you don't have to do that yeah but then the question is also so so what creative things are you doing now so how are you spending your time what are you doing differently that makes your job more interesting more compelling yeah and and and I think that's the real question - so what is the okay yes receiving some money and people aren't having to do those mundane tasks but then what are what is the value add that the employees are now bringing to the table yeah so in actually sit and it takes made the right point as well in terms of the mechanism for doing that is the the part of the battle here is to spark the imagination just like anything really just let you like it back in the Amazon wild it's all of our spark in the imagination if you can if you can imagine it you can build it it's the same thing really with within our world now is figuring out with customers what think what tasks do they do that they hate doing either a user level or a downstream level what are the things that they really want to do that they need our help to harvest and so we do the same sort the same sort of things that we would have done with AWS where we did lots of hackathons and you bought lots of technology partners in with us and we would sort of building all of this we do exactly the same thing with the RP a space it's exactly the same this is really important because creativity is going to become an increasingly important because if productivity goes up it means you can do the same amount of work with less people so it is going to impact jobs and people are gonna have to be comfortable to get out of their comfort zone and become creative and find ways to apply these technologies to really advance but you know drive value to their organizations and actually I look at this as well as a long term technology whereas a long term technology is something that's important for my children I've three and they're still very young so twelve ten and six but eventually they will go into the workplace with these skills embedded they will just know the how you get work done is you have your robot do a whole load of tasks for you here and your your job is to build and to be creative and to harvest data and to manipulate data and and serve customers and focus on the customer experience that's really what it's all about the real brain works I've been a pleasure having you on the show at uipath thank you so much appreciate it i'm rebecca night for j4 day Volante please stay tuned for more from the cubes live coverage of uipath coming up in just a little bit

>> Announcer: Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE. Covering Google Cloud Next '19. Brought to you by Google Cloud and its ecosystem partners. >> Hey welcome back everyone. It's theCUBE's live coverage here in San Francisco in Moscone South. We're on the ground floor here at Google Next, Google's Cloud conference. I'm chatting with Stu Miniman; Dave Vellante's also hosting. He's out there getting stories. Our next two guests: Dana Berg, Chief Operating Officer of SADA and Chris Lehman, Head of Engineering for SADA. Guys, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for joining us. We're here on the ground floor. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> This is exciting. I feel like a movie star right here. >> It's game day here. All the tech athletes are out, Dave. If you look at the show, look at the demographics, hardcore developers, lot of IT, leaders also here, cloud architects, a lot of people trying to figure it out. We heard the keynote. Google is bringing a lot to the table. So what's new with you guys? You guys recently sold your Microsoft business, going all-in on Google. Talk about that relationship. >> We are. This is a brand new day for SADA. The energy around this place, where we are in the market, and where we are with the expanded attendance here has actually reaffirmed our business strategy to go all-in with Google. I don't know if you are aware but SADA has been around for almost 20 years. Historically have always been leaders in bringing people to the cloud even before there was really much of a cloud. We were a you know a pilot partner within Microsoft and Google and had a great thriving Microsoft business but an even bigger Google business and you know, we looked at the tea leaves, we looked at where we wanted to be, and aligned with a company that shared our mission and values and it was a clear choice. We chose Google. We made a very specific and deliberate act to sell off our Microsoft business so that we could take the horsepower of all of our engineering staff and apply them to Google. >> It's interesting you know, we've been around for 10 years doing theCUBE, go to a lot of events, I mean Dave Vellante, Stu, and I have been around for 30 years covering the IT, you guys 20 years. You guys have seen many ways of innovation come and go. Now you're going all in on Google. What is it about this wave right now that made that decision? What do you guys see? You're seeing something early here. Expand on that. Give us some color commentary because there's a wave here, right? A lot of people try. It's a combination of things. I mean, we saw the client-server thing. We saw that movement. Also the internet, we saw the web, mobile, now it's cloud. What's the big wave? What are you guys riding? >> I think there's a couple of things and I think it's unique to, philosophically, how we think of our real special relationship with Google. There is a momentum, right, and not to quote like a Bernie Sanders, but, seems like there's a revolution going on here, right, and, you know, I think, you know, what we see when we look around and we hear conversations and even with our customers, the way that we're all winning together is because we're winning the hearts and minds of the people inside of our customer base that are actually the ones responsible for inventing and the ones responsible for building, so when we're in board rooms and we're selling and along with Google, we're talking with developers, we're talking with designers, we're talking about people that are actually driving the vision for these business applications. We're not always talking to the CIO down like some of our other competitors seems to have only been able to sell that way. We're talking about the people responsible for not only constructing it but maintaining it. So that revolution is there. These folks are bubbling that up and they're seeing the real value inside of Google and what is that value from our point of view, and why did we make such a bold statement just to stick with Google is, and we saw Thomas today echo this, I think there's very few cloud providers that are bold enough to actually lead with the fact that we want our customers to have full choice whether you're using GCP or not. We want to build, architect, and manufacture a product offering that allows you to keep your stuff in your data centers, move your stuff to AWS. That power of choice is really not like what we've never heard anywhere else. >> And then on top of that, too, you got an application renaissance, right? A whole new way of coding, infrastructure that's programmable and going away, I mean if you think about what that does to the existing infrastructures, they can now mix and match and rearchitect everything from scratch and accelerate the app movement. >> Well, that's absolutely true, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that there are managed services in the cloud which makes it dramatically easier to build applications of course, so there's no question about that. Some of the offerings on GCP are particularly attractive for our clients, particularly the managed Kubernetes service. That's where we're seeing perhaps most of the interest that we're seeing, like that's a very common theme. Also the ML stack is an area that our customers are very interested in. >> Chris, can