 Hey, this is Christian Buckley with another MVP Buzz Chat and I'm here talking with with Oscar. Hey, how's it going? Good. Hi, Chris. How are you? So people that don't know you, who you are, where you are, what you do, why don't you give us your background? Who are you? Absolutely. First of all, I'll give you my background and where I'm at. That's in Tewa, Guatemala. So that's an old city, it's a 500 year old city. We're located in Guatemala in Central America. And we got two cities. We got Guatemala City, which is a capital. That's where I'm at. And that's where I'm based out. And then Tewa, Guatemala, which is our iconic, and that's why I use it there, iconic sites. Yeah, a little bit of my background, I guess, Chris, if you if you want me to share a little bit there. Yeah, please. So I've been in technology for a long, long time. Kind of like give you a more of my background comes to my mother, really. You know that back in the 70s, being a woman, leading technology or leading, you know, any, any corporations or companies or enterprise within, I would say, Mexico down to all Latin America, to be honest, and everybody can tell about that. So I'm not, I don't seem to be discriminated about anything. It was a tough, it was a tough world, especially for a woman, right? She was 23rd at the time when she has me. She had me and that was 72, and then at 73, she was the first really outsourcer back then. She really started to do outsourcing and manufacturing and whatnot. Back in 79, 80, she get involved on actually doing an assembly line for quartz watches. I don't even remember those. Yeah, of course. That was, that was quite, you know, it's like, at that time, it was like the Apple watch of today's, right? It's like the band, the Microsoft band of today's. It was, it was really, really the thing. And she assembled some of the parts of the Atari back then, so the fact that she wanted to have more impact into the, into the world of technology. So since there, you know, my Atari back then was made in Guatemala. Unfortunately, you never know how the future will turn out. And so how we give that away as a charity or something, right? But she stayed for there for quite some time, and she's been in ourselves for quite some time. Then back in the 90s, she, she got back to, you know, manufacturing of clothing, but she was also interested in technology. So I started to work with technology as well with them. On 87, I started, I think it was come over 65, 64 at that time that I worked with it a little bit really. And my constant, she used to have, she's a software engineer, and she lives in the UK, but she introduced me to technology in that way, you know, the code and the thing, the, the, the boats and boats and needs of the things there. And so it was, it was kind of cool, right? You know, you'd be having there in the dungeon and what money was very, very fun. So my mother really back in the 90s, she started, you know, backing into the clothing and she was very interested in technology. So I was parked with her on their enterprise. She was doing, but she really injected technology. So far to the fact that on 95, we were the 42nd internet user in our community, which was no internet whatsoever in Central America. We're talking right now, 25 years, 25 years back then we also put our first, I would say dedicated line, a clear channel, 32k, it was nothing, but a little bit gets on email. And so after we did that, I really, you know, we started to use technology like scanning and getting documents to us. We save a lot of money doing that's right in the DHL, traditional DHL, things moving out there. As things were progressing back in 2007, I was like a little bit tired of it. That was because Guatemala really wasn't for me at the time. I was like, you know, not Guatemala, but the environment. But then back then, actually, a Utah company came to Guatemala. It was ACS, a affiliated computer services. And it was the first information technology out here at the time. I was the lead there. I was, I caught myself a salary there because I did see the quality of engineers that we have, but they didn't see, you know, the overall appreciation from them at the time from the managers where they see, you know, just the programmer and the code is right there, but ACS was different. So I decided to move with a less salary back there with intention really to gather all this talent. And we proved to the world to a fact that in computer world, back in 2007, 2008, they were saying that affiliated computer services was delivering IT from Guatemala. And that was my impressions back there. Then, yeah, it was, it was an amazing feeling. Then Cerox bought us, which is one of the biggest thoughts in the United States or acquisitions in the United States back then. And I was part of the, of those services. By 2000, I will say 2012, around there were about 200 people, which was a lot of engineers. And then we, we move into a, you know, a larger model. I was in operation of a hundred people. And the good thing about it is the objective of all this, well, I'm sure, and this is not because of me. It's because I can tell you that, you know, we put our hands and everybody's like, what do you do besides that? We got a lot of platforms nowadays because people came from, from these companies, but also we get great talent. And, you know, this is what we are. And it's, what are the finest targets of, or I will say the niche or laser focused targets that