>> From Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Welcome back, everyone, to CUBE coverage here in Bahrain for AWS Summit. Cloud computing's changing the landscape, startups, business, government, and society. We're here with a special guest, His Excellency, Aymen Tawfiq Almoayed. Thank you very much, thanks for coming, thanks for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> And of course Max Peterson, Vice President of International Sales, Worldwide Public Sector for Amazon Web Services. >> Good to be here, John. >> Your Excellency, this program you're doing with Amazon, this MOU you've signed is interesting, I want to unpack it, because it speaks to the bigger picture of how the region is shaped by its generational shift of cloud computing and the people here. This is a really big part of this modernization plan. >> No question, no question. So the program that the government adopted, so Vision 2030, which was adopted a while ago, is based on one premise, one key premise. That the government is going to move from operator to regulator, and our focus would be to focus on and establish, create almost, an open, just, competitive environment. So the idea is for us to provide the platform and then allow the meritocratic system to let those that can aspire to opportunities and reach these opportunities come up through the system. So this program really sets the stage to get a new level going. >> Explain the difference with this program and why it's different than some of the things we've been hearing. We saw a cloud computing degree coming out of the University of Bahrain. We're seeing a lot of job skill training. This is different, this is a unique thing. Can you give a more detail around how it works. >> So, what we're doing is we're looking at very quick wins. And for us, six months, for somebody to spend six months, one year, in Amazon is a very quick win. This is not an extended degree. What this is is it's an opportunity to interact with the best of the best in their world sector. And to, honestly it's almost like a reset, where what Max and I were talking about earlier is somebody that spends a year with Amazon, I think that something happens to the pulse rate, right. So your pulse literally starts to beat much faster. >> Max knows all about that. >> Exactly, exactly. We hear about their traveling patterns, and that in itself is amazing. So in any case, so the reason it's different from a degree is it gives you real-life vocational experience. It gives you the networking opportunity. It gives you the lifestyle exposure. And then it gives you the shortcuts in organization. >> So you're exposing them to the excellence of what a culture looks like, Amazon in this case. They're hard-charging, they're fast. Anyone who's worked with Amazon knows that they move pretty quickly. But they're disciplined. It's a world-class organization. It's like a sports team being promoted to varsity or the pro team. Work their way up from the entry-level. >> So maybe the difference as well is, in this sort of program it's sink or swim. It's really as simple as that. I mean, you need to hit the ground running and take off. Maybe with a degree, it's much less so. With a degree, you go through your first year, your second year, your sophomore and so on. So what we do, what we want, is we want our youth to hit the ground running. We want very quick wins and I have no doubt that once the first trench, first team goes out to Amazon, comes back, I'm sure that the ripple effect that you see in industry and you see in the marketplace will be tremendous. >> Max, what's your take on this? 'Cause obviously you're on the Amazon side. You're taking them in Amazon Web Services here in Bahrain, or is it outside corporate headquarters in Seattle? Is there a definition around? >> All good questions. First, we're excited to be the first company that is partnered with the Ministry on this effort. We're sure many others are going to join, but we're excited to be first. I think what makes it different is the aspect of experiential. There's a lot of experiential learning that's going on different than the academic learning. Equally or maybe even more necessary is the sort of organizational cultural learning. Just what does it take to operate at world scale or at pace. And then to be able to bring that back to the region. We'll do that wherever we've got the right mix of skills. So it could be in Bahrain, where we've got a big office now, it could be in London, could be Washington, D.C., could be Seattle. >> Your Excellency, we always talk about on theCUBE over the years, tech athletes. Because, you know, to be an athlete, you got to have durability, intelligence, stability. Being a tech athlete, the travel schedules, we were just joking last night about it, you mentioned it. But also the intelligence and the integrity to do this at this speed. So this is kind of, I love the theme, so I want you to elaborate why this connects in with your vision and how did this idea get started, what was the origination around this effort? >> So initially the, again, if one takes a step back, we started experimenting about a year ago, a year and a half ago with the sports sector. So what we were doing with the sports sector, because it was a much smaller sector. What