you bring us in some of those customer environments, you know, one of the things you hear, you know, most customers, it's, "I've got my application portfolio." Modernizing that is pretty challenging. There are some things that are kind of easy, some things that take a lot more work, but, you know, migration is one of those things that makes most people that have been in IT a while cringe because there's always the devil in the details and something goes wrong once you've got 95 percent done. What are you seeing, what's working, what's not working, how's the role of data changing, and all of that? >> I think migrations are usually more complex than they at first appear and so even with best intentions thinking that customers can just move their workloads seamlessly to the cloud have actually in practice been more challenging. So some of the areas that we find challenges are around data migration, especially in the context of zero downtime. That's always more difficult than with applications. So that's definitely an area that were we're spending a lot of time working with our customers to deliver. >> Just to add to that, I have to keep reminding myself of the name, but obviously the Anthos announcement today sounds incredibly intriguing as a lower barrier of effort to actually migrate. Our customers have been trying to really absorb and take a hold of Kubernetes and can it containerize methods for a long time. Some are having a harder time doing it than others. I think Anthos promises to make that endeavor much, much easier, and I think about as we leave here this week and we go back and we reeducate our own engineering teams as well as our customers, I think we might see some highly accelerated project timelines go from here down to here. >> And the demo that Jennifer Lynn did was pretty impressive. I mean, running inside of containers, whether it's VMs, and then having service patches on the horizon coming to the table is going to change the implementation delivery piece too in a massive way. I mean, you've got-- >> Oh, absolutely. >> Code, build, run on the cloud side, but this this kind of changes the equation on your end. Can you guys share the insight into that equation, because Google's clearly posturing to be partner friendly. You guys are a big partner now. You're going all-in. This is an interesting dynamic because you can focus on solving customers' problems. All this heavy lifting kind of goes away. Talk about the impact to you as a partner when you look at Anthem, Anthem migrate in particular, some of these migration challenges with containers and Kubernetes seems like it's a perfect storm right now to kind of jump in and do more, faster. >> Yeah. >> Well, it's certainly very interesting. Well, we'll want to take a really hard look at it. I mean, a very, very cool announcement. Moving to containers in the source prior to the migration obviously solves a lot of challenges so for that reason, it's definitely a move forward. >> And I think... You know, we always talk about, in this industry, the acceleration for consumption, but really that's a poor way of saying... Probably what we should be saying is an acceleration of value. So we're constantly in this battle to try and deliver value to our customers faster. That's what our customers want, right, and in essence we see Anthos as being potentially a big game-changer there so that, you know, our CIOs that we're talking with can show to their various stakeholders that they are making very good proactive moves into the cloud at lower-caught barriers of entry, right? >> Yeah. So, you brought up the the ML piece of Google. Wondering if you could help share a little bit on that. When I think back two years ago, you know, data was really at the core of what a lot of what Google was talking about. I was actually surprised not to hear a lot of it on the main stage this morning, but you know, AI, ML, what are you doing, what are your customers doing, does Google have leadership in the space? >> Google certainly has leadership in the space. Our customers, I think, relatively universally, think that their ML stack is the strongest among the competitors, but I think in practice what we're finding is there's a lot more urgency as far as just literal data migrations off of their data centers into the cloud, and I foresee a lot more AI and ML work as more move in. >> John: Yeah. >> So you might, in our booth here, not to give a plug, but we've got a booth down at the end with a full-fledged racing car, just to talk about the art of the possible with AI and ML. Our engineering teams in the race teams that we sponsor, they're there, the driver's there, you should go down and talk to 'em. We've taken all the race telemetry data for the last six months and all of his races and practices, we've aggregated that data all into GCP, run AI and ML algorithms on it to provide his racing team some very predictive ways that he can get better and that team can get better, and so I'd invite just anybody that wants to go there and take a look at, even if you're in banking, or if you're in retail, or if you're in health care, take a look at some of how that was done, because it's a very, very powerful way, to answer your question, head and shoulders down why Google is actually accelerating and exceeding in AI. >> And one of the things that Thomas Kurian showed onstage was the recent Hack-a-Thon they had with the college students with the NCAA data of the game that just finished, and throughout that experience, this is a core theme of GCP, and now Anthos, which is getting data in and using it easily, and scaling at a scale level that seems unprecedented. So this team seems to be the application... The new differentiator. >> I think it is. I think that announcement, obviously the big three takeaways for us, certainly, scale, unmatched. Certainly speed and migration with Anthos. If I could highlight one other, I was incredibly pleased with, well I've been pleased since Thomas' arrival in general by bringing an enterprise class strategy within sight of Google that I think are going to respond well to our enterprise customers, and part of enterprise class is also making sure that their partner community has amazing enhancement programs that really incentivize those partners that are actually in the full managed services space from cradle to grave, lifetime customer value. So we're very excited about even further announcements this week that no doubt have been inspired by Thomas to try and really take advantage of their partner community that are in the business of cradle to grave support of customers. >> You feel comfortable with Thomas. He's taught a lot of customers, he knows the enterprise. >> We've had an opportunity to meet with him. We've had some shared customers that have had a great privilege of getting to know him and support us and collectively them. >> John: He knows the partner equation pretty well, and the enterprise. >> Without a doubt. >> It's about partnering, because there's a monetization, the shared go to markets together. Talk about the importance of that and what's it like to be a partner. >> Yeah, without a doubt, again, you know, his embrace of the open-source community that you saw today, really taking advantage of highlighting partner value is wonderful, but I think Thomas, above anything else, knows that Google needs to scale. They need to scale, and then they have to have breadth and they have to have depth, and, you know, to get to where Google needs to be over the course of the next two, three years, it's wonderful, it's refreshing, it's 100% accurate that Google knows and Thomas knows that the path to do that is via partners; partners that share in Google's vision, that are 100% aligned to the same things that Google is aligned with, and I think that's why I'm so thankful to be at SADA, large in part, because all of the things that we care about in terms of our customer success as well as Google's success, we all share that, so it's a great trifecta. >> It's a ground-floor opportunity. Congratulations. Guys, talk about your business. What's going on? You've got some new offices I heard you opened up. What's going on in the state of the business? Obviously the Google focus you're excited about obviously. