 Hey, everyone, welcome to theCUBE's coverage of the International Women's Showcase for 2022. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. I'm really excited because for the first time in my CUBE career of six years, I have a father, daughter duo, maybe the first time in CUBE's history, Frank and Emma are Rigo from AWS doing me. Guys, it's great to have you on the program. Great to be here. Thank you. So Emma, let's go ahead and start with you. Talk to us about how you got to AWS and a little bit about your background. Yes, thanks, Lisa. So I've joined AWS as a recent graduate from university. So I did my master's of data science and I was going through the grad job hunt applying for all these different places. And AWS appeared on my radar for an intern program and Frank was there at the time. And so I was like, should I do it? But I still applied because it was a great program. And so I did that internship for three months over the summer of 2019, 2020. And then I went back and finished my degree. And another grad role came up in AWS in TechU to be an Associate Solutions Architect. And so I was approached to apply for that. And I got through to that program and joined the team almost a year ago in March, 2021 through TechU. And yeah, that's how I ended up at AWS. Excellent. And so Frank, this is a pretty unique situation. Father, daughter duo at AWS, little on Amazon, little on probably a lot of companies. Talk to me about it from the parental lens. Yeah, look, it is unique. There's a few family connections within AWS but definitely here in Australia, it's really rare. But I think the family connection is, Emma and I've got four kids I've got four kids in total, so Emma has three brothers. I've lived in tech my entire career. And so they've been part of it. We've lived in the States, lived in Seattle for a couple of years. And so they come to the office and see what dad did. And so it wasn't a big surprise for them to understand what the role was and what we did. So they kind of grew up with it. And when the opportunity came up for Emma to do the internship, I was excited for it because it was in a different area. I was working in a startup team, doing some interesting work that really lined up with some of the interest Emma had. And so she kind of learned what it was like to be Amazonian through that internship. And that was, I called that a long audition for a job and she was then able to join TechU program which is a early career bootcamp. I like to think of it, which the six month program to help our grads learn some of the fundamental skills because the value of a solutions architect or some of these other tech roles is you need experience. You need to have been in the game a while to be a trusted advisor to a customer. And it's hard to do that when you're a grad. So the bootcamp gives them the practical experience and then they get another six months on the job experience where they develop those skills and hone it and get ready to be a trusted advisor to the customers. Right, and that's such a great, I'm sure that's a tremendous opportunity to learn how to become that trusted advisor, especially from peers such as yourself. And I want to go back to you, talk to me about your interest in IT and data science. Was this something that you were always interested in as a in primary school or in high school or was this something that kind of came on later on? It's my interest in tech kind of emerged as I went along in my education. So when I was younger, I really wanted to be an orthodontist for some reason. I don't know why. And then you just sort of in year eight and like early high school, sort of didn't really know what I wanted to do. Just sort of going through, just trying to survive as a teenage girl at high school and an all-girls school. Didn't really have many, didn't really have career aspirations, I guess. But I, and then one year, I attended a information day at a university about engineering. And that just really sparked my interest. I don't know why, but I was like I've always been obsessed with like factories and those types of things and how things are made. And so that really just sparked my interest and I never really thought of it before. And so then that put STEM engineering on my radar. And then I guess I spoke with it about with the parents. And then they mentioned that tech would be like, IT information technology would be really useful. And so then we approached the school to ask if I could do IT in year 11. So that's sort of our second last year of high school. And they said, no, we couldn't do IT. I couldn't go to the boys' school to do IT. That girls don't do IT or that not good at it. And I was another, and they wouldn't let me do physics either. So I moved school for the final two years of high school to be able to do IT and physics to help get to the course I wanted to do. And so that was my journey into STEM. So it wasn't really on my radar, but then events like this and at universities and at organizations sparked my interest. And then still when I entered university, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to major in or where I wanted to work, would never have thought it would be where, with my father. Like I was aware of the world of IT and everything, but I wouldn't, if you'd asked me in first year, it wouldn't have been that. I would have said, I don't know, an academic or something, I don't know. And then, but again, as the university went on you got 10 networking events or club things. You sort of learn a bit more about the ecosystem and then that's where tech companies sort of became where I was looking for jobs and roles for when I finished up. So that was kind of my journey too. So I love though that you, and Frank, this is gonna be a question for you, how Emma was told, no, you can't study