we're trying to experiment there is, if you were to allow our athletes to interact with the best in class, what would happen? Would they live up to that experience or not? And so one of the segments that we were looking at is, for example, triathlons. So about two years ago, this sport, triathlons in general, just simply didn't exist in the region. So two, maximum three years ago, they just, they were nonexistent. So His Highness had ordered that we go ahead and see if we can develop this and see if we can develop the athletes for it. And so what we needed to do, essentially, was pick some-- >> Find the athletes. (laughs) >> Is find the athletes, exactly. Send them out, we did a few triathlons. They did Kuna and Florida, came back, loved it, the addiction and the adrenaline kicked in, and then we started arranging duathlons and then triathletes here in Bahrain. Of course, I don't know if you know this, a year, fast forward, a year and a half later, and BE13, which is our triathlon team, is number one in the world. Simply it's number one in the world. Now we're doing this, we tried this with biking. So we sent a team to the Tour de France, and we started to do exactly the same thing. We were aspiring to look at greats like Sky team and the rest, and just learning from them, imitate, and then innovate, and-- >> One, if you have to have the talent to begin with, your theory is put 'em in, let 'em see it, and they'll either level up or they won't. It's self selection. >> Absolutely, no question. >> And you want to bring that formula to tech. >> It's pure meritocratic sink or swim. So we've got, so there's two, there's two phrases that we live by, all right. Number one, our role is open, competitive, just environment. That's it, all right. The number two is we open doors with no hand-holding. Simply no hand-holding, but we'll get you the opportunity. But if Amazon calls us and says participant number 606 or whatever isn't up to the cut, then they're not up to the cut. And what our youth have proven to us time after time is they're always up to the cut. As long as you make that clear, they-- >> The expectation defines the experience. So if you say this is what it is, you can swim or you can sink, your choice, people will tap out, they won't even jump in. >> I like the tech athletes piece. >> Yeah, I'm loving it, absolutely. >> Well, I mean, a lot of tech athletes, it takes a lot of energy, it is like you said, you don't know what it takes to build a company, it's really hard, I mean, it's not easy. >> It is, and the thing, just like this program, the thing that was interesting about the University of Bahrain idea was they're going to try and immerse everybody, because cloud and technology now is immersed in any field. I mean, anything becomes digital. And we were talkin' earlier about e-sports, so you need a whole bunch of great tech athletes to start bringing e-sports services to the world. >> Absolutely. >> Do you see e-sports emerging? >> Yeah, no doubt. So what we did on Friday is we signed the first agreement, this is the first time that a region hosts, we're hosting BLASTPro's finals in Bahrain, this is going to be on the 13th and the 14th of December, and that's running, streaming on Twitch. So we're excited, we're excited to be doing this with the guys at BLASTPro, and we're excited to be using Amazon's infrastructure to do it. So yes, absolutely, there is amazing things to be seen in e-sports and we're excited. >> This is awesome, digital disruption, you guys have been so proactive on this. I was commenting this morning on Twitter, then stats went out about entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley in the U.S., 51% of all ventures fail. And some other ones, 4% become unicorns, but it was all about optionality, et cetera, et cetera, and entrepreneurs are about getting on the right wave and falling and trying again, and this is, you guys have been very proactive on this. >> Right, so that's exactly why we think that sports plays a big role. So the idea behind the program was simply to gamify everything. The idea behind this program, the idea behind adopting the new bankruptcy law in Bahrain, and the new reform regulations that are coming in, all we're doing is we're gamifying things. What we're simply saying is when you fall, it's OK to fall. As long as you get back up and hit the ground running once again, we're OK with that. So you'll start to hear phrases that are pretty interesting. Like I said, with the entrepreneurships, what we're looking at is unlocking levels. So we're gamifying. With education we're doing exactly the same thing, we're looking at vocational training where you get to unlock levels. So as long as people know that the name of the game is just to stay in the game, and then outpace everybody else, then we're good. >> And the funding's been fantastic. You guys have been supporting it with resources. Now that the region's up and running, Max, do you feel good about the development so far with the new region? Therese was just on earlier, she mentioned first day they turned it on, a bunch of companies were launched already. >> Besides the cannons and the confetti that shot out today at the summit, the other exciting thing's I think when we launched the region, we had over 350 different companies, many