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> There, at the beginning, I called Google the dark horse. I think with the tech that they have and the renewed focus on the enterprise, building on what Diane Greene had put foundationally, Thomas is meeting with hundreds of customers. He's so busy he doesn't have time to come on theCUBE, but he'll come on soon, but he's focused. This is now a great opportunity. Talk about your business. What's the state of the union there? Give an update. >> I can take that one if you don't mind. >> Go ahead. >> You can add poetic color if you want. (laughing) Yeah, so as I said, we're entering a new journey for SADA in light of renewed focus, renewed conviction to Google. We are investing more than we ever have into the common belief that Google is the one to beat in terms of momentum, drive, and ultimately winning the hearts and the minds of who we've talked about. So, over the last four months, we've opened five new offices in New York, Austin, Chicago, Denver. Our headquarters is in Los Angeles, and just recently, we just opened a brand new office in Toronto, so we can really help our Canadian customers really see the the same type of white-glove treatment we provide those customers in the States and so that's why, well, I wasn't earlier, but I'm walking around with a Canadian flag. We're very excited about the presence that we're going to have in Canada >> Its "Toronno." I always blow and I call it "Toron-to," being the American that I am. It's "Toronno." >> Dana: Glad you said it right. Good. >> Now, on the engineering side, so you guys are on the front lines as also a sales, development, there's also customer relationship, engineering side, so I'm sure you guys are hiring. There's some hard problems to solve out there. Can you guys share some color commentary on the type of solutions you guys are doing? What's the heavy? What solutions are you solving, problems that you're solving for customers, what are the key things that you got going on? >> Yeah. >> Well, a lot of cloud migrations, a lot of web and application development, custom development, and data pipelines. I'd say those are really the three key focus areas that we're working on at the moment. >> One other thing, too: so... we believe that we want 100% customer retention, always, and that goes above and beyond an implementation. So the other big area of investments that we're making is in a whole revamped technical account management team, so for those of our GCP customers that have had the privilege, we've had the privilege of working with and for, we are building out a team of individuals that will, well beyond the project, stay with that customer, work with them weekly, monthly, quarterly, and try to always find ways to expand and move workloads into the cloud. We think that provides stickiness. We think that provides ultimate value to try and help our customers identify where else they can take full advantage of the cloud, and it's a fairly new program, and large in part I just want to thank Thomas and the partner team for new programs that are coming out to help us so that we can actually reinvest in things that go you know throughout the lifecycle of the customer. So, very, very good stuff. >> Dana, Chris, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. We'll check out your booth, the car's there, with the data. Bring that data exhaust to the table, pun intended. >> Yes. >> Analyzing with Google Cloud, Anthos. Good commentary. Thanks for sharing. >> Really appreciate being on board. Thanks for having us. >> Alright, great. CUBE coverage here live on the floor in San Francisco. Google Next 2019. This is Google's cloud conference. Customers are here. A lot of developers. More action, live on the day one of three days of coverage after this short break. Stay with us. (theCUBE Theme)

live from Stanford University it's the cube covering global women and data science conference brought to you by Silicon angle media good morning and welcome to the cube I'm Lisa Martin and we are live at the global fourth annual women in data science conference at the Arriaga Alumni Center at Stanford I'm very pleased to be joined by one of the Wits ambassadors this year Regina cut of our math data science senior manager Accenture at Google and as I mentioned you are an ambassador for wits in Bangla Road the event is Saturday so Janelle welcome to the cube thank you pleasure it is - this is the fourth annual women in data science conference this year over 150 regional events of which you are hosting Bengaluru on Saturday March 9th 50-plus countries they're expecting a hundred thousand people to engage tell us a little bit about how you got to be involved in wins yeah so I care about data science but also what accurate representation of women in gender minority in the space and I think it's global initiative is doing amazing job in creating a significant impact globally and that kind of excited me to get involved with its initiative so you have which I can't believe you're an SME with ten plus years experience and data analytics focusing on marketing and customer analytics you've had senior analytics leadership positions at Accenture Hewlett Packard now Google tell me a little bit about before we get into some of the things that you're doing specifically the data--the on your experience as a female in technology the last ten plus years it's been exciting I started my career as an engineer I wanted to be a doctor fortunately unfortunately it couldn't happen and I ended up being an engineer and it has been an exciting ride since then I felt that had a passion for doing personal management and I posted management and specialization of operational research and project management and I started my career as a data scientist worked my way up through different leadership positions and currently leading a portfolio for Accenture at Google yeah in the read of science domain yeah it's exciting absolutely so one of the things that is happening this year wins 2019 the second annual data thon that's right really looking at predictive analytics challenge for social impact tell us a little bit about why Woods is doing this data thon and what you're doing in not respectively in Bengaluru okay so well you see data science in itself is a highly interdisciplinary domain and it requires people from different disciplines to come together look at the problem from different perspectives to be able to come up with the most amicable and optimal solution at any given point of time and Gareth on is one such avenue that fosters this collaboration and data thon is also an interesting Avenue because it helps young data science enthusiasts whom the require design skill sets and also helps the data science practitioners enhance and sustain their skill sets and that's the reason which Bangalore was keen on supporting what's global data thon initiative so this skill set so I'd like to kind of dig into that a bit because we're very familiar with those required data analytics skill sets from a subject matter expertise perspective but there's other skill sets that we talk about more and more with respect to data science and analytics and that's empathy it's communication negotiation can you talk to us a little bit about how some of those other skills help these data thon participants not just in the actual event but to further their careers absolutely so really into the real world so there are a lot of these challenges wherein you would require a domain expert you require