you need to have out there now in technology worlds? Where do I find the talent? Right? And what about has been, I wouldn't be able to actually go out there to the United States to sell, you know, we get talent here if I don't have it, because you have to have the quality. So back in 2016, we become the exporter of the year because of, you know, things that we couldn't do it. I was leading that. So I became the exporter of the year, not the national exporter, I get second. And the reason for it is because I couldn't show my operations due to restrictions. We are very, very abided by the law. And there were restrictions on the contracts and we couldn't show any of the operations. So we had to kind of tweak it what we did and really couldn't sell that much. So we did that. And then, of course, this was international money. And then I'm moving to, you know, as a CTO, as Ally Global, and where I'm right now working. And what we do here is we're supporting technology to anywhere. We're about to open in the UK, we got Philippines, we serve the United States as it is right now. And with that, you know, one of the things that I've been participated as well is in education. And I want to take this opportunity to share a little bit about this, Chris, because I think it's important. Education has not been the place where it's been sexy because you don't get revenue, right? Where the sexy is the revenue sometimes. But I do participate with it because why I think is the future of technology is that we as technocrats are engineers, we spend the time at least a little bit to transfer those 25 years in my experience that I have to the new generations of IT. So we don't get, you know, four steps back, but actually four steps forward. And we participate that because the sourcing for me is super important. So I participated all universities with Ally Global, where I teach in all of them, by the way. And also, I've been, you know, as a Microsoft Regional Director, which has been, and I think you have seen that this more than a name really, because it really opens, you know, the kind of conference that we have with you, this talk with you, the talk with other RDS, and with other, you know, members, and the international presence that we have, it really is strategic. And with that, I always been able to participate in almost every single association that talks technology here. Currently, I'm president of the technology committee of the American Chamber of Commerce. I also participate in the National Alumni Management Association in the digital part, I'm the leader of that. I was president of the Software Export Association with IExport, where I was the export of the year. And I have been participated as well with, you know, the service association, basically everything that has to do with the money has been there. And it's a great feeling, because having this channel with guys like you, we can freely talk about this, it gives me, it gives me the opportunity to actually show my country, where we not only have the talent just, you know, begging for, for jobs sometimes, because life is life. So it's nothing wrong with saying, if I have a need, I'm raising my hand, dude, I'm going to do something because I need to be, you know, I need to feed my family. That's very honorable. And I respect that very much. But we're in the next step, which I'm very happy about it. We're in the step where it's an honor of finding Guatemala in a way that we have a network of engineers that are really delivering, right? We got Telus International, we got Xerox, we get, of course, us, we are delivering. We are in the next level. We are, we are high tech, which is a very exciting moment in life for me and for our country, because not only I can share this with you here, but it gives me aspects from the political perspective, from the, you know, just technology perspective and revenue, but also the educational part of it, which is a great feeling when you're working with young people, because they bring that, that life into you. And that life can be brought up into other places. So you know, it's something that's been discussed in political discussions, you know, it seems like it's, you know, the four year, the presidential cycle where the topic comes up. But I noticed that the last two presidential elections here in the US, the whole discussion point of, of like these, of these work zones, again, the southern border of the United States, but working with Central America and South America and, and, you know, not just Mexico sharing the border, but setting up this, this opportunity zone, this area where, you know, to improve the commerce, to improve the, especially in the, in the technology and manufacturing sectors, the flow of goods and commerce with the US and Canada and Central and South America. And then it just seems to, that topic, that discussion just seems to go away. And I don't know, you know, what's changed at all. It just, and, and I look, admittedly, I'm naive on a lot of the political discussions that are happening with, with Guatemala, certainly, but with Central and South America on this, this topic, but, you know, rather than sending business halfway around the world and to, you know, the opposite time zone as we do with China and even India and, and these other locations. And why couldn't we, you know, work out and, and set up, help some of these regions that may not have the infrastructure? Like I don't know what the infrastructure is