>> From Bahrain, it's theCUBE.
Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain.
Brought to you by Amazon Web Services.
>> Welcome back to The CUBE's coverage here in Bahrain,
in the Middle East for AWS's summit.
Wrapping up an event here
with the cloud computing shift that's happening.
Amazon Regions Live, lot of innovation in the area,
Middle East and Africa.
We're here with the head Executive of AWS
who manages the territory.
Zubin Chagpar, Head of Middle East Africa
for Public Sector, thanks for coming on.
Appreciate it.
>> Absolutely, John, thank you.
Thank you for having me here.
And thanks for being here, with your team,
learning about this story from the Middle East,
and of course all the way to North Africa
and Africa as well, too.
>> Well, it's been a lot of the work that you
and your team have done have been successful.
We're super-interested
because there's a big story developing here.
The Amazon Region, which was announced two years ago,
is available on day one, pun intended.
A lot of companies shipping their products on the cloud.
But it's also a cultural revolution
happening for a whole 'nother generation
that could change the landscape
of the Middle East culture.
IT technology, innovation, banking, entrepreneurship,
this is a grass-roots groundswell of change,
empowerment, self-esteem, moneymaking, banking.
I mean all of this stuff's going on.
You're in the middle of it.
>> Well, hey, we're proud to be part of it,
and we're proud to be partners
with many different organizations here as well.
I think it's actually coming from all different directions,
not just the groundswell.
But even the leadership, the leadership of the countries,
like in Bahrain, but also the other countries
in the Middle East and across the region.
What we're seeing is that these countries
are creating these vision plans,
and these vision plans are about
diversifying the economy, creating opportunity for youth,
creating opportunity for folks that are
diversifying from their economy
so then they're actually being displaced.
And where do you turn to?
So these countries are turning to technology.
And in Bahrain in particular,
they've set up programs
where they help to develop youth,
they help to develop citizens,
they can get free training on technology,
all they have to do is seize it, and take it.
And we've seen that uptick as well, too.
So we're seeing a lot of Bahrainians
just taking courses, getting trained, and then building.
And that's what you've witnessed today at our summit.
>> You know, innovation takes on many forms.
You've seen in every wave,
when the mobile wave, you saw our countries
that didn't have good infrastructures
stand up mobile infrastructure and be more connected
than some of the incumbent countries
that had connectivity last mile,
the United States. >> They're doing a leap,
the leap, is it?
>> The leap frog, right?
So this is happening here.
But the trend we're seeing is that
the old business school adage of
focus on your core competency,
and then it's okay to outsource stuff
that's not a core competency,
it's a trend we're seeing with cloud where
you guys are providing the infrastructure
for countries, not just businesses,
to focus on their core competency.
And it's making things go faster.
So speed is the table stakes.
So if it's slow, it's probably the old way.
What are some of the conversations around this,
because this seems to be the hottest topic.
From things I've seen in the United States
with CIA and Jedi that Theresa's been involved in,
to education, with Educate,
and now here, with the government,
modernizing with cloud first,
that's trickling throughout the entire country.
>> Well, I mean it's need.
And part of that is need.
So, in some of the countries in the region,
Bahrain included, they want to do spend controls.
They want to reduce their costs.
They want to get away from legacy.
They want to get away from licenses they're not using,
or hardware that's sitting on shelves.
So then they come, and they look at what we're doing,
and they're saying, well wait a second,
you're investing in the region,
you're making the infrastructure available.
I can build on top of that,
I can leverage open source, I can create.
I can make citizen services.
It's almost a no-brainer for them, too.
One of the biggest problems they have
is that they train people,
and then those folks go and they do startups,
or they go in to work for other businesses as well.
Which is fantastic, it's actually creating
that virtuitous cycle that we want to be part of as well.
So we're already starting to see that happening
in the past couple of years that we've been here.
And of course now we have the region launch,
which is only accelerating the journey.
>> Talk about the business, because you guys are active,
you're present, certainly with a region,
which we think is a revitalization, creates economic value.
That's something that we've been reporting on.
But it's more than that, it's not just Bahrain,
it's the whole region that you cover.
What's the business landscape like?
What are some of the deals you're doing?
What's the startups look like?
Can you talk about some of the landscape dynamics?
>> Absolutely.
So first of all, the startup ecosystem
is very, I was going to say robust,
but it's, to use the word that you used,
it's a groundswell right now.
We're seeing a lot of interest, a lot of activity,
a lot of folks getting in to it
and experimenting very quickly.
But it's not easy, as we know.
Doing a startup's not easy,
so that robust word will come with time.
We're seeing that more funding is going in to this space.
Now, it's still very anemic.
So in the Middle East, there's not enough funds
going in there, especially for the early stage.
We're seeing interest coming from outside
for the later stages,
we're talking about the KREEMs,
and we're talking about the KABBAGEs
and some of those companies.
But at the early stage, >> The ones that are
clearly validated growing like
a weed. >> Exactly,
the ones that have already earned market share.
But the ones that are starting right now,
they're finding their way.
So we do need more funding for experimentation.
Enter AWS, and we provide IS programs like Activate,
which is an early-stage startup program.
We work very closely with the VCs and the accelerators,
so they're leveraging that now too.
So we're starting to see that growth,
whether it's in Dubai, or Abu Dhabi,
or Riyadh, or Cairo, or here.