someone who has a coding experience someone who has experience to handle multiple data sites programmatically and also you need someone who has a background of statistics and mathematics so you would need different people to come together I look at the problem and then be able to solve the challenges right so collaboration is extremely pivotal it's extremely important for us to put ourselves in other shoes and see a look at the problem and look at the problem from different perspective and collaboration or the key to be able to be successful in data science domain as such okay so let's get into the specifics about this year's data sets and the teams that were involved in the data thon all right so this year's marathon was focused on using satellite imagery to analyze the scenario of deforestation cost of oil palm plantations so what we did at which Bangalore is we conducted a community workshop because our research indicated that men dominated the Kegel leaderboard not just in Bangla but for India in general despite that region having amazing female leader scientists who are innovators in their space with multiple patents publications and innovations to the credit so we asked few questions to certain female data scientists to understand what could be the potential reason for their lower participation and the Kegel as a platform and their responses led us to these three reasons firstly they may not have the awareness about Kegel as a platform may be a little bit more about that platform so reviewers can understand that right so Kegel is a platform where in a lot of these data sets have been posted if anybody is interested to hold the required a design skill says they can definitely try explore build some codes and submit those schools and the teams that are submitting the codes which are very effective having greater accuracy he would get scored and the jiggle-ator build and you know that which is the most effective solution that can be implemented in the real world so we connected this data Sun workshop and one of the challenges that most of the female leader scientists face is having an environment to network collaborate and come up with a team to be able to attempt a specific data on challenge that is in hand so we connected data from workshop to help participants overcome this challenge and to encourage them to participate into its global hit a fun challenge so what we did as a part of this workshop was we give them on how to navigate Kegel as a platform and we connected an event specifically focused on networking so that participants could network form teams we also conducted a deep in-depth technical session focusing on deep neural nets and specifically on convolutional neural nets the understanding of which was pivotal to be able to solve this year's marathon challenge and the most interesting part of this telethon workshop was a mentorship guidance we were able to line up some amazing mentors and assign these minders to the concern or the interested participating teams and these matters work with respective teams for the next three weeks and for them terms with the required guidance coaching and mentorship held them for the VidCon showed me that's fantastic so over a three-week period how many participants did you have there 110 plus people for the key right yeah for the event and there are multiple teams that have formed and we assigned those mentors we identified seven different mentors and assigned these mentors to the interested participating teams we got a great response in terms of amazing turnout for the event new teams got formed new relationships got initiated new relationships new collaborations all right tell us about those achievements so they were there was one team from engineering branch or engineering division who were really near to the killer's platform they have their engineering exams coming up but despite that they learned a lot of these new concepts they form the team they work together as a team and we were able to submit the code on the Kegel leader board they were not the top scoring team but this entire experience of being able to collaborate look at the problem from different perspective and be able to submit the code despite one of these challenges and also navigate the platforming itself was a decent achievement from my perspective a huge achievement yeah so who you are at Stanford today you're gonna be flying back to go host the event there tell us about from your perspective if we look at the future line of sight for data science let's just take a peek at the momentum this that this Woods movement is generating this is our fourth year covering this fourth annual event fourth year on the cube and we see tremendous tremendous momentum mm-hmm with not just females participating and the woods leaders providing this sustained education throughout the year the podcast for example that they released a few months ago on Google Play on iTunes but also the number of participants worldwide as you look where we are today what in your perspective is the future for data science all right so data science is a domain is evolving at a lightning speed and may possibly hold the solution to almost all the challenges faced by humanity in the near future but to be able to come up with the most amicable and sustainable solution that's more relevant to the domain achieving diversity in this field is most and initiatives like wits help achieve that diversity and foster a real impact absolutely what's original thank you so much for joining me on the cube this morning live from wins 2019 we appreciate that wish you the best of luck kids a local event in Bengaluru over the weekend thank you it was a pleasure likewise thank you we want to thank you you're watching the cube live from Stanford University at the fourth annual woods conference I'm Lisa Martin stick around my next guest will join me in just a moment

>> From San Francisco, it's theCUBE covering Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, brought to you by Girls in Tech. (upbeat digital music) >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown San Fransico at the Girls In Tech Catalyst Conference 2018. About 700 people, mainly women, some men. I think they brought in a school bus load of girls to participate. And really it's a two-day, single track conference. A lot of, just presentations by senior executive women telling their story, how they got to where they were, giving some inspirational advice. And we're psyched to be here. Adriana runs a great, great conference. It's a super organization, and we're excited to have our next guest. She's Wendy Howell, the chief of staff for Cisco Services. Wendy, great to see you. >> Great to see you, thank you for having me. >> Absolutely, so you're here instead of Cisco Live, which I think is great for you. What do think about this event? Why are you involved in Girls in Tech? >> Yeah, so I discovered Girls in Tech probably about three years ago and saw Adriana speak on just some interview. And I went, I don't know who she is, but I love her, and I love her message. So fast forward, attended my first Catalyst about three years ago, found out that we had two VPs that were on the board at Cisco which I didn't know. So, what's going on here? Let's do something with these guys. They were trying to put together a global partnership, and we really, they just couldn't get it over the line. Well, what's the problem? Funding. Okay, well let's fund it and let's just go. So we signed a global partnership two years ago with Girls in Tech. We've done, I think we've sponsored, overall with Cisco, about 15 different events. Catalyst Conference, AMPLIFY Women's Pitch Night. I think we've done eight. Hacking for Humanity events globally. It's just an amazing organization. It's the right organization at the right time. You know Adriana. She is amazing, she's a force of nature. And so