like in Guatemala, like, you know, to be able to set up factories or to, to set up and have, you know, the travel, you know, in the same way and what those costs would look like. It's not just about, you know, having a high tech facility and good internet connectivity. It's all of the other supporting, you know, secondary tertiary support that all of the other companies around that. But it seems like that would be a good long-term investment, certainly from a U.S. perspective, to, but to strengthen, strengthen the infrastructure of some of these areas and have more business that is an hour or two difference of a time zone away for the U.S. rather than, you know, 10 to 12 hours away. And I'm telling you on that, in our regards, several things there. First of all, we are, our partner is the United States. We are bonding to the United States, which is great because, you know, you feel like you're at home. What you, what you want to do is that they don't have to leave home here because they can serve the U.S. from here, which is a benefit for everyone. In terms of the time zone, you know, we have our folks working in the Eastern or Western. So there is folks that works here at 6 a.m. in the morning. There's like, why are you going to be here so early? Well, when you chime in and put them in the equation, the time that it takes you to get to work, and now with the COVID, which we went completely remote, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about that, how do we are distributed with technology. Yuke Atos, people who says, you know what, I work, wake up at 5.15, which you still have to do it when I've got to go at 8 a.m. in the morning. And then I take, you know, my breakfast and whatever, 6 a.m. online. And the connectivity is good because we had, we moved within two weeks. All the operation when everybody was declared a pandemic and we had to distribute it due to restrictions and lockdown, we were still full operationable. And that's online global. That was, I was, we had a case study about this. I can share that with you. Suddenly I will do where we get everybody sent out. Technology, call center, everything that we do. Immediately. We couldn't do that. We don't have the infrastructure to actually do it. And it tells us the technology from the technology folks, like 6 a.m. It's really great. They beat up the traffic. They're going to be fresh. And at 3 p.m. they can leave home, right, or they leave your other office, which is their home without traveling. And everybody's happy because the folks in the U.S., right, technologies in the U.S., leading engineers, software architects, they pick up the phone and the engineers write they're fresh, right, which is a huge difference. I've been working, you know, with the different difficult time zones. And there is, we got the best coffee in the world, but I'm telling you something. There is not enough coffee at 4 a.m. in the morning to keep you awake. It's too difficult. I've been trying to, so that it's way too difficult. So that's in the West side, right, when you get at 10 a.m. in the morning and leave at 7, you can go to a workout. You beat up the 9 o'clock or I would say 8 o'clock traffic, and then you beat up the 6 o'clock traffic, which is a win-win situation for everyone. So it's been a great journey, honestly. And I think, you know, as we make more of a technology and discover what I'm all in that matter, which I can share a lot of that with you, is that we get not only in the central, everybody will say, well, all the engineers are right there in the capital. Well, guess not. We get engineers that actually work in different areas because as long as they have a thread that they can go there and connect to the internet, that's good with me. Hey, one thing I'm going to ask you. So I know that there's been, as you're probably aware, you know, on the RD threads, there's been a lot of discussions since we just had the, you know, it's a two-year term for RD. So I just got renewed. Were you on this renewal? Yes, I was. So what's typical now, and I saw this two years ago, is all the new RDs that are coming in, there's, I don't know what the total number is. It was like 175 cycle. And so there were still under 200 right around there. And it's very different than the MVP program. But there's been a lot of emails for the benefit of those that are new of, you know, what it means to be an RD. I'd love to hear your perspective and what it means to be an RD and how you've been able to leverage that status with Microsoft and doors that it's opened. I don't know, tell me kind of your reflections on the program. Absolutely. I think the name original, the red term means a lot. But what I feel about it is that is, is really we're a global ambassadors of the strategic thinking of technology. That's, that's how I feel about it. Because really the level of discussions that we get into that, and the, you know, the well thought, you don't, you don't just reply, just to be heard. You reply because there is meaning into what you reply. And the rest of the folks do this as well. So when you, when you have that one, what it means is that intercultural and strategic thinking, you know, across is just given completely another view and provides more what's value in terms of how do we use technology for the better, for the better good for all the world. I think it froze you for a second there. Oh, there we go. So I've had two experiences where I've reached out and I've kind