(techno music) >> Live, from Washington DC, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Summit, 2018. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and its ecosystem partners. >> Okay, welcome back, everyone, this is the live CUBE coverage here in Washington DC for AWS Public Sector Summit 2018. This is the, kind of like the reinvent for Public Sector. I'm John Furrier, f my co-host Stu Miniman, our next guest is Hardik Bhatt, Smart Cities Vertical Lead for Amazon Web Services, been a former CIO, knows the state and local governments cold. This is a very key area around Internet of Things and technology with cloud, because smart cities have to do not only technology roll outs for some of the new capabilities, but all manage some of the societal changes, like self-driving cars and a variety of other things, from instrumenting sensors and traffic lights and video cam ... I mean, this is a little, just a little ... Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you very much, John. Good to see you, Stu, good morning. Looking forward to having a great conversation. >> So, smart cities obviously is really hot, but we love it, because it brings life, and work, life, and play together, because we all live in towns, and we live in cities, and the cities provide services to the residents, transportation, sidewalks, and things that we take for granted in the analog world. Now there's a whole digital set of services coming big time. So, are they prepared? (laughs) It used to be buy a mainframe, then move it to a minicomputer, get a Local Area Network, buy some PCs, buy some network tablets, now the cloud's here. What's your assessment of the smart cities landscape for state and local governments? Because it really is something that's on the front burner, in terms of figuring it out. What's the architecture? Lot of questions. What's your, what's the state of the union, if you will, for-- >> You know it has been, like, how the governments have been for many years, right? Governments exist so that they can provide better services, they can provide better quality of life, they can create an environment where businesses thrive, jobs can be created, education can be given, and you can build a workforce and talent, et cetera. And smart cities is just, I'd say, a trend where, you know, you're using multitudes of technology to kind of help the government get its mission accomplished in a smoother, faster, better, cheaper manner. And a lot of times, I've seen, because how smart cities movement started a decade ago, we kind of compare smart cities with the Internet of Things or the sensors, but smart cities is much more than just the IoT, or the Internet of Things, I mean if you're talking about creating a new stream of data that is real-time, whether coming in from sensors, coming from video, you already as a government, I used to be a CIO for the City of Chicago, we used petabytes of data that was already sitting in my data center, and then there's also this whole third-party data. So smart cities is a lot about how do you as a city are aggregating this different sources of data and then making some action from it, so that ultimately, going back to the city's priorities, you are giving better public safety, or you're providing better public health, or you're providing better education or you're providing, better providing government services. So that's what we are seeing. Our customers are, when we say smart cities, they jump right into, "What problems are you solving?" And that, to me, is the core for Amazon, core for Amazon Web Services. We want to know our customers' problems and then work backwards to solve them. >> What are some of the problems right now that are low-hanging fruit? Because obviously it's an evolution. You set the architecture up, but ultimately governments would love to have some revenue coming in from businesses. You mention that. Education is certainly there. What are some of the challenges there? Is it pre-existing stuff, or is it new opportunities? What are some of the trends you're seeing for use cases? It is actually both pre-existing stuff that they are trying to solve, as well the new stuff, the new opportunities that are getting created, because the technology is much different than what it used to be 10 years ago. The cloud, especially, is creating a lot more new opportunities, because of the nimbleness it brings, the agility it brings. So, in transportation side, we are seeing on one hand, multiple departments, multi-jurisdictional, so state transportation department, as well as a local transportation department, working together to create kind of a virtual information sharing environment or a virtual command center, so that they can detect an accident, a traffic incident, much quicker and respond to that, because now they can aggregate this data. And they're also now adding to that some public safety information. So whether it is a police department, fire department, EMS, so that they can address that incident quickly and then not only clear the traffic and clear the congestion, or reduce the congestion time, but they can also address the, any public safety issue that may have arisen out of that incident that has happened. So, the Department of Transportation, the USDOT, through the Federal Highway Administration, has been giving out $60 million worth of grants to six to ten recipients. The grant, this year's grant period, just closed on Monday, and we worked with multiple customers who are looking to kind of respond to that. So on one hand, it is that. So this is an age-old problem, but new technology can help you solve that. On the other hand, another customer that we worked with is looking for on-demand micro-transit solutions. As you can see, all the ride-sharing applications are making easier to jump in a car and move to one place to the other. It is causing a dip in transit ridership. So the public transit agents, they are looking for solutions to that. So they are looking at, "Can we build an on-demand microtransit "so you can pool your friends and jump into a transit van, as opposed to a private car?" And then you can go from point A to point B in a much more affordable manner. So they are looking at that. On the public health side, you know, we have the DC Benefits Exchange, Health Benefits Exchange, is on AWS, and they have seen significant savings. They have seen $1.8 million of annual savings because they are using cloud and cloud services. On the other hand, you have State of