small businesses, small and medium enterprises that put their offerings into the AWS Marketplace. When it was launched, anybody in the region, anybody in Bahrain, could literally turn on 1,700 different types of software solutions at the push of a button, so I think that's big. I think we heard how 35 local companies have created migration offerings and fast-start offerings. We heard from one great entrepreneur on stage today and we heard from government about how government's operating faster than business, I think Sheikh Salman threw down a bit of a challenge to the rest of the government and state enterprises and even corporations. And then of course I think we saw the digital bank of the future from Bank ABC with their first virtual banking assistant up on stage who, by the way, lives in the cloud over Bahrain. >> Yeah, digital employee, we had a great chat about that. This speaks to the generational shift, this is something that's going to be an interesting footnote in history. The sea change around expectations, you brought this up earlier, I think this is important. The younger generation, they want the world to be at a different speed, and they don't want an intolerant blockers in their way. And so whoever can be out front on setting up the environment, whether it's society, government, citizen services, but money-making potential, banks got to operate. So this is the replatforming of society is happening. >> No question, yeah, no question. I'll give you just the, when you compare ministries, when you compare government entities, you would walk in and you'd assume the ultra-bureaucratic system is still in place where you've got to go through tiers and so on and so forth. As far as the youth at the Ministry of Youth is involved, these guys are running things with chats, we've got internal chat systems, and so there is no memo-writing process where you then have to escalate it, and then it goes to the minister's office and so on. Absolutely not. These guys are on the likes of Slack, the likes of Teams from Microsoft and so on, and that's how government is run. >> Max, email's for old people like us. >> Hey, modern digital governments are redesigning the way all this stuff works, and it doesn't, the thing that's interesting to me is it doesn't just impact these things that you would think of as tech. I thought the example of going from 130 days to 5 days for permitting approvals-- >> For building permits, sure. >> That takes out a massive amount of inefficiency from the industry, right, and it enables that very industry to then move faster, instead of government as a blocker to so many of these things, becomes an enabler. And I think it's that attitude about modernized, customer-focused or citizen-focused that is the hallmark of what folks are doing now to make a difference. >> Well, thanks for coming in and sharing the insights. Your Excellency, great to see you. I have one final question, take a minute to explain to the folks what is the Ministry of Youth and Sports Affair, what's the charter, you going to add tech athletes to the mix now that we've kind of defined that term? But take a minute to explain-- >> Tech athletes. So the vast majority of the population is under the age of 35. The ministry's mandate is to make sure that anybody within that constituency, their touchpoints are being managed in the right way. So our job, very, very simply, is to be effectively the change agent for them, number one, and number two, to protect their interests. So we're the ones that are negotiating regulations that come in, but what touchpoint really is relevant? We're negotiating new laws that impact youth when it comes to their trades, new laws that impact youth when it comes to their rights, new laws-- >> Whether it's culture or art or whatever. >> Any touchpoints, so effectively we're customer-relations for youth, or client relations for youth. So that's that from one perspective. With regards to sports, we're simply regulators. So what we're doing is we're moving from an operator model to a regulator model, and what we're trying to do is we're trying to create a sports industry. So instead of us focusing on the actual tournament itself only, we're looking at sports diplomacy, we're looking at sports industry, we're looking at human performance and things like that. So any sectors that we can catalyze to grow in Bahrain that relates in any way, shape, or form to sports, whether it was medicinal development, technological development, regulations or otherwise, that falls under Ministry of Youth and Sports. >> You're charged to look at the whole individual across all spectrums touchpoints. >> Exactly >> That's awesome. >> So we're a horizontal as opposed to a vertical. >> Your Excellency, great to have you on theCUBE, great topic, could talk about it forever. We love sports, of course, on theCUBE, we love talkin' sports, Max, you're a tech athlete. >> I'm a tech athlete, I learned that today. Brilliant. >> You go from city to city, hit a home run everywhere you go. >> I'm looking for the next league to compete in. >> Guys, thanks so much for the insights. CUBE coverage here at AWS Summit in Bahrain, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (bright music)

