Okay From Bahrain It's theCUBE! Covering AWS public sector Bahrain. Brought to you by, Amazon Web Services. Everyone, welcome to theCUBE's conversation here, we are in Bahrain for Amazon Web Services' Summit. Our second summit. Hearing big news, Amazon Web Service has announced its availability of the region in the Middle East. I'm here with the Chief of Public Sector, Teresa Carlson. Vice President of World-Wide Public Sector. This is a huge milestone, this event, one, just in terms of the event. The interest across multiple countries in the region. Yes And you have a new region with multiple availability zones Yes Up and running, congratulations! Yeah! We launched the confetti today and yes we are up and open for business. And we do, it's a hyper-scale region with three availability zones. And lots of activity already here in the Middle East. But it really is a substantial kind of milestone because we started this sometime back, and the Middle East was one of the top regions around the world requested by our partners and customers. And now here we are. We've been talking with you for many, many, years. And I loved interviewing you, but this one to me feels like, it's not, the weight off your shoulders. Yeah. It's, you're at the start line of another marathon. You've achieved so much with this, because, what's interesting about Bahrain and we've reported on this on SiliconANGLE Yes. And our others sites, is that, you did a lot of work here. It's not just turning on a region. There's a lot of government commitment, cloud first. Yes. Full modernization, fintech, banking systems, A full re-platforming of a government and society. Yes. And Amazon is powering a lot of it and causing a lot of economic growth. So this is a big deal. It really is a big deal. Because like you said, it really is about digital transformation here. And when I met the crown prince in 2014, we had this conversation about, really creating the economy here in a different way because Bahrain itself is not an oil rich country but a smaller country with lots and lots of tourism. But then this region, why we have it based here in Bahrain. This is truly a Middle East GCC region. And, uh, but, but part of that, the reason to start it here in Bahrain was that they really did take a lead in government transformation. As you heard them say. They're going all in, Shake some on today, talked about, government is moving really fast. And they actually did the hard work to think about their Telecommunications industry. Their government regulations. They started with Cloud first, and then they created all the right regulations to make this happen. So it is kind of phenomenal how quickly in some ways. You know? Yeah It feels slower then we'd like, but it's really moved quite fast. It's pretty fast you should get a lot of kudos for that. I think you will. But I think to me, what's interesting in the news here. Is that there is a balance between regulation and innovation going on. Yes. And regulation can be hampering innovation in some cases. And not enough regulation, You have a Facebook situation. Right, yes. So it's a balance. These guys have done it right. But to me the tell sign is the FinTech community. Yes. Because that's where the money is. Yes. So the central bank and then the ABC bank. Yeah. Are all talking about APIs, all in with Amazon, That's going to create an ecosystem for innovation startups etcetera. It totally is. And you heard the individual from ABC bank today talk their platform what they're doing with Cloud. And the reason they chose AWS was because we had this region of Bahrain, and they wanted to move quickly. And the regulations now have been updated now, in a way that actually allows them to do their banking applications in the Cloud. There is also a startup accelerator here, FinTech Bay. And they are doing a ton of work with new types of financial applications. So it's so exciting to see this kind of happen. In the Middle East where I think a lot of people thought it would be a lot slower. We have a ways to go, it's still day one for sure, but all the building blocks are getting there in the right place to really make this happen. And you know Andy Jassy's quote in the announcement you guys had just a couple weeks ago, in end of July. "The Cloud's a chance to unlock digital transformation in the Middle East," Says Andy Jassy. Yes Obviously unlocking is a key word, because now you have customers from startups to large enterprises. Yep. An ecosystem of APN party, so the APN group is here. Yes So you have global ISVs here and new ISVs. You got the education. And to me the news of the show, To me at least. Yeah. Is not the big news, is that you guys are, they're offering a computer. Not computer, Cloud computing degree. Yeah. For the first time. Talk about that news. So, you are right in terms of every sector's beget, but like in most places around the world, This is not unique, we need skills. And We've got to make sure we are teaching the skills, working backwards from what the employer needs, like AWS. So what we've done here. We announced today, we're launching our first Cloud Computing degree, at the University of Bahrain. And they're kind of doing this really unusual John. They're going to do a phase one, where they offer Cloud Certification starting early 2020. With every program at the University of Bahrain. Whether you're in Finance or Banking or Business or healthcare or law, you can do this Cloud Computing