I liken myself to be a mini Adriana for Cisco. (laughs) It's the time to get more and more focus on getting women in tech, and especially making sure that we have role models for the young ladies that are coming up in technology. >> Right, right. That's funny, that's how we found Adriana as well. I think she was on at a IBM event many, many moons ago and said you know, we got to get involved. >> It was random. >> The Pitch Night is really fun. You know, that's just a great event. And one of the ones from a couple years ago is really taking off, the little like, tile-like device. >> That's right, that's right. >> Which I can't remember the name, but it's not tile. >> And in fact, I saw one of your interviews, I think it was Sandy Carter. I don't know whether it was >> Yeah. the last year or the year before, I just did volunteer, >> Good, good. and it was great. >> So you know, the sponsorship list has really grow this year, and it's a who's who of corporate logos, >> Absolutely. which is great. We're looking at it over, across the way. And we talked about it a little bit before we turned on the cameras, about how some of the bigger tech companies specifically, 'cause it's kind of a tech focused event, obviously, can be, not only more involved, but a little bit more thoughtful, a little bit more organized, a little bit more coordinated in the way that they put resources behind events such as Girls in Tech. So why don't talk to kind of what your experience is there, what are guys doing, how are you trying to add a little bit more purpose and organization behind your efforts? >> Right, and again, originally the partnership, it came together quite fast after we sort of said hey let's just go do this. So then our first year, we really were focused specifically on events, and let's do events together to really get our name associated with the brand of Girls in Tech, which is global, and phenomenoal, and 100,000 plus members, etc. This year, in our second year, I think we're being a little more thoughtful, and we really want to continue to show the ROI for our organization. So we're really focusing more on the recruiting aspect. And there's some new cool things coming out on that front from Girls In Tech. And I really want to just say, hey it's great to have our name associated with Girls In Tech, but what's it doing for us? What are we doing for the women that we're supporting? Let's hire them into Cisco, let's hire them into AWS. So that's a real big key focus area for us this year. Plus the events, 'cause this is, you know, not only is it great for us, but I get to bring my team here and they come away feeling fantastic and amazing, and I get all psyched watching all these young ladies walk around. >> Right. >> Many of them, I'm like, I wasn't even thinking about things like this when I was your age. Back in the day (laughs). >> That's right, dune day, thankfully. >> That's right. >> So that's interesting, in terms of how do you measure your ROI in the investment? Clearly, recruiting has got to big a piece right? You can never get enough >> Yeah. people, and even though machines are going to take everybody's job, Everyone >> That's right one day seems to have a whole lot of open recs, and can't fill the people. So is there anything else that you look at besides just hiring, or is it the number of people that come through the process? How do you measure? 'Cause we know it's not only just good and the right thing to do, but there's real business benefit to participating in diversity programs. >> Absolutely. And I mean, every large organization right now, over the last three years, has come to that realization. This diversity is not just a buzz word, it's a thing. We know that there is greater ideas that come out of it, more diverse ideas, bookings, I mean, there's real, relatable, tangible feedback that you can get from it, right? >> Right, right. So recruiting is a big one for us, but also we look at the impact. You know, every quarter, we sit down with Girls In Tech and we get an impact report of what are you Cisco, what have you done, Cisco, and what has it done for Girls In Tech, and what has it done for us? How many people have we had attend a Hack-A-Thon? How many dollars have we supported with? How many people are going through a boot camp? So that's sort of the way we look at it as well, the impact report, also. >> And do you find it's a higher kind of ROI, in, not so much a smaller organization, but these are relatively small events compared to Cisco Live and a lot of the big events that are in the industry. Is it just a more focused return? Is it a better return? How does it fit in with your whole strategy? Yeah, I would call it more focused. It's more of a niche, but it still provides us, and we're growing, right? So we're only >> Right. the second year in, and I truly believe that if we continue our focus in this area, I can see a strong, high trajectory if you will. >> Right. So just a pitch for companies like Cisco that aren't involved with Girls in Tech, who you may compete with, you may not compete with, you probably partner with out in the ecosystem, what would you tell 'em about this organization and why they should get more involved? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple things. So number one, Adriana herself, and the brand of her, and the brand that is Girls In Tech now. If you think about it, I mean, 10, 11 years now, so going from one chapter to 62 plus, hopefully 75, I think, by 2020 is the goal, and now 100,000 plus members, being associated with this brand is fabulous for your business, but you know, it's also the right thing to do. Because again, I go back to my super passionate about the next generation of female leaders and these role models that the younger folks are seeing. You can't, you can't even put a price on how valuable that is for them. >> It's so funny, talk about the role models, we interviewed Maria Klawe, who runs Harvey Mudd, years ago, at Grace Hopper, and that was such a big part of her theme right? >> Are there people, >> Absolutely. are there women that the younger gals can look up to, and see oh, she looks kind of like me, or I could be like like her one day, and it's such an important thing. And she talked about, you know, Zuckerburg, and Jobs, and kind of the male tech rock stars, if you will, are tech rock stars, but they're not necessarily the ones that some 14 year old [Wendy] 10-25, or 14 13 year old, or 25 is going to look up to and say, that's me >> Exactly. in a few years, if I work, so ... >> Exactly. >> It's such an important piece of the whole component. >> My friend, a buddy of mine, she's the founder of Austin Women magazine. And she has this catch phrase that's fabulous. She goes, the female role models, if you can't see it, you can't be it. So if I'm a 24 year old young lady that's graduating, and I don't see anyone else who looks like me, then what do I do? So that's why I love this event in particular. It's my passion event, yeah. >> Alright, well Wendy, your passion comes through and thanks for taking a few minutes of your time with us. >> Absolutely, thank you for having me. >> Absolutely. Alright, she's Wendy Howell, I'm Jeff Frick. We are at Girls In Tech Catalyst in downtown San Francisco, thanks for watching. (upbeat digital music)

