 Hello, and welcome to theCUBE's presentation of Women in Tech Global Event, celebrating International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE, got a great guest, Cornelia Robinson, who's the senior manager of the Global Inclusion and Outreach programs at AWS Amazon Web Services. Cornelia, welcome to this CUBE presentation. Thank you, so happy to be here, John. So you got a very interesting background, been involved in communities, you're in outreach and inclusion, which is awesome. International Women's Day is about global celebration. What's your role at AWS? Tell us more about what you do there and we'll get into some of the background and your experiences. All right, thanks, John. So I lead a program that's called Inclusion and Outreach within AWS specifically for our global data center community. So AWS infrastructure is all over the world and we strive to make sure that in the places where we build and operate our cloud, that we're being good neighbors and also striving to be Earth's best employer. And so my role, it ultimately aligns both of those things into both inclusion and outreach. You know, one of the things that we see with the cloud is, you know, there's always the talk of democratization. And if you see what cloud has done inside the global communities, it's been interesting. You know, as regions expand, cloud computing has actually enabled kind of new things. You're seeing a lot more diversity, inclusion. Women events, for instance, in Bahrain was one we saw a lot, Asia Pacific and all around the world you're seeing a lot more community because of the opportunities around the new applications and the new use cases is creating economic but also empowering opportunities. And you've had a lot of experience in there and seeing some of these trends up close. What have you seen around this? Because this is a new thing that cloud's enabling this new revitalization inside these communities and areas. Yeah, cloud is definitely an enabler and it also enables people to scale, right? In ways that you wouldn't have been able to scale in the past. You know, with AWS it's like you flip on a switch and all of a sudden you have access to so much compute power. It's actually incredible and it's exciting to be a part of this movement. How did you get started with AWS? I guess the way that I would describe it is tech kind of found me. I have an unusual background to be in tech. So I graduated from law school and I was looking for a job and ended up in procurement. And then some years later, I got a call from AWS and I thought that it sounded like an interesting opportunity. I'd have an opportunity to build some new things and try some new things. And so I said, hey, why not? And that's how I ended up at AWS starting out in our Northern Virginia office. And then I moved to Seattle for about five years and now I'm back in the Northern Virginia area. So you're in Amazonian, true and true then. You've seen all the growth. But I think the thing about Amazon is that there's so much opportunity internally. Other people don't know that. And I'd love to get your take on what it was like moving from procurement, which probably was very structured and a good fit there to Amazon Web Services, which was at that time just growing really fast and you built a global community program. So kind of two worlds, take us through that. Yeah, you're right. Procurement and community engagement are very different in many ways, but also very similar in many ways as well. With community engagement, we were completely starting from scratch with the idea of a structured community engagement program, even though there was an element of community engagement that was happening in our infrastructure locations. So ultimately, the way that I ended up making that shift is that I was in an offsite which is a team meeting where people who have different functions come together. And we were discussing opportunities that we had to just do a better job overall because as you know, that's one thing that we're always looking at as Amazonians. It's how can we be better and show it better for our customers? We're always trying to start with our customers and work backwards to meet their needs. And so one of the things that was identified in that discussion is community engagement. We had an opportunity to be even more engaged than we already were and to do it in a structured way. And so I shot my hand up and said, I like trying things. Let me try this. And the rest is history. It's been about four years. And obviously you had to go back to documents and all that procedure. Amazon is pretty open about ideas. Is that true? Is that a true thing? Is that what it's like there? People say that they'd like to try things and then if it works, they double down on it. Is that kind of how this went down? That's exactly how it went down, John. So when I think about the process of working backwards, it's really something that never stops. And again, community engagement was all about working backwards from the needs of our customers. And in this instance, when I think about my customer, my customer is our community members. It's community members who live and work in our data center regions. And also our employees who are living and working and raising their families in those regions. What was the double down moment? When did you say, wow, this is working when you develop this program? What were some of those moments where you said, wow, this is actually working and take us through some of those progressions? Some of the moments that really stand out to me are moments where I've been in the community and I say AWS and someone says, oh, what's AWS? And