Certification. Which gets you going and helps you understand how you utilize Cloud in your business. And then in the Fall, We'll be announcing the four year, starting the four year Cloud Computing degree. And that is in conjunction with our AWS educate program. And it will be all the right Cloud skills that are needed to be successful. Talk about the demographics in this country. Because one of the things that is coming up is when I talk to people in the hallway. Yeah. I had some chance to talk to some local folks last night, that are all in at Amazon. The theme is this. This younger generation. Yes. Is here, and they have different expectations. They all want to work hard. They don't just want to sit back on their laurels and rest on their location here. They want to build companies. They want to change. They do This is a key factor in the Bahrain modernization is the young generation. It is. Well all across the Middle East the thing that's unique about the Middle East is the very young population. You have millions of gamers across the Middle East, as an example. They had ComicCon in Saudi, like two years ago and that was one of the most popular things. Fortnite, as soon as the region got up. All the different gaming started taking place. We want to create a culture of builders here. And the way you do that is what you said John, putting it into their hands. Allowing these young people to have the tools, create a startup, become an entrepreneur. But they need to have access to these tools. And sometimes capital, is often not that easy to get. So they want to make sure that the capital that they are given, or that they have. Whether its bootstrap capital or venture capital funding, or whatever, you know, friends and family. They want to make sure they can use that capital to the greatest advantage to build that company out. And I truly believe that this is going to help them having that AWS Cloud region. I mean you saw today, we have 36 companies that launched their offering in the region on the day we actually announced. So that they had specific offering for the Middle East. Which is pretty exciting. I mean that's a lot on day one. I mean it's still day one as you guys always say. But literally day one. They were launching. Yeah. I want you to comment, if you can just share some insights. I know your passion for, you know, entrepreneurship, you guys are also, skill development, investing a lot. Yes. Yeah, women in tech, power, analysts. Yes. This morning, there's major changes going on. You guys are providing a lot of incentives. A lot of mentoring, there's internships in conjunction with Bahrain. There's a lot of good things, Share some of the new things that you're working on, maybe deals you're talking about doing, or? Well we did announce two kind of new things today. One is we have our WePARtech program which I am, of course, super passionate about. And that is about providing tech learning and skills to women and underserved and represented communities. So we announced three other training programs here across the Middle East, times. So those were put up today. And you'll continue to see us roll more and more of those out. And the other thing we did yesterday. We announced a internship program with the Minister of Youth here in Bahrain. With Shaikh Nasser, Who's a very famous, He's the king's son. And he's a very famous sportsman. He does, he just won the Ironman in 2016. He was the world champion. He does endurance horseracing. So he's a, he's a, Someone the youth look up to here. And so he's doing all these programs. So we announced a partnership, That we are the first group doing the internship with this youth program. And so we're very excited. We're going to start that small and scale it, but we want to get these young people quickly and kind of get them excited. But here, what they focus on. It is an under-represented community, so it fits so nicely in with what we're doing with wePARtech. So you have both, all of our training, our over 400 online courses that we offer with AWS educate academy. Now our degree, Now our internship program and wePARtech. So John we're just getting going, I'm not saying that this is all we'll offer, but these are the things we're getting going with and we need to make sure we also tailor things like this Ministry of Youth program and Sports. To the region in terms of what are their local needs and we'll make sure we're always looking at that. And the internships should get them some great experience. Yes. So they can earn and feel good about themselves. This is kind of a key, Exactly. Local thing, not just getting an internship. And it's, I think locally, it will be about teaching them to do that disagree and commit, really have that backbone to build that company and ask all those hard questions. So we're really going to try to indoctrinate them into the Amazon AWS culture, so we can help them be entrepreneurs like we are every day. And you got the data center here, you got the data center, got the regions, up and running. And its architected perfectly so it's up and running with people in it. Yeah. Are you going to staff that with local talent, or is it going to be Amazonians coming in? What's the make up of staff going to be? What's the strategy? We. I mean our goal is to hire as many local talent. Everywhere we go around the world, we want to get local talent. Because you can't. You know. If we, first of all, we don't have enough people at. In