>> From San Francisco, it's theCUBE covering Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, brought to you by Girls in Tech. (upbeat digital music) >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown San Fransico at the Girls In Tech Catalyst Conference 2018. About 700 people, mainly women, some men. I think they brought in a school bus load of girls to participate. And really it's a two-day, single track conference. A lot of, just presentations by senior executive women telling their story, how they got to where they were, giving some inspirational advice. And we're psyched to be here. Adriana runs a great, great conference. It's a super organization, and we're excited to have our next guest. She's Wendy Howell, the chief of staff for Cisco Services. Wendy, great to see you. >> Great to see you, thank you for having me. >> Absolutely, so you're here instead of Cisco Live, which I think is great for you. What do think about this event? Why are you involved in Girls in Tech? >> Yeah, so I discovered Girls in Tech probably about three years ago and saw Adriana speak on just some interview. And I went, I don't know who she is, but I love her, and I love her message. So fast forward, attended my first Catalyst about three years ago, found out that we had two VPs that were on the board at Cisco which I didn't know. So, what's going on here? Let's do something with these guys. They were trying to put together a global partnership, and we really, they just couldn't get it over the line. Well, what's the problem? Funding. Okay, well let's fund it and let's just go. So we signed a global partnership two years ago with Girls in Tech. We've done, I think we've sponsored, overall with Cisco, about 15 different events. Catalyst Conference, AMPLIFY Women's Pitch Night. I think we've done eight. Hacking for Humanity events globally. It's just an amazing organization. It's the right organization at the right time. You know Adriana. She is amazing, she's a force of nature. And so I liken myself to be a mini Adriana for Cisco. (laughs) It's the time to get more and more focus on getting women in tech, and especially making sure that we have role models for the young ladies that are coming up in technology. >> Right, right. That's funny, that's how we found Adriana as well. I think she was on at a IBM event many, many moons ago and said you know, we got to get involved. >> It was random. >> The Pitch Night is really fun. You know, that's just a great event. And one of the ones from a couple years ago is really taking off, the little like, tile-like device. >> That's right, that's right. >> Which I can't remember the name, but it's not tile. >> And in fact, I saw one of your interviews, I think it was Sandy Carter. I don't know whether it was >> Yeah. the last year or the year before, I just did volunteer, >> Good, good. and it was great. >> So you know, the sponsorship list has really grow this year, and it's a who's who of corporate logos, >> Absolutely. which is great. We're looking at it over, across the way. And we talked about it a little bit before we turned on the cameras, about how some of the bigger tech companies specifically, 'cause it's kind of a tech focused event, obviously, can be, not only more involved, but a little bit more thoughtful, a little bit more organized, a little bit more coordinated in the way that they put resources behind events such as Girls in Tech. So why don't talk to kind of what your experience is there, what are guys doing, how are you trying to add a little bit more purpose and organization behind your efforts? >> Right, and again, originally the partnership, it came together quite fast after we sort of said hey let's just go do this. So then our first year, we really were focused specifically on events, and let's do events together to really get our name associated with the brand of Girls in Tech, which is global, and phenomenoal, and 100,000 plus members, etc. This year, in our second year, I think we're being a little more thoughtful, and we really want to continue to show the ROI for our organization. So we're really focusing more on the recruiting aspect. And there's some new cool things coming out on that front from Girls In Tech. And I really want to just say, hey it's great to have our name associated with Girls In Tech, but what's it doing for us? What are we doing for the women that we're supporting? Let's hire them into Cisco, let's hire them into AWS. So that's a real big key focus area for us this year. Plus the events, 'cause this is, you know, not only is it great for us, but I get to bring my team here and they come away feeling fantastic and amazing, and I get all psyched watching all these young ladies walk around. >> Right. >> Many of them, I'm like, I wasn't even thinking about things like this when I was your age. Back in the day (laughs). >> That's right, dune day, thankfully. >> That's right. >> So that's interesting, in terms of how do you measure your ROI in the investment? Clearly, recruiting has got to big a piece right? You can never get enough >> Yeah. people, and even though machines are going to take everybody's job, Everyone >> That's right one day seems to have a whole lot of open recs, and can't fill the people. So is there anything else that you look at besides just hiring, or is it the number of people that come through the process? How do you measure? 'Cause we know it's not only just good and the right thing to do, but there's real business benefit to participating in diversity programs. >> Absolutely. And I mean, every large organization right now, over the last three years, has come to that realization. This diversity is not just a buzz word, it's a thing. We know that there is greater ideas that come out of it, more diverse ideas, bookings, I mean, there's real, relatable, tangible feedback that you can get from it, right? >> Right, right. So recruiting is a big one for us, but also we look at the impact. You know, every quarter, we sit down with Girls In Tech and we get an impact report of what are you Cisco, what have you done, Cisco, and what has it done for Girls In Tech, and what has it done for us? How many people have we had attend a Hack-A-Thon? How many dollars have we supported with? How many people are going through a boot camp? So that's sort of the way we look at it as well, the impact report, also. >> And do you find it's a higher kind of ROI, in, not so much a smaller organization, but these are relatively small events compared to Cisco Live and a lot of the big events that are in the industry. Is it just a more focused return? Is it a better return? How does it fit in with your whole strategy? >> Yeah, I would call it more focused. It's more of a niche, but it still provides us, and we're growing, right? So we're only >> Right. the second year in, and I truly believe that if we continue our focus in this area, I can see a strong, high trajectory if you will. >> Right. So just a pitch for companies like Cisco that aren't involved with Girls in Tech, who you may compete with, you may not compete with, you probably partner with out in the ecosystem, what would you tell 'em about this organization and why they should get more involved? >> Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple things. So number one, Adriana herself, and the brand of her, and the brand that is Girls In Tech now. If you think about it, I mean, 10, 11 years now, so going from one chapter to 62 plus, hopefully 75, I think, by 2020 is the goal, and now 100,000 plus members, being associated with this brand is fabulous for your business, but you know, it's also the right thing to do. Because again, I go back to my super passionate about the next generation of female leaders and these role models that the younger folks are seeing. You can't, you can't even put a price on how valuable that is for them. >> It's so funny, talk about the role models, we interviewed Maria Klawe, who runs Harvey Mudd, years ago, at Grace Hopper, and that was such a big part of her theme right? >> Are there people, >> Absolutely. are there women that the younger gals can look up to, and see oh, she looks kind of like me, or I could be like like her one day, and it's such an important thing. And she talked about, you know, Zuckerburg, and Jobs, and kind of the male tech rock stars, if you will, are tech rock stars, but they're not necessarily the ones that some 14 year old [Wendy] 10-25, or 14 13 year old, or 25 is going to look up to and say, that's me >> Exactly. in a few years, if I work, so ... >> Exactly. >> It's such an important piece of the whole component. >> My friend, a buddy of mine, she's the founder of Austin Women magazine. And she has this catch phrase that's fabulous. She goes, the female role models, if you can't see it, you can't be it. So if I'm a 24 year old young lady that's graduating, and I don't see anyone else who looks like me, then what do I do? So that's why I love this event in particular. It's my passion event, yeah. >> Alright, well Wendy, your passion comes through and thanks for taking a few minutes of your time with us. >> Absolutely, thank you for having me. >> Absolutely. Alright, she's Wendy Howell, I'm Jeff Frick. We are at Girls In Tech Catalyst in downtown San Francisco, thanks for watching. (upbeat digital music)