Georgia, which is using Alexa. So they have built Alexa Skills where you can ask, as a resident of State of Georgia getting SNAP benefit, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance, the food-stamp program, you can say, "Alexa, what's my SNAP balance?" So based on the answer then, based on the balance you know, you can plan your, you know, where you're going to use that money. So we are seeing large volume of data now coming on the cloud where the governments are looking to move kind of the needle. We are also seeing this nimble, quick solutions that can start going out. And we are seeing a lot of driver behind the innovation is our City on a Cloud challenge. So we have seen the City on a Cloud winners, since last so many years, are kind of the ones who are driving innovation and they're also driving a lot of collaboration. So I can, there are three trends that I can jump into as we kind of talk more. >> Yeah, it's interesting. I think back a decade ago, when you talk smarter cities, you'd see this video, and it would look like something out of a science fiction. It's like, you know, "Oh, the flying taxi'll come, "and it will get you and everything." But what I, the stories I have when I talk to CIOs in cities and the like, it's usually more about, it's about data. It's about the underlying data, and maybe it's a mobile app, maybe it's a thing like Alexa Skills. So help us understand a little bit, what does the average citizen, what do they see? How does their, you know, greater transparency and sharing of information and collaboration between what the agencies are doing and, you know, the citizenship. >> I think that's a great question. I mean that is what, as a former CIO, I always had to balance between, what I do creates internal government efficiency, but the citizens don't feel it, don't see it, they don't, it doesn't get in the news media. And on the other hand, I also have to, to my governor, to my mayor, to the agency directors, have to give them visible wins. So, I'll give you an example, so City of Chicago, back in the day, in 2010 when I was the CIO. We did a contract with our AWS, currently AWS Partner Socrata, to open up the data. So that was kind of the beginning of the Open Data Movement, and eventually, I left the city, I went work for Cisco, and the city government continued to kind of build on top of Socrata. And they build what they called the Windy Grid, which is basically bringing all of their various sets of data, so 311, code violations, inspections, crime, traffic, and they built an internal data analytics engine. So now, agencies can use that data. And now, what they did, two years ago, they were one of the City on a Cloud Challenge winners, and they, Uturn Data Solutions is our partner that was the winner of that, and they built Chicago Open Grid. So they basically opened that up on a map-based platform. So now as a citizen of Chicago, I can go on Chicago Open Grid, and I can see which restaurants in, surrounding my area, have failed inspections. Have they failed inspection because of a mice infestation, or was it something very minor, so I can decide whether I want to go to that restaurant or not. I can also look at the crime patterns in my area, I can look at the property values, I can look at the education kind of quality in the schools in my neighborhood. So, we have seen kind of now, and it's all on AWS cloud. >> This open data is interesting to me. Let's take that to another level. That's just the user side of it, there's also a delivery value. I saw use cases in Chicago around Health and Human Services, around being more efficient with either vaccines, or delivery of services based on demographics and other profile, all because of open data. So this brings up a question that comes up a lot, and we're seeing here is a trend, is Amazon Web Services public sector has been really good. Teresa Carlson has done an amazing job leaning on partners to be successful. Meaning it's a collaboration. What's that like in the state and local government? What's the partner landscape look like? What are the benefits for partners to work with AWS? Because it seems obvious to me, it might not be obvious to them. But if they have an innovative idea, whether it's to innovate something on the edge of the network in their business, they can do it, and they can scale with Amazon. What is the real benefits of partnering with AWS? >> You hit a key point on there. Teresa has done a fantastic job in customer management as well as building our partners. Similarly, we have a great leader within the state and local government, Kim Majerus. She leads all of our state and local government business. And her focus is exactly like Teresa: How can we help the customers, and also how can we enable partners to help customers? So I'll give you and example. The City of Louisville in Kentucky. They were a City on a Cloud winner, and they, basically what they're building with a partner of ours, Slingshot, they (laughs) get, I was, I used to be in Traffic Management Authority, back in my days, and we used to do traffic studies. So, basically, they send an intern out with clicker or have those black strips to count the number of cars, and based on that, we can plan whether we want to increase the signal timing on this approach, or we can plan the detours if we close the street, what's the, and it's all manual. It used to take, cost us anywhere from 10 to 50 thousand dollars, every traffic study. So what Louisville did with Slingshot is they got the free Waze data that they get gives all of the raw traffic information. Slingshot brought that on to a AWS platform, and now they are building a traffic analysis tool, which now you can do like a snap of a finger, get the analysis and you can manage the signal-approach timing. The cool thing about this is, they're building it in open source code. And the code's available on GitHub, and I was talking to the Chief Data Officer of Louisville, who's actually going to be speaking at this event later today. 