>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas it's theCUBE covering NAB 2017. Brought to you by HGST. (techno music) >> Hey welcome back everybody. I'm Jeff Frick and you're watching theCUBE. We're at NAB 2017. A hundred thousand people, Las Vegas Convention Center. The place is packed from top to bottom, 3 halls, 2 floors. Hopefully you can find theCUBE if you're looking to find us. It's hard to find it. A lot of people here. We're excited to be joined by I think the best title of anyone that we've had on the show over the last couple days. It's all about content, but at the end of the day you got to find content creators. And we've got one here. Lucas Gilman lists as adventure photographer, filmmaker, and G-Technology, GTeam ambassador. Lucas, great to see you, thanks for stopping by. >> Thanks for having me. >> So tell us a little bit about your company. I know you're an independent photographer, videographer. Some of the work that you do, some of the stuff that keeps you busy from Monday 9 to 5. >> Exactly. So a small film production company. We also do stills. So it's sort of a one-stop shop for a lot of brands that I work with. We're basically trying to service everything from still images for advertising purposes and commercial purposes to video for commercials, advertisements, and/or stock use. >> So as you look around, the ways that you can now capture imagery, I'll just say as a more generic term, with 360 cameras and drones and regular photography and GoPros and all of this different stuff. I mean, what a palate of tools that you have to work with. >> It's amazing how the technology is really changed. I remember that when I first started out in the photography and digital photography, we would have 16 megabyte cards and now I'm using SanDisk cards that are 256 gigabytes. And the -- >> The 1 T's are coming, I keep seeing >> Lucas: Yeah, yeah exactly. - the 1 terabytes are coming. >> We're excited to get some of those. (laughing) But yeah, it's crazy that sensor technology keeps getting better, more pixels, more data. Which really throws sort of another monkey wrench into your solution because the cameras are getting higher capacity every year. We just shot a project in Iceland with a RED 8K Helium camera. That's a 36 megapixel still camera essentially, but shooting 24 frames or 30 frames per second of data. So we're talking, we shot 24 terabytes in a week. (laughing) >> 24 terabytes in a week. >> Lucas: In a week. >> Yeah so definitely adds a whole other layer of complexity now. Because now you can shoot so much, you can shoot at such higher res. Now you got to capture that stuff, you got to store it, you got to manage it. >> Lucas: And back it up. >> And back it up. >> And because, it's digital right? It's ones and zeros and once those are gone, they're gone forever. So my typical strategy is to have everything in three places. It's kind of the rule. Two, usually in the office. We have a primary copy and then a copy that doesn't ever go anywhere. And then we also have one off-site, so in the unexpected event of a fire, flood, tornado, or getting robbed or something like that, you still have those assets at home. >> Right, right. So I assume that's how you got involved with G-Technology to begin with. >> Yeah, it really started with when I was younger I had an unfortunate incident where brand X had a failure and I went out and found these G-DRIVE minis, which are amazing. I buy three of them per trip. And I reached out to them and sort of told them the story and they had this team that they were putting together and I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a part of that team. >> Okay so what's the mission of the team. What is a GTeam ambassador? >> The GTeam ambassadors are basically, they pick people in different disciplines whether you're a wedding photographer, or a filmmaker, and they basically pick people that are hopefully the best at what they do. Because as a photographer and a filmmaker, I'm out in the public a lot and people ask me, "What kind of camera should I buy? What kind of hard drive should I buy?" So our mission is to go out and educate people on not only the products we that use in our workflow that we rely on for our livelihood, but to really educate people and say, "Hey, you know I know you may never be shooting the Tour de France or going to Iceland and shooting expedition but this is how you could back up your images from your wedding or your kid's soccer game or something like that." >> Jeff: Right, right. >> So sort of an educational role as well as hopefully a little bit of inspiration as well. >> Right. And when it comes down to it, you mention that you used another product that failed you. That's like the old days and you forget to save your Word document, right? It only happens once. >> Lucas: Exactly. It happens once. (laughing) >> It's a very painful experience. >> Right, right. So I mean, is it just reliability? Is there something else in these G-DRIVEs that you like? Obviously reliability is A number one but is there more to it than that? >> Totally. So I was really drawn to the G-Technology because they're really the only ones, or were the only ones, that were putting enterprise class hard drives into enclosures. And people say, well what's the difference? And to me, you're getting a professional product. It's something