>> Narrator: From the Computer History Museum in the heart of Silicon Valley it's the Cube, covering food I.T., fork to farm, brought to you by Western Digital. >> Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeffrey here with The Cube. We're at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, at the Food I.T. show. About 350 people from academe, from food producers, somebody came all the way from New Zealand for this show. A lot of tech, big companies and start-ups talking about applying IT to food, everything from ag to consumption to your home kitchen to what do you do with the scraps that we all throw away. We're excited now to get to the "Big Brain" segment. We've got our Ph.D.s on here. We're excited to have Doctor Glenda Humiston. She's the V.P. of agriculture and natural resources for the University of California. Welcome. And also, Doctor Helene Dillard. She's the dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> So first off, we were talking a little bit before we turned the cameras on. Neither of you have been to this event before. Just kind of your impressions of the event in general? >> Glenda: I love seeing the mix of the folks here as you were saying in your intro. There's quite a diverse array of people, and I personally believe that's what's really going to help us find solutions moving forward, that cross-pollination. >> Helene: And I've enjoyed it, just seeing all the different people that are here, but then the interaction with the audience was very uniquely done, and I just think that's a real big positive for the show. >> So you guys were on a panel earlier today, and I thought one of the really interesting topics that came up on that panel was, what is good tech? You know, everybody wants it all, but unfortunately there's no free lunch, right? Something we all learned as kids. There's always a trade-off, and so people want perfect, organic, this-free, that-free, cage-free, at the same time they want it to look beautiful, be economical and delivered to their door on Amazon Prime within two hours. So it's interesting when we think of the trade-offs that we have to make in the food industry to kind of hit all these pieces, or can we hit all these pieces or how does stuff get prioritized? >> Well I think that for us, it's going to be a balance, and trying to figure out how do you provide the needs for all these different audiences and all the different things that they want and I don't think one farmer can do it for all these different groups that have different demands on what they're looking for. And some of the tradeoffs could be, as we go away from pesticides and from other things, we might have more blemishes. And those are still edible pieces of fruit and vegetables, it's just that maybe it's curly, maybe the carrot's not straight, you know, maybe it's forked, but it's still very edible. And so I think that we have to do a lot more to help educate consumers, help people understand that it doesn't have to look perfect to give you perfect nutrition. >> Right, right. >> Glenda: Yeah, yeah, Helene is absolutely right. Some of it's just education, but some of it's also us finding the new technology that is acceptable to the public. Part of the problem is we sometimes have researchers working on their own, trying to find the best solution to a problem and we're not socializing that with the public as we're moving forward. So then all of a sudden, here's this new type of technology and they're like, where did this come from? What does it mean to me? Do I need to worry about it? And that's one reason--we talked earlier on the panel too, about the need to really engage more of our citizens in the scientific process itself, and really start dealing with that scientific illiteracy that's out there. >> Because there was a lot of talk about transparency in the conversation-- >> Yes. >> Earlier today about what is transparency. Cause you always think about people complaining about genetically modified foods. Well what is genetically modified? Well, all you have to do is look at the picture of the first apple ever, and it was a tiny little nasty-looking thing that nobody would want to eat compared to what we see at the grocery store today. A different type of genetic modification, but still, you don't plant the ugly one, and you plant the ones that are bigger and have more fruit. Guess what, the next round has more fruit. So it does seem like a big education problem. >> It is, and yet, for the average human being out there, all you have to do is look at a chihuahua next to a Saint Bernard. None of that was done with a genetically modified technology and yet people just--they forget that we've been doing this for thousands of years. >> Jeffrey: Right, right. You talked about, Glenda, the VINE earlier on in the panel. What is the VINE? What's the VINE all about? >> Well, it's brand new. It's still getting rolled out. In fact, we announced it today. It's the Verde Innovation Network for Entrepreneurship. You know, you've got to think of a clever way to get that acronym in there >> Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? >> Basically it's our intent from University of California to catalyze regional innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems. Part of what's driving that is we've got a fairly good amount of resources scattered around the state, even in some of our rural areas, on small business development centers, our community colleges, our county cooperative extension offices, and a host of other resources including lately, the last several years, incubators, accelerators, maker's labs. But they don't talk to each other, they don't work together. So we're trying to go in, region by region, and catalyze a coalition so that we can make sure that our innovators, our inventors out there, are able to go from idea to commercialization with all the support they need. Via just basic legal advice, on should they be patenting something. Access to people to discuss finances, access to people that can help them with business plans. Opportunities to partner with the University in joint research projects. Whatever it takes, make sure that for anybody in California they can access that kind of support. >> That's interesting. Obviously at Haas, and at Stanford, not far from here, you know, a lot of the technologies of such companies come out of, you know, kind of an entrepreneurial spin with a business-focused grad and often a tech grad in a tech world. You know, ton of stuff at Berkeley on that, but >> Yeah, but those folks this is really for ag >> are in urban areas >> If you're in a large urban area or you're near a major campus you've probably got access to most of that. If you're in agriculture, natural resources, and in particular, our more remote, rural communities, you typically have no access, or very little. >> Right. So biggest question is, Helene, so you're at Davis, right, obviously known as one of the top agricultural-focused schools certainly in the UC system, if not in the world. I mean, how is the role of academic