IT. No, you can't study physics. You can't go to the boys' school and do that either. Talk to me about that, Frank, from your perspective as a parent of a daughter. And you said, I think she's got three brothers. Lucky Emma. But talk to me about that from your perspective in terms of going, my daughter has really, has a strong interest in this. And they're telling her, no, we're gonna pivot and actually change schools to be able to give her the opportunities that she wants to pursue. Yeah, as a parent, we were shocked. It was just an unexpected response. In a lot of ways, the school that she was at was more of a finishing school than anything else. Preparing young ladies for marriage and career as a, I don't know, I believe it at that. So we were really disappointed. And so very quickly, we looked at other alternatives and other options and we pulled Emma out of school. And we knew it was like the last two years are critical in Australia. We don't have a middle school and a senior school. It's all one, you know, combined thing. But those last two years are all about getting ready for university. And so we made a really tough call and we picked her up, dropped her into a totally new school. It was co-ed school. And then when we told her previous, you know, her girl school, I actually spoke to the vice principal and he said, oh, I can't believe you're sending her to a co-ed school. She's gonna struggle because boys are so much better than tech. And I was totally, you know, flat, you know, I was lost for words, right? Because I felt back in my career and I had some amazing female managers, leaders, role models in my time that, you know, that I worked for and I followed. And, you know, they were always struggling because, you know, they were in the minority but they were incredible, you know, technologists and leaders. And I just couldn't believe it. So as parents, you know, we made the tough call we picked Emma up, we put her into another high school and she flourished. You know, Emma started a club, she got convolved with a whole bunch of other things. When she graduated, the teachers felt that she'd been there six years, right? You know, it's the whole time of it. So she really made a mark and made an impact at this at the school and so much so that her younger brother then followed and went to that school and completed his high school there as well. But it's, we just can't believe it. And we tell everyone this story. You know, we named the school, we won't name, we'll choose not to name them here, but we named the school because we just think it's really terrible guidance and terrible advice. You know, like we want people to follow their passion. I tell my kids and I tell the folks when I speak to, you know, early career folks, follow your passion first. Guess what, the job will appear, right? You know, there'll be the work will come if you do something that you love. And then the second piece that I always say is every future job is going to be a tech job. Technology is embedded in everything that we do. So the fact that you say a girl can't do technology, you're limiting yourselves, right? You don't want to think that, you want to think about the possibilities rather than the things you can't do. It's the things you can do. And the things that you haven't even thought about doing. So that's why, you know, it was so exciting to see that experience with Emma and just seeing her grow through that. And, you know, she become a bit of a STEM advocate at the university, at a high school as well. So she saw the value of her role model that helped her and she wants to continue being a role model for others as well, which again, I think is admirable, right? It's about shining a light and leading. And as a parent, irrespective of that we work the same company as a parent, that's what you want to see. You want to see your kids aim high and inspire others. And, you know, that's what she does. Well, she's already been a role model to you. Gary, I mean, to your younger brother. Yeah, totally. One of the things that we say often and theCUBE does a lot for women in technology events and I'm fortunate to get to host a lot of that is we say, you can't be what you can't see. So needing to have those role models who are visible. Now it doesn't have to be female necessarily. And Frankie mentioned that you have female mentors and role models in your illustrious career. But the important point is being able to elevate women into positions where others can see and can identify, oh, there's a role model. There's somebody that might be a mentor for me or a sponsor down the road. That's, it's critically important. And as of course we look at the numbers in tech, women in technical roles are still quite low. But, Emma, tell me a little bit about, you've been to the program, you talked about that. What are some of the things that you feel in like the last six months that you've been able to learn that had you not had this opportunity, maybe you wouldn't have. You know, I think that's a great point. As a solutions architect, I get to be both technical. So hands-on building in AWS, helping customers solve their problems. Whether it be a data lake or an image recognition tool to look for garbage dumped on the street or, and also thinking from the business perspective for the customers. So that's a fun part of the role. But things I get to do. So currently I'm working on a demo for the conference in Sydney. So I'm building a traffic detection model using some computer vision and IoT. So I get to bring my data science background to this build and also learn about new areas like IoT, internet of things, technologies. So that's been a really fun project. And yeah, just having the ability to play around on AWS. Right. Well, the exposure and the experiences is priceless. You can't put a price on