(upbeat music)
>> Hello and welcome to theCUBE's presentation
of Women in Techs global event.
Celebrating International Women's Day.
I'm John Furrier your host of theCUBE here in
Palo Alto, California.
And we have a great remote guest coming in from
Bahrain in the Middle East.
Kawthar Al-Gallaf General Manager of 973 Labs.
Thanks for coming in and and being part of theCUBE,
our International Women's Day.
You can't get any more international in Bahrain.
Thank you for coming on.
>> It's my great pleasure and honor to be here, John.
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
>> Well, I'm super excited to chat with you
because in our two visits with theCUBE in Bahrain
for covering this AWS Summit there in the past few years
we noticed a surge in entrepreneurship.
It's almost as if the region of AWS
has created this revitalization and energy and vitality
and momentum around entrepreneurship.
Can you share what's the scene down there?
What's it like?
>> Well, when it come to my country
we are lucky to have a small population.
It's not that large.
But we have so many creative people
who's eager to try the entrepreneurial journey
and having Amazon as a data center in Bahrain is a privilege
and they are pushing to have more entrepreneurials ideas
and innovation and solutions
within the ecosystem of Bahrain.
So definitely with their support,
I can see that so many youth they are eager
to come in and contribute.
>> I noticed that you are also the general manager
of 973 Labs but also the founder of a company.
So you got two things going on here.
You got the entrepreneurial thing happening.
This seems to be normal.
People got entrepreneurial activity and the job doing both.
They're both of entrepreneurial.
Is that normal?
>> Yes, absolutely.
Well, I started my entrepreneurial journey
back in four years,
and I've been appointed as a general manager of 973 Labs,
which is, I'm leading on digital innovation.
So that complements my passion of being an entrepreneur.
And why we can acquire talented people and support them
to create their own solutions the best way they can.
So basically following the main pillars
of the lab that I'm working on
which is conducting a proper research in data analytics,
innovation and sustainability.
So for my two founded companies, it's not only one.
I've worked in fintech and also in proptech as well.
>> What inspired you to be an entrepreneur in technology?
>> Well, I would say that my inspiration was
to think outside the box
and I see problems and gaps as an opportunity.
So that helps me to figure out and come up with solution
that can be beneficial for everyone.
So analyzing data as well
is something that I would really love
and also enhancing my skills
and being more creative is my inspiration.
>> I noticed there's a lot of entrepreneurial activity
in Bahrain, a lot of investors
are now coming into the market.
What are some of the things that are going on there?
Can you share what the entrepreneurial scene is like there?
What people are working on,
has cloud computing accelerated that?
What are some of the things happening there on the ground?
>> I would say that there is multiple competitions
or hackathons run by multiple financial institutions.
And also there are so many NGOs
as I am a board member in technology and business society,
and also a member of women empowerment in the field of tech.
We are trying to motivate and accelerate the desire to be
within this ecosystem of entrepreneurial journey.
So basically we have the Supreme Council for Women
who's pushing as well, women and ladies to be in this sector
from early age, from university
or even high school graduates,
that they should start on working on
their ideas and come up with solutions.
So you can see that everyone is up to being part
of the ecosystem by putting in their ideas.
>> Yeah. And the government wants to be digitally
completely transformed in by a certain date.
They're pushing it hard too.
>> Absolutely. Yes.
We have the governmental sector trying to migrate
from legacy infrastructure to the cloud, I would say.
And it's more efficient for the government
and also to private sector as well.
>> You know, one of the things that jumped out at me
when I was in Bahrain visiting was,
there was a breakfast for Women in Tech.
And I went there
'cause I always go to go to those breakfast
'cause I really want to see and meet people.
I had to get kicked out
because there wasn't enough table space
for all the people that were there
'cause I'm a guy, the spot for women it was sold out.
It was line waiting to get in.
So there's a huge interest of women in tech,
I saw that firsthand.
There are more and more people want to come in.
So motivating women to consider career in tech
is really the focus.
What steps do you see to make that happen?
How do we take that to the next level?
What's your view on motivating women to get into tech?
How would you talk about that?
>> Well, absolutely.
I think it's really crucial to have women contribution
within the field of tech.
But I believe there is some challenges
given our cultural norms
of how men perceive women working in the field of tech.
Sometimes the society burden women
from pursuing her passion to be in tech
'cause it's a demanding field.
I would say that it's equal to the medical field.
You have to keep on updating
and to be aware about what's going on.
So basically that might create a bit of a burden
for specifically married women
of looking after her husband or their families.
So I think this is one of the challenges.
But the steps to overcome those challenges
is by trying to shift and change the way
the society think about
where a woman should position herself
and what kind of job she should be in.