institutions evolving in this space, as we move forward? >> I would say it's evolving in that we're getting more entrepreneurship on campus. So professors are being encouraged to look at what they're working on and see if there's patent potential for this. And also, we have a group on UC Davis campus called Innovation Access, but looking at how can they access this population of people with money and, you know, the startups to help them bring their thing to market? So that's becoming-- that's a very different campus than years ago. I think the other thing is, we're also encouraging our students to look at innovation. And so we have a competition called the Big Bang, and students participate in that. They do Hag-a-thon, they do all these kinds of things that we tend to think that only the adults are doing those but now the students are doing them as well. And so we're trying to push that entrepreneurship spirit out onto all of our campus, onto everyone on the campus. >> And I do want to emphasize that this isn't just for our students or our faculty. One of the key focuses of the VINE is all of our external partners, too. Just the farmers, the landowners, the average citizens we're working with out there. If they've got a great idea, we'd like to help them. >> Jeffrey: And what's nice about tech is, you know, tech is a vehicle you can change the world without having a big company. And I would imagine that ag is kind of-- big ag rolled up a lot of the smaller, midsize things, and there probably didn't feel like there was an opportunity that you could have this huge impact. But as we know, sitting across the street from Google, that via software and technology, you can have a huge impact far beyond the size and scope of your company. And I would imagine that this is a theme that you guys are playing off of pretty aggressively. >> Absolutely. I think that there are people on campus that are looking for small farm answers and mechanization as well as large farm answers. We have people that are working overseas in developing countries with really, really small farm answers. We have people that are working with the Driscolls and partnering up with some of these other big companies. >> We talked a little bit before we went on air about kind of the challenges of an academic institution, with some of the resources and scale. These are big, complicated problems. I mean, obviously water is kind of the elephant in the room at this conference, and it's not being talked about specifically I think they've got other water shows. Just drive up and down the valley by Turlock and Merced and you can see the signs. We want the water for the farms, not for the salmon in the streams, so where do the--the environmental impacts. So these are big, hairy problems. These are not simple solutions. So it does take a lot of the systems approach to think through, what are the tradeoffs of a free lunch? >> It really does take a systems approach, and that's one thing here in California, we're doing some very innovative work on. A great example that both UC Davis, my division, and other parts of the UC system are working on is Central Valley AgPlus Food and Beverage Manufacturing Consortium, which is 28 counties, the central valley and up into the Sierra. And what's exciting about it is, it is taking that holistic approach. It's looking at bringing around the table the folks from research and development, workforce, trained workforce, adequate infrastructure, financing, access to capital, supply chain infrastructure, and having them actually work together to decide what's needed, and leverage each other's resources. And I think that offers a lot of possibility moving forward. >> And I would say that at least in our college, and I would call the whole UC Davis, there's a lot of integration of that whole agriculture environmental space. So we've been working with the rice farmers on when can you flood the rice fields so that there's landing places for the migrating birds? Cause this is the Pacific flyway. And can we grow baby salmonids in that ricewater and then put them back in the bay? And they figured out a way to do that, and have it actually be like a fish hatchery, only even better, because we're not feeding them little tiny pellets, they're actually eating real food, (laughs) whole foods. >> And how has an evolution changed from, again, this is no different than anyplace else, an old school intuition, the way we've always done it versus really a more data driven, scientific approach where people are starting to realize there's a lot of data out there, we've got all this cool technology with the sensors and the cloud and edge computing and drones and a whole lot of ways to collect data in ways that we couldn't do before and analyze it in ways that we couldn't do before to start to change behavior, and be more data-driven as opposed to more intuition driven. >> I would say that what we're seeing is as this data starts to come in precision gets better. And so now that we understand that this corner of the field needs more water than the other side, we don't have to flood the whole thing all at once. You can start on the dry side and work over to the other side. So I think the precision is getting much, much better. And so with that precision comes water efficiency, chemical efficiency, so to me it's just getting better every time. >> And frankly, we're just at the beginning of that. We're just starting to really use drones extensively to gather that type of data. New ways of using satellite imagery, new way of using soil sensors. But one of the problems, one of the big challenges we have, back to infrastructure, is in many parts of your agricultural areas, access to the internet. That pipeline, broadband. If you've got thousand of sensors zapping information back you can fill up that pipeline pretty fast. It becomes a problem. >> Jeffrey: That pesky soft underbelly of the cloud, right? You've got to be connected. Well, we're out of time, unfortunately. I want to give you the last word for people that aren't as familiar with this, basically, myself included, what would you like to share with people that could kind of raise their awareness of what's happening with technology and agriculture? >> Well, I guess that I would start out saying not to be afraid of it, and to look at the technology that has come. Remember when we had the rotary dial phone? My son doesn't even know what that is! (laughs) >> Jeffrey: Mom, why do you say dial them up? >> Yeah, why do you say dial people up? So I think, looking at your rotary phone, now, looking at your smart phone, which has more computing power than your first Macintosh. It's very--the world is changing, and so why do we expect agriculture to stay in the 1800s mindset? It's moving too, and it's growing too, and it's getting better just like that iPhone that you have in your hand. >> I think I would add that to that, back to the citizen science, I would love people out there, anybody, average citizens young or old to know that there's opportunities for them to engage. If they're concerned about the science or the technology come work with us! We have over twenty thousand volunteers in our programs right now. We will happily take more. And they will have a chance to see, up close and personal, what this technology is and what it can do for them. >> Alright. Well that's great advice. We're going to leave it there, and Dr. Humiston, Dr. Dillard, thank you for taking a few moments out of your day. I'm Jeffrey. You're watching the Cube. We're at the Computer History Museum. Food IT. Learning all about the IT transformation in the agriculture industry. Also to the kitchen, your kitchen, the kitchen of the local restaurant and all the stuff that can happen with those scraps that we throw away at the end of the day. Thanks for watching, and we'll be right back after this short break. (electronic music)