that, but being able to get into the environment, learn it from a technical perspective, learn it from a practical perspective. And then of course get all the great things about getting to interact with customers and learning how different industries work. You mentioned you were in public sector. That just must be a field of dreams, I would imagine in some senses for you, right? Really have lucked out. I know it's, I'm like, wow, this is my job. My job is to play around with some new service just because I need to know about the customer meeting. Like I'm building a chat book for helping build a chat book for a customer university. So yeah, things like that make it very, yeah, it's a pretty amazing role. So it sure sounds like it. It sounds like you're excelling at it tremendously. Let me ask you, Emma, for young girls who might be in a similar situation to where you were not that long ago with the school telling you, no, you can't do IT. No, you can't do physics. So you actually switched schools. What would you tell those young girls who might be in that situation about hearing the word no? And how would you advise them to embrace a career in technology? Yeah, I would say that it really like just, like what makes me so sad is if I had, my family didn't know about tech and had my support of me through that. Like if I would have just gone, oh, okay, I won't do it. You know what I mean? Like that just makes me really sad in how many people have missed out on studying what they wanted to study. So by having those types of experiences. So what I would say as advice is back yourself, find supporters, whether it be your family or a teacher that you really sort of connect with to be able to support you through these decisions. And yeah, I think having those sponsors in a way, the advocates to help you make those choices and help support you through those choices. Yeah, I agree. And I have a feeling you're gonna be one of those sponsors and mentors. If you aren't already Emma, I have a feeling that's just around the corner for me. So Frank, last question to you. What's the overall lesson here? If we look at statistics, I mentioned some of the stats about women in technical roles is usually less than 25% globally. But also we see data that shows that companies are more profitable and more performant when there's at least 30% of the executive suite it's women. So from your parental perspective and from an Amazonian perspective, Frank, what's the lesson here? Well, look, from an Amazonian perspective, we need to make sure that we have a team that represents our customers, right? And our customers aren't all boys. They're not all blokes, as we say down here. So you've got to have a team that is made up of what represents your customers. So I think that's the Amazonian view. And so diverse perspectives, diverse experience, diverse backgrounds is what does that. The other, from a parent, I said it earlier, I think every future job is a tech job. And I think it's really important that as kids come through primary school, high school, whatever, they're prepared for that. They're already consumers of technology. They need to be creators or participate in that environment. And I can give you an example. A few years ago, I worked at a large telco here and we actually invested in a thing called Code Club which was aimed at primary school kids, kids in grade four, five, and six. So elementary school for my friends in America. It's kids in grade four, five, and six. And they were learning how to use scratch. Scratch is this interactive tool, it's like building Lego to write programming. And believe it or not, there were more girls interested and were part of Code Club. It was probably 60-40 was the ratio of young girls doing it compared to boys because it was a creative outlet. They were building stuff and assembling and making these things that they loved to make. But then what we saw was there'd be a drop-off at high school, whether it's curriculum related or interests or distractions. I don't know what it is, but things get lost along the way along high school. But I see it at the primary school stage, elementary school, that the interest is there. So I think part of it is, there needs to be a bit of a switch-up in education or other opportunities outside of school to really foster and nurture and develop this interest because it really does take all kinds to be successful in the role. And Emma talked about a chatbot that she's building, and that's a conversational thing. I can't see geek boys having, being able to impact and create a interesting conversation, right? Then there's other areas that seems to be skewed and biased based on a predominantly male view of the world. So the industry needs these diverse perspectives and these diverse views because to your point, it's gonna impact the bottom line. It's gonna also deliver a better product and it's gonna reflect society, it's gonna reflect the customers that are using it because we're made up of every race and color, creed, gender, and we need a team that represents that. Exactly, I couldn't agree more about it. Sounds like the Arrego family are quite the supporters of this, but also we need more of both of you. We need more of the sponsors and the parents who are encouraging the kids and making the right decisions to help them get along that path. And we need more folks like Emma and more women that we can see. Wow, look what she's doing in such a short time period. We wanna be just like that. So you guys have both been fantastic. I thank you so much for joining me at the International Women Showcase. More power to your family. We need more folks like you guys. So great work, keep it up. Thank you. Thanks Lisa. For Frank and Emma Arrego, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of International Women Showcase 2022.