our headquarters to bring folks in here, so we really have to train and educate. But locally we have an office open here in Bahrain. We have office open in Dubai, and one now in Saudi. And that is local talent. I mean we are trying to use as much local talent and we'll continue to create that. And that's kind of the point, John I was talking about, the degree working backwards from what the employer needs. We want to give input, because we think we also are a good employer. Yeah, you got openings. Yeah, so we need to get the talent, but we need those other individual employers that keep telling us we need more Cloud skills, to give that input. But yeah, we're excited. Yeah, you go to the Universities. You get them a degree. Migrate them into the job market. That's right. Quickly And they do, educate has been doing great. Learned a lot. Yeah This is a whole opportunity for people who want to make money. Yes Get a job, it just, Amazon Web Services. It's a place, you could either work for us, work for someone now, even the government has lots of openings. We hire a stage make-up person tomorrow. If we had one. Yeah. But the point of being a builder, what we're seeing more of John. Are these companies and government entities are building their talent internally, they're not outsourcing everything anymore. And the whole culture of being a builder, not just outsourcing all that, and that's what AWS really helps all these entities do. Is move quicker by having kind of, some in house talent and not outsourcing everything to slow you down. But really do that in house. The bank ABC pointed that out beautifully, and his point was, hey I'm all in on AWS. We have domain expertise, we have data, that's our emotional property. And we're going to use that and be competitive and partner in success. Yes. It's the new model, it's the new upward model. Right, it is. And that IP stays in house with that company or entity or government organization. It was so fun for me today, to hear Shaiks Oman from IGA talk about the government as moving fast. And I think that's and example of they really are. They figured out Cloud helps them just go a lot faster and save money with security. Well, I'm glad you brought that up. I know we've got a short time here, But I want one last point in. We've been talking a lot about modernization of government, your success with the CIA in the United States GDI contract still under consideration. Yep All this going on, You're experiencing, Bahrain, which is an unbelievable Yeah. Fast moving government. They kind of get it. The United States, some places, gets it. This is really about focusing in on the workloads. What have you learned as you've been engaging these modernization efforts Yeah with the governments? Some are slow. Some have political ramifications. Yeah All kinds of, you know, no one wants to lose. The old guard will hold on to the deals. Right. We've seen that in the news. But it's coming fast. What are you learning? What are your take aways? Well, it's leadership. I mean at the end of the day, all these things are driven by very strong leaders. And even you can see everybody today on stage it is leaders that make a decision that they want to move faster and they want to modernize but have the capabilities. No matter if you're the US department of defense US health and human resources, National health service in the Uk. Or IGA here in Bahrain. The governments or enterprises that we work with around the world. The key is leadership. And if there's that leader that is really strong, and says, we're moving. Then you actually see organizations move a lot faster. If you see people kind of waffling, or I'm not sure, you know that's when you kind of see the slowness. But what I will tell you is from the early days of starting the early days of starting the business in 2010. The individuals that always moved fastest, were the mission owners. Because the mission owners, of whatever the business was at a governmental level or enterprise, they said we need to keep our mission going. Yeah So that's the reason they wanted to walk through this transformation. And now I think with developers coming in you're starting to see these employees for these companies saying, no, no, what's the reason we can't go faster? That's right. Because there's now a ground swell of pressure you're seeing in both government, public sector, and commercial. And you saw Mark Rawland today on stage talking about security. It is literally a day zero thing for us. And the reason a lot of our customers are moving faster now is because of security. Cloud is more secure and they're moving to the Cloud for security. Because they feel like they can both optimize, move faster for workloads. And now they have security. Better. Faster. Cheaper. Security by design. Teresa, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming by, Thank you John. And spending time. Thank you for coming to Bahrain, Thank you so much! Hey we're going global with you guys, just seeing the global expansion. 22, 22nd region, 69 availability zones. Nine more coming, More regions, more. Amazing. I mean, you guys are doing great. Congratulations. - Thank you. That's theCube, we are here in Bahrain for more coverage, global coverage of theCube with Teresa Carlson, Vice President of World-Wide Public Sector. She's running the show, doing a great job over here. More after this short break. 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