It's just starting to grow, which is great,
and we're seeing that interest.
And, some of that, should I go in to this field?
What would my mom say
if I'm an entrepreneur versus a doctor,
that's starting to sway now too,
where people are saying hey,
entrepreneurship's actually pretty cool.
>> It's a legitimate field (laughs).
>> It's a legitimate field now, believe it or not,
which is exciting that people are going in to it as well.
On the enterprise side,
SMEs all the way to large enterprises,
we're seeing that folks are saying, hey,
I can actually maybe even get new markets.
So if you look at Al Tayar Group,
which Al Tayar Travel Group,
which is out of Saudi Arabia,
they're using that to learn more about their customers,
come up with new solutions and new packages
that they can offer all using AI and ML,
which is incredible.
Or flydubai.
Flydubai, in Dubai, you probably guessed that,
they needed to stand up, very quickly,
an online booking system.
And they did it in four months, just leveraging cloud.
So they're getting that, they're getting that idea
that you can kick it off real quick,
get it running, and then launch it as well too.
And then the government.
So we're seeing governments across the region
saying hey, we've got to control our costs, first of all,
and we've got to make better citizen services.
We want to make sure that we improve the lives
of our citizens.
So being able to launch new services
in a short amount of time.
Today we heard about the IGA
working on a building permit system
that allows people to build quicker,
because they're able to get a permit
in days instead of months.
That's just an example we're seeing where speed matters.
To the point where we now have the government
challenging business in terms of moving quicker,
which is unheard of anywhere else in the world.
Which is super-exciting.
>> Not certainly in the United States,
that's for sure. I would like just to point out that,
from my standpoint, I heard this,
many VCs here, I've seen them in the hallways,
mix of VCs, entrepreneurs, business, global ISVs,
and new ISVs, the Amazon Partner Network's here,
AWS Partner Network.
So all the things are in place now.
What's missing, what do you see as to-do items?
Where do you think that you can raise the bar for AWS?
What do you see as to-do items for you?
What's your plan?
>> Got it.
To your point, I mean, all the ingredients are here.
So in terms of what's missing,
I don't think there's anything missing.
It's about putting the ingredients together
and baking that cake,
that's what we got to work on right now too.
So that's why we're doing a lot of activity
in the schools across the region.
Getting our program Educate and Academy,
which are two different programs.
One's broad, and one is very directed to the schools,
that is what we're helping to make sure
we get the next generation of learners.
We're working on items like cloud degrees,
so in four years you could actually have a degree
leveraging all the technologies that are enabled by cloud.
That's happened at the University of Bahrain
and we hope to get that in other schools.
But also just getting training out there,
just getting quick training.
So you learn, you learn 'em in modules
and you go and build something.
That's another area we need to spend more time.
And again, encouraging experimentation,
try some new things, get it out there,
see what the market says.
So in terms of what we could do more of at AWS,
it's continue to push that message,
continue developing the people out here,
so that they're building.
>> I got to ask you, you know you've been in Silicon valley,
you know that game.
For the folks living in Silicon Valley or in the U.S.,
what should they know about what's going on
in your territory out here that they may not know,
or maybe it was fleeting thought,
or something that's not being reported.
What should the people know about
what's going on in this region?
>> Absolutely, I think sometimes for many markets
that are outside of Silicon Valley, outside of the U.S.,
it's about copycat startups.
Which is fine, you can actually do quite well with that.
Usually the returns on that, when you go to an exit event,
is less than what you might see in the valley.
But again, there's a great triage opportunity
so you want to bring the funds here.
But I do see now a change
where folks are building original technologies as well too.
And I think we're going to see more of the multiples,
tens or twenty time multiples out here in the region
which would be wonderful.
We saw a company today, Unifonic,
which is from Saudi Arabia,
that is building a telecommunications
and contact and voice type of services.
That's going to be huge, if they get this right,
and they think they will,
'cause they got a really scrappy and hungry team,
that's one of those companies
that actually could start getting people to notice
the Middle East is a place for original innovation.
>> Awesome.
Anything else on your to-do list for next year?
Give a quick plug for your group.
You guys hiring?
Obviously the region here, you got to fill staff here.
Obviously you got curriculum in the schools here.
What are you looking for?
>> Yeah, you covered all the big ones.
>> What's on your to-do list?
>> On to-do list is just continuing to develop my team.
We've got a wonderful team here,
a lot of people that are local to the region,
that we want to make sure that they're growing
and contributing as well too.
Our team mission is to do good and do well at the same time.
I think they go hand-in-hand.
So we want to do more around programs
that help develop communities.
There are refugee crises around the region,
we want to make sure we can help out over there.
Women in tech is a big area of focus for us,
how can we get more women in to technology
and leading in technology as well too.
I've got my team having a mandate
to get more solution architects
that are women as well too, we don't have one yet,
we have a lot of women on our team,
but we need more technical women too.
So that's another key focus area for us.
And then, just continue building.
Continue to help communities build solutions on the Cloud.
>> Zubin Chagpar here,
head of the territory here in the Middle East and Africa.
This is theCUBE's coverage of
AWS Summit in Bahrain, in the Middle East.
Signing off our second year,
we'll be back with more next year,
and you'll see us around in the territory.
Thanks for coming on.
Appreciate it. >> Thank you.
>> Thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)