then you'll hear someone else chime in and explain, oh, AWS does all of these great things in the community. So that actually happened. It was our very first AWS Girls Tech Day. We had scaled it from a small program into a global program. We went from having one in one year to having eight the next year around the world. And at this particular AWS Girls Tech Day, someone did ask that question. It was a little girl. She was standing next to her sister. And when she asked me what AWS, what AWS is, her sister looked at her and said, you don't know what AWS is? AWS does so much in our community and AWS has, I think, big space in my school and she went on and on about how much she works with our employees and how excited she is about technology. And those are those moments where you say, you know what, this is working. It's really working. That's awesome. What advice would you give people who are developing a community program because you're a pioneer, this has been a top priority for people now in all companies and all groups and all tribes, communities becoming a really important part of our fabric of society and business. People are sourcing information. They're sourcing relationships and jobs and products. They're seeing a lot of organic community. What advice would you give folks who are developing a community program? There are a few things. So for me, the biggest and most important thing is working backwards. So start with your customer. Who is your customer? It's really important to listen to them and to identify their needs. In this community engagement space, you have a lot of things being thrown at you all the time. You also have your own ideas and it's like, oh, it'd be really cool if we did this thing, but is that really what the community needs? Is that really what the community wants? So when I first started in this role, that was the most important thing and it continues to be the most important thing. I started picking up the phone, talking to people, going into a region, talking to folks who actually live and work in the community, understanding their perspectives, understanding their needs. There was a lot of discovery during that time. They were able to tell me things that I never would have even thought of, never would have known, wouldn't have been able to consider because I wasn't a part of that community at the time. And so that's the thing about becoming a community member. You've got to be able to sit down and listen. And so the principle of working backwards, it just applies so well in that instance. And so that's the first thing. It's listening, understanding your customers, knowing who they are, and then trying to get as many perspectives as you can. And the next thing I would say is think big with your customers, right? And think big on behalf of your customers, but then from there, start somewhere, because if you try to execute on the really big thing all at once, now it may not go as well as you had hoped it would and you could actually diminish trust. So we started working on just a couple of things based on customers' needs. And as we were able to prove that they were successful and constantly get that feedback from customers saying, yeah, this works or that doesn't work, that's how we then eventually started to scale the program. Yeah, that trust angle is a big one because you look at trust. If you overplay your idea and it blows up, then no one's going to be motivated. Take little baby steps. I love that insight, great call out there. What about this think big space you mentioned and that other example about in the school because I like this idea of having this think big space that you pointed out. Is that just a place that you guys could provide or was that something that they did the customer did or the community did? Can you share more about the think big space? Yes, our think big spaces. So the think big space also started as a result of sitting down in a conference room with some teachers and administrators in a local school district actually here in the Northern Virginia area. And the teachers were talking about the fact that as teachers, there's a lot of emerging technology and it can be difficult to keep up with what's next. What's current, what's next? How do we help our students prepare for jobs that may not even exist right now? And so it just seemed to align so well with our leadership principles within Amazon, learn and be curious, think big. And initially, they, throughout the idea of a tech lab and we started working back and forth and thinking, well, how do we make this a space where students would actually come and learn and explore and make things and get their hands dirty and really be creative and tie it back to technology and just being really disruptive. And together we came up with the idea of, hey, we got to teach students to think big. So we started working on the first think big space together, the school district actually hired an instructional lead and we worked with them to design curriculum and now there's a classroom, it's got eight Amazon's leadership principles on the walls and the students come in, they're engineers for the day. And we've been able to scale that program globally to other locations. We've got think big spaces in Ireland and Australia and India and of course in the US. And it's been really exciting to see how students get so excited when they're able to tinker and try new things and they know that if they break something, it's okay because we can come up with a way to fix it. And in the process of fixing it, they come up with something else and we teach them about working backwards and it's just really fun. It's an exciting