that's going to last longer. It's meant to be put in an enclosure, in a RAID array. Because like I said, everything needs to be backed up and once it's gone, it's gone. And face it, there's a lot of people that want to be photographers these days. And filmmakers. And I can't go to a client and say "Oh it didn't work out." You know? (laughing) There's no take two. No second chance, you know so. So I really, it is the backbone of my business. Whether you're a restaurant or a photographer, you are providing a product or a service, and if it doesn't work out for somebody, they're not going to come back. >> Right. And it is so easy to go to the alternative. Now what about about Cloud? Is Cloud part of your workflow? >> It is. I'm getting more and more into it. I'm using different resources. But I don't rely on the Cloud as my primary backup. It's a way that's convenient for me to get images to clients or video clips or finished products because then I'm not shipping a drive across the country via FedEx or whatever. So it's another tool in the arsenal. I don't rely on it exclusively, but I feel like it is an important and powerful tool to be able to distribute assets and at the end of the day, make it more convenient for everybody involved. >> So what did you say, 24 terabytes in Iceland. >> 24 terabytes. >> What was the coolest part of that trip? >> Ice caves. >> Ice caves. >> We went into these caves that literally have streams coming out them that the ice they were saying is like 10,000 years old. And you're like the first person to touch this ice. It's really, really crazy. >> And how many people on that shoot? >> We had 6 people. So we had a professional athlete, a surfer. I typically shoot adventure sports and travel. So we brought a professional surfer, we had a MOBI operator, a camera operator, and a grip, - [Jeff] Right. >> an assistant to help out. >> I'm just curious your point of view, right. Even in commercials and advertisements and stuff, still a story narrative, right? It's got to be part of the equation. It's what pulls everything together. >> Story is king, and the second part of that is the quality of the production has to be there. Whether it's the video quality, the content, and/or the sound, all those things are integral keys to being successful. >> So do you find... I just, you know, there's so many toys here. It's like toy heaven for production people. Is it easy to get distracted from the storytelling because of all the toys? How do you begin to integrate and experiment with drones, whether it's your footage, or some of these other tools, and yet kind of stay true to a beautiful narrative that someone's going to be interested in consuming. >> Well it goes back to that thing we were all taught. KISS, right? Keep it simple, stupid. We use drones. We shoot in the water. We use all these tools. But the minute that that tool becomes so heavy that it takes away from being able to tell that story, that's when we've got to be careful because you can get sucked into trying to do a steadicam shot or a MOBI shot all day and all of a sudden you've wasted a whole day if something's not working. So you got to be consistent about what the vision is and your storyboard is because, yeah. Walking around the halls here there's a helicopter you can ride in now all of a sudden. It's like a mini drone. And, I do feel like a kid in a candy store. But you need to make sure that you're not getting so focused on the technology that you're not focusing on that storyline. Because that's really what clients will come back for. It's because as a creative, anybody can go out and automate things and make drone shots and this and that, but it's that story that really ties it all together. >> Right. And I think it's just really interesting how your photography background, more freely into multimedia, right? Which includes video and all the permutations that there are. I saw a cool thing where I guess you can unwrap the 360s so now you get this new kind of artistic, kind of ball impression. So the options are so huge for you right now. >> Yeah, it's really, the sky's the limit. As a professional, I need to make sure that I'm staying up with technology because really the technology is so accessible now from people taking images with their cameras and/or videos. I need to make sure that I'm setting myself apart from that demographic by doing something as a professional that is something that they can't offer. >> Right alright, I'll let you get a plug in so we can go in and see the Iceland footage. Where should people go to take a look at some of your work? >> So they should go to gtechnology.com. There'll be that Iceland. And they'll also be some workflow involved in that video so the people might actually learn something about what they might do to back up their images and/or videos. >> Alright Lucas, well hopefully maybe you got an extra room for a gofer or something on your next trip. And I can come help schlep pumpkins for you. Alright. Lucas Gilman, thanks for stopping by. >> Thanks for having me. >> He's Lucas Gilman and I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE. We're talking about G-Tech and really cool movie making, media making. It's all about media and technology here at the NAB 2017. Thanks for watching. (techno music)