So I think the other thing
is by having educational curriculum
that be taught in schools.
Teaching both genders
about the importance of how we are equal
and how we can complement each other in that field
because the future is in technology
so young generations should understand this very well.
>> How is the women in entrepreneurship going?
Are they being financed?
Are there ventures out there?
What's the momentum and progress
on women starting ventures?
>> Yes, absolutely.
We are lucky to have our first lady, the wife of the king
who is heading the Supreme Council for Women.
Who is pushing women to create their own businesses
or to become an entrepreneur.
Also we have financings coming through the government
with an entity called Timken,
who provide different plans and support all through,
not financials only but it covers other areas
of businesses as well.
So financing is not a problem.
Again, for a woman as an entrepreneur
you can always seek multiple options for financing
not necessarily inside, it can be international as well.
>> So a lot of good capital there
also there's fellowship opportunities.
I noticed you were a Halcyon fellow.
You had a fellowship with the Halcyon organization.
Talk about that. That experience.
>> Well, I really loved the experience.
We started in Feb last year
and we flew to Washington in July.
And we've met with Amazon people who were really supportive.
We got solution architect supporting us of how to build
the solution that we want to deliver.
And I got my CTO to get trained by Amazon as well.
So we found so much value in the courses
and the mentorship they provided.
And I'm really glad to be part of that family.
And their CEO, she said, now and for a lifetime
you are a part of our family
and you know it's all the support that we needed to get.
>> It's a great community.
What advice would you give to people who are out there
who want to learn and get into cloud computing
and take that step towards creating value,
whether it's entrepreneurial or within a company.
What's the secret formula that you would say
or secrets to success?
>> Absolutely. I think a cloud is massive
and it's a brilliant opportunity
for any technology to be built on.
Myself, I believe in the cloud.
Most or all of my solutions is built on cloud.
And now even me leading the digital lab
and building infrastructure on cloud
and basically it will give you more room
to identify more gaps.
You do assessment, you can utilize the tools
that is within cloud, which is artificial intelligence
and machine learning.
You call it.
So you can seize the opportunity to the maximum
and you can scale faster.
So basically you're not limited to your country.
You can go across countries as well, utilizing cloud.
>> Kawthar talk about what's next for you.
What's the next step?
>> Well, the next step in my new role or new job,
leading on a digital innovation in 973 Labs
is to finalize strategy
and also to acquire talented young people
and go through a program which is that I designed,
where they get the mentorship, the support
till they get a final product that will be invested in
and they can guarantee themselves a career
within the digital lab that I'm trying to lead on.
And I think the projects that we'll be covering
not specifically only in fintech,
it could be in any other industry.
So we're trying to follow the recent trends.
Thanks to Amazon and Google
and the other companies that we can extract data
and create our own reporting.
So to come up where we should be investing our time.
>> That's great.
I want to ask you about the demographics
of the folks in Bahrain.
I noticed there are a lot of young entrepreneurs coming up.
And a lot of them.
Is that true?
>> Yes. And in our population, the majority are youth
and I would say the average age is in 30s until 35 or 36.
So relatively we have so many young people or youth
who's eager to learn but again we need the expertise.
We need older people to also mentor and coach
the young generation of how they should calculate their risk
and come up with a proper business modules
and brilliant ideas.
>> Well, I'm very impressed with the folks down there.
I said before the pandemic, unfortunately, the pandemic hit
but we really wanted to have a CUBE location there.
A lot of vitality, a lot of action,
a lot of good stuff going on,
certainly with the AWS region in there
it's really created a lot of value.
And so we're looking forward to hearing more.
And thanks for coming on and sharing your story with us.
And for the folks out there watching,
what advice would you give
to women who are watching around the world
around entrepreneurship
what's going on from your experience,
what should we be doing and talking about,
what's the story, obviously this theme is bias,
inherent bias in the culture.
What would you share as your thoughts on to the world?
>> Well, I think the only advice I can give
to all of the women out there,
just try something new, try to solve a problem.
There are so many gaps we have around us.
Just look around you,
just take one step forward and try it.
At least once in your life,
you can come up with a brilliant solution
that serves all humankind
not only the people of your country.
So even if the road is bumpy, just have the courage
be resilient and go for it.
>> And we're all connected on the internet.
So of course we can communicate with each other
and have a good time and grow the community.
Thanks so much Kawthar for coming on theCUBE
and celebrating International Women's Day with of us
as part of our special presentation.
Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.
>> Thank you, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much.
>> Okay. This is theCUBE's presentation
of Women in Techs global event,
celebrating International Women's Day.
I'm John Furrier your host of theCUBE.
Thanks for watching.
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