of leveraged the RD status. And I had, so both of these times, the executives who responded and said, you know, the fact there was an RD asking for this help and asking this question, it says, you know, cut through the clutter. And it was great to hear that, that the both executives, you know, very specifically said, like, basically, I took your phone call because you're an RD. And yes, this was very important. And then they participated in those activities. It was, it's great to, to have that, that kind of access. And in both cases was able to do something for the community and get a kind of a higher profile of Microsoft's involvement. You know, it was, it wasn't just like, hey, somebody from the community coming and saying, hey, Microsoft, come and sponsor something, you know, send some funds or some swag our way for, for an event. Now, this was much more strategic, like in my region, although I agree with the regional director has nothing to do with the physical geography of region, you know, per say. But I was able to highlight to bring to Microsoft's attention the need for building the Microsoft brand within a specific region. And, and they were responded. And so that has been, you know, that having that level of access and having that, that response is been incredible. Have you been able to see any of that, like specifically talking about, you know, Guatemala in the business that you're trying to do? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because when, when you out there, right, they're, they're, there, there's a brand of respect and they, you know, how do, how do Microsoft can help us? And you can, you can really, you know, cover that bridge and you, you meet those friendly meets, you know what I mean? That's where you connect those, those, those, those cables. And you can see and provide by directional information about products and, and all that it feels and, you know, it's, it's really a communication channel and ambassadors, as I said, where you get both ways and it's very, very valuable. I couldn't enjoy it anymore, to be honest with you, executive levels, even, you know, I've been working with the major of the city is just, it's just, it's just different. And you can't provide value to them as well. They can provide value to you so you can bring it up, you know, to the next level of technology. Yeah, no, exactly. And there's, so there's maybe this is the last question I'll let you expand on this one. But so I like in your profile, your, your RD profile, this is like the, the, the definite renaissance man definition, you said father, husband, tennis player, carpenter, and opera singer. It's like too much into the mix there, right? I like that combo. You know, you have to tell me about it. Well, first, what kind of carpentry? Like, what's your area of expertise? I will say intermediate to advanced sword speaking, because I just, I cited the pictures, I just finished up the big TV set, where I got the fridge there, you know, for cooler. And, you know, where you did your, your, your game, that the Xbox and whatnot, then your pictures, major, the bedroom for my kids. So I will say intermediate to advanced. And then as far as the opera singer background, like, is it, you know, a passion or opera singing, or did you find your, you find your way into opera? Might have, might have lost him. I think it's my connection. I'm sorry about that. So yeah, I will say advanced to, I was an intermediate to advanced. Excellent. I mean, did you, anything that you specifically enjoy building, like, like furniture versus, you know, general construction or? I do decks. Actually, my deck in the back there, I did it myself. So I got the fine, the fine with working as well as the rough one. Very nice. And then, and then how did you find your way into opera singing? All right. Yeah. So let me, so I decided to, I decided to get back when I was like 27, to my opera singing, and it turned out he was great. So I was able to be in public presentations three times already. It's difficult to get there. It's not an easy one. And, and like three recitals, so when I did it myself, couple were public. So it was pretty cool. Oh, wow. Well, so Oscar, I know we're at the top of the hour here, but if people want to get in touch with you, find out more about you, what are the best ways to reach you? LinkedIn will be great. You know, you get, you can find me on LinkedIn. If you think, if you look for Oscar dot Garcia, Oscar Garcia column there at the internet, you will find me there, right? But also you can have me at my Twitter account, which is at ALM Latam. Excellent. Well, thanks so much for your time today. And sorry, we had a little bit of sound issues like towards the end, but the most of it was, came through great, but really appreciate your time. And hopefully we'll, I know that the MVP and RD summits are going to be digital again, but hopefully one of these days we'll be able to meet up in person and, and have another conversation. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. I miss you. Yes. But for sure. Yeah. I'm looking forward and then, you know, to have the personal experience because it's the networking is, is unfortunately shaking hands that nowadays looks like, you know, it's prohibited, but it's, it's just what brings, you know, brings humanity to, to a close. Yeah, really. Definitely. Well, thanks a lot for your time. We'll talk to you soon. Talk to you soon, Grace. I talk to you. Bye-bye.