 From Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. Hello, we are here at theCUBE in Bahrain, Middle East for Amazon Web Services Summit. Our second year, we're cloud computing and they're a region of a couple of availability zones are up and running. Big news with Amazon. We've got our next guest here, it's Cameron Mirza, head of strategy at the University of Bahrain. You guys, big news, announcing a degree, bachelor's degree in cloud computing. Yeah, certificate one year. This is going to rapidly put new talent on the market. Congratulations, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you so much, we're really excited by this announcement today. And what's exciting about it is that, first of all, it's the first cloud computing degree in the Middle East. And the other element to this is that the students from any background, any discipline, can get a really good understanding about cloud technology through the certification because the challenges we face in the region right now are we don't have enough skilled tech talent and we don't have enough skilled talent to fill the jobs that are available in the region. This is not just a regional thing as you know, this is a global issue. And universities have to adapt, be a bit more forward thinking, live in the future and we feel really optimistic with our partnership with Amazon today that we can actually fulfill the needs of public sector, employers, entrepreneurs, governments throughout the region and that's the exciting thing for us. I mean, let's just take, well take a minute to explain the two components. One's a four year degree, one's one year. Just give a little quick detail and I'll go into some questions. So the four year bachelor program is going to be delivered in a very different way than the traditional academic program. It's going to be heavily integrated with the needs of employers. So employers are going to be really involved in curriculum design. We'd like them to be part of the teaching faculty as well. The way that the program will be delivered will be very much in a kind of project based way. So it's about developing not just knowledge but the skills, competency, values, mindset required to be successful in the 21st century. That's the exciting thing about it. And of course, you know, looking at some of the detail behind the curriculum, you're looking at networking, security, machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data. So the fact that it's cloud-based is actually just a small component to what it opens up in terms of broader skill sets. I mean, one of the things that we always comment here in theCUBE is we cover Amazon's re-invent, their big annual conference. And the joke is, how many more announcements are going to make this year? Tsunami of new things coming. So certainly it's tough to keep up, many people say that, but for the young people in school, this is relevant stuff. This is like pathway to success, job, making some cash, making some money. That's what the purpose of education is. Well, I think there's a couple of, that's a great point. And the first thing is that education systems now need to live in the future. Living in a current or in many cases, the past is not acceptable. So it means taking some sort of calculated risk, but we're very clear in terms of the direction of travel in regard to technology and the future of jobs. The reality is today, that two thirds of the world's population already needs re-skilling. Those are the challenges we face today. Young people are purpose-driven, they know where jobs are going to be, they want to work for themselves. They understand far better than anyone else, the way the future is unraveling. Do they understand how relevant this is? I mean, that's pretty obvious, we're in the industry. We kind of obviously, you've been part of the plump. Are they getting that this is wave, this wave is not going to end for a while, this is going to be a great upward migration for opportunity, or is it still learning on the young kids part? I think sometimes in education, we do a disservice to young people. They're so well informed, they understand the market, the trends, the way that technology is shaping the future. And the reality is that what a student learns in year one of a university, 50% of that knowledge will be obsolete by the time they graduate. So the focus is not just around giving them a degree, this is also about re-skilling and upskilling people who have graduated, people in the workforce, so this is a far wider opportunity than just young people. Well, I tell you, one thing that gets my attention is that this reminds me of the 80s in computer science because I got a degree, I was a freshman in 1983. It's just at the beginning of the operating systems movement. Linux wasn't even around yet. Unix was just emerging on the scene. And it was interesting, what we learned as building blocks with operating systems ended up becoming obsolete in the sense that we don't have to use it anymore, but coding still happens. So this has had scale to it. With Amazon, you got, okay, EC2 and S3. Now you got, as you mentioned, machine learning. You got Lambda functions, server lists, and so much more stuff there for a variety of jobs. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and I think for us, the way that the education's evolving is that we really believe that education will be more modular, as you say, credentials-based, lifelong, omnichannel, so some of it will be hands-on, some will be through other channels, and competency-based, and I think that's the thing. I think competency for us is about the mobilization of the knowledge, your skills, the values, the attributes, and that's the bit that's going to add value to economies throughout the world. So head of strategy, you've got to look at the chessboard in the future, you've got to live in the future. What are some of the feedback you've gotten? As you talk to folks in the industry, when you roll this out, doing some press interviews, I know you've got some feedback. What's the general sentiment right now? Really excited. I think that we talk to employers all the time. We talk to SMEs, we talk to big players like Amazon, and I think that in the region, I think when we talk about the scale of disruption, I think the way we talk about it in US or Europe is very different to the way we talk about it here. I think the Middle East region, like many developing parts of the world, still playing catch-up in a little bit, but what you'll find is that once they've caught up, the adoption rates go through the roof, and that's the challenge for us because what we see the uptake now, we see the uptake every year growing and growing, and now the next challenge is moving into government, moving into the private sector, and upskilling and re-skilling those, so we're just at the start of this kind of huge opportunity, John, and I see it being, you know, exponential over the next five years. You know, it's interesting, I live in San Francisco Bay Area in Silicon Valley in Palo Alto. You see what Berkeley's doing in Stanford. If you look at Berkeley in particular, the number one classes are the data science class and the CS intro. I mean, they're kind of hybrid, basically it's all cloud. If you do anything with coding, it's going to be cloud-based. Right, right. And Sayeel, who's the deputy group CEO, bank ABC, I just interviewed earlier today, he said AI, he thinks is the biggest thing that's going to happen, so it's not just racking and stacking, standing up infrastructure with Amazon, although great to learn that, and there'll be nerds who will geek, so we'll do that. Absolutely, absolutely. There's a huge machine learning AI field coming. Yeah, yeah. I think that's going to be something. As head of strategy, you got to keep your eye on the prize there. Absolutely. What's your view on that? Do you see that happening? I think you're right. I think, look, OECD have recently released some data to say that over 20% of jobs will be automated as a result of AI over the next few years. And I think our role is to prepare young people regardless of what they're studying for AI and the impact of machine learning. So I'll give you an example, medicine, you can make a diagnosis now for a patient diagnosis in a fraction of a second compared to what we used to be able to by using AI. Now, the reality is that although AI can give you that information, you wouldn't, as a patient, want a robot to give you that diagnosis, right? So our job, I think, is to look at the skills that will define what defines us as human beings away from robots, and that's empathy. That's the stuff around building connections, around team working, around collaboration. And actually, those are the things that education systems are designed not to deliver. So our job now is by embracing these types of new programs, it's to start to work on those softer skills and prepare this generation of students for the AI world that we're moving into. Cameron, I'm so excited for your opportunity, computer science, cloud, all kind of bundled together and software is powering this new generation. As we say, it's the keys to the kingdom. In this case, it could be the keys to the kingdom. Well, I think for us as a national university, and for many, not just Bahrain, but for many developing and emerging countries around the world, this is far greater than just technology or creating jobs. This is about sovereignty, because if you look at many countries, they import talent, they have to import hardware, software, computers, everything's imported. This is a great opportunity to help create a workforce that actually flips that on its head, becomes the innovators, becomes the job creators. So that's the exciting thing for us. It really is a generational shift. This is an opportunity for the younger generation to literally take the keys to the kingdom. Absolutely. Absolutely. Cameron, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. We really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Cube Coverage here by Rain, Middle East, AWS Summit, I'm John Furrier. Stay with us for more coverage after this short break.