12 other cities have already looked into this. They've started to download the code, and they are starting to use it. So, collaboration through partners also enables collaboration amongst all of our customers. >> And also, I'd just point out, that's a great example, love that, and that's new for me to hear that. But also, to me the observation is, it's new data. So being able to be responsive, to look at that opportunity. Now, it used to be in the old world, and I'm sure you can attest to this, being a CIO back in the day, is okay, just say there's new data available, you have to provision IT. >> Oh my God, yeah. >> I mean, what, old way, new way. I mean, compare and contrast the time it would take to do that with what you can do today. >> It's a big, huge difference. I'll tell you as the CIO for the State of Illinois, when I started in early 2015, in my first performance management session, I asked my Infrastructure Management Team to give me the average days it takes to build a server, 49 days. I mean, you're talking seven weeks or maybe, if you talk, 10 business weeks. It's not acceptable. I mean the way the pace of innovation is going, with AWS on cloud, you are talking about minutes you can spin up that server. And that's what we are seeing, a significant change, and that's why Louisville-- >> And I think you got to think it's even worse when you think about integration, personnel requirements, the meetings that have to get involved. It's a nightmare. Okay, so obviously cloud, we know cloud, we love cloud, we use cloud ourselves. So I got to ask you this could, City in a Cloud program, which we've covered in the past, so last year had some really powerful winners. This has been a very successful program. You're involved in it, you have unique insights, you've been on both sides of the table. How is that going? How is it inspiring other cities? What's the camaraderie like? What's the peer review? Is there a peer, is there a network building? How is that spreading? >> That is actually enabling collaboration in a significant manner. Because, you know, you are openly telling what you want to do, and then you are doing that. Everybody is watching you. Like Louisville is a perfect example where they built this, they're building this, and they're going to share it through open source code to all the cities. 12 is just the beginning. I'd not be surprised if there are 120 cities that are going to do this. Because who doesn't want to save two hundred, three hundred thousand dollars a year? And also lots of time to do the traffic studies. Same thing we have seen with, as Virginia Beach is building their Early Flood Warning System. There are other cities who are looking into, like how do we, New Orleans? And others are looking at, "How do we take what Virginia Beach has built? "And how can we use it for us?" And yesterday, they announced this year of the winners that includes Las Vegas, that includes LA Information Technology Department, that includes the City of Philadelphia, and I've been in conversations with all of the CIOs, CDOs, and the leaders of these agencies. The other thing, John, I have seen is, there's a phenomenal leadership that's out there right now in the cities and states that they want to innovate, they want to collaborate, and they want to kind of make a big difference. >> Hold on, hold on, so one more question, this is a really good question, want to get, follow-up on that. But this, what you're talking about to me signifies really the big trend going on right now in this modern era. You've got large cloud scale. You have open source, open sharing, and collaboration happening. This is the new network effect. This is the flywheel. This is uniquely different. This kind of categorizes cloud. And this wasn't available when IT systems and processes were built, 20, 30 years ago. I mean, this is the big shift, you, I mean do you agree? >> Absolutely, this is the big shift, the availability of the cloud, the ubiquitous nature of mobile platform that people have. The newer way of, like, the natural language processing, use of Alexa is becoming so prevalent in government. I mean, in City of Chicago, 50% of the 311 calls that we used to get in 2010, 3 1/2 million of those were informational in nature. If I could offload that on to my Alexa Skills, I can free up my workforce, the 311 call-takers, to do much better, higher-level, you know, call-taking, as opposed to this. So you're absolutely right. I've seen the trends we are seeing is, there is lots of collaboration going on between the governments and partners. I'm also seeing the governments are going at modernization from different points based on their pain points. And I'm also seeing a definite acceleration in modernization. Government, because the technology, AWS, the cloud, our services that we are seeing. And the pace of innovation that AWS brings is also enabling the acceleration in governments. >> Yeah, to help put a point on the, on the conversation here, there's been for years discussion about, "Well, what is the changing role of the CIO?" You've sat on that side of the table, you know, worked with lots of COs, what do you see is the role of the future for the CIO when, specifically when you talk state and local governments? >> I would say CIO is the kind of has to be an enabler of government services. Because if I go back to my city days and working with a mayor, or my state days, working with a governor, at the end of the day, the governor or the mayor is looking at creating better quality of life, providing better health, better education, better safety, et cetera. And CIO is kind of the key partner in that metrics to enable what the governor, what the mayor, the agency directors want to do. And because now data enables the CIO to kind of quickly give solutions, or AI services, Alexa and Polly and Rekog ... All of these things give you, give me as a CIO, ability to provide quick wins to the mayor, to the governor, and also very visible wins. We are seeing that, you know, CIO is becoming a uniquely positioned individual and leader to kind of enable the government. >> All right, thanks so much for comin' on theCUBE. Love the insight, love to follow up. You bring a great perspective and great insight and Amazon's lucky to have you on the team. Lot of great stuff goin' on in the cities and local governments. It's a good opportunity for you guys. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. >> It's theCUBE live here in Washington DC for AWS, Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit, I'm John Furrier, Stu Miniman, again second year of live coverage. It's a packed house, a lot of great cloud action. Again, the game has changed. It's a whole new world, cloud scale, open source, collaboration, mobile, all this new data's here. This is the opportunity, this is what theCUBE's doing. We're doin' our part, sharing the data with you. Stay with us, more coverage from day two, here in Washington, after this short break. (techno music)