program to be a part of and I've been excited just to see the growth and the way that our community members have benefited from it. It's really such a great program to think about it because you're training builders and you're giving them a place to be disruptive which is a natural part for young people to do and do it in a safe environment where they can build something and have fun doing it. It's amazing. So congratulations, that's a great program. Let me get into the theme here on this International Women's Day around breaking the bias is one of the core principles of this year's event. Globally for International Women's Day, break the bias as the theme. Where do you see bias and what would you like to see change and what does change look like? Yeah, so I would say with the experience of setting up in communities, activities and also collaborating with schools, what we see is that bias starts early. This is not something that people show up for work and all of a sudden there's all of this bias. There's bias in the way that young people and students are socialized. And so you start to see things at an early age where girls may be encouraged to do things that are different. So maybe girls are not encouraged to take on leadership roles or they're getting pushed into the arts. Of course, there's nothing wrong with arts but we should be encouraging people to pursue certain areas based on interest and not on gender. And if we want to really break bias, we've got to think about the seeds that we plant. So we've got to be really careful about what we say, how we nurture. You know, it's about you can do this. Yes, try it, see, not, oh no, you shouldn't do this because you're a girl. No, you're a girl and you belong here. You should be here. We need more people like you. You're gonna do really big things. Like you've got to start telling students this at an early age because all it takes sometimes is one person to tell a student that they can't do something. And if they believe them, then it can change their whole trajectory. And so for me, when it comes to breaking the bias, it starts really early. It starts really, really early. Yeah, and I think, even like the thing, big program you mentioned, which sounds so exciting. It's just providing access. And I think having an open collaboration is key but role models matter too. You want to see people in there too. I think this comes up a lot. What's your view on that? Because when you see people in positions, they're inspiring. And I think that's also comes up a lot in these conversations. Yeah, definitely. When you see people in positions and you see people who look like you, you see yourself in that person and you say, hey, maybe if they can do it, I can do it too. And so it is important for us to have great, strong role models who can show up and who can be there for students. That's one of the things that we try to do with our programming. So as we develop programs like the Think Big Space, it's not just, okay, well, we have a Think Big Space and that's the end. It's we have a Think Big Space and our employees are coming into the Think Big Space. They're engaging with the students. They're volunteering. They're taking on causes in their community. And it provides that natural mentorship and ability for students to just see themselves. Because again, if you don't see yourself reflected, then you also may be receiving a message that says, okay, well, that's not for me. Yeah, I was talking with a leader at AWS and she's in space area. And we were talking about how the younger generation are nerd natives, she called it. And they're born with inherent tech now. So unlike when we were born, we had to kind of just found us or we stumbled into it or we got addicted somehow to tech. Now they got the tech around them. And I think this is an interesting new dynamic that could play well for the bias issue. And we'll have to get your reaction to that. As the generations come in, they're seeing all the world problems, they're seeing the digital transformation. It's native to them. So I wonder what your thoughts are, how we could be better at, I don't know, shaping the paths. Multiple pathways seems to be many opportunities. So if people are nerd native, how do we do that? So we've had a great riff on that. I'd love to get your reaction on that. Yeah, I think that we have to make sure that we are fostering this idea of playing outside of the box instead of in the box. It used to be with really traditional careers. If I want to be a doctor, I go to medical school. If I want to be a lawyer, I go to law school. If I want to work in tech, what do I do? Well, here's the thing with tech, you're engaging in tech so much. I remember that when my nephew and nieces were little before they could even read, they could do things on my phone. Like I would get my phone and all of a sudden I had all of these game apps. How did they know how to do that? It's like you can't even read a word, but you can put all of these apps on my phone. They're engaging with technology and so how do we take that and nurture it and say, hey, just embrace it. Just put more technology in front of students. Let them break things, let them fix things. I remember being a part of a panel with a woman who is an engineer and she said she became an engineer because she liked to break things. So she'd break her computer and she wouldn't get in trouble for it. She would be told, hey, figure out how to put it back together. And so if we can create more environments and encourage students, it's not about perfection. Let's be inventive here, let's try new things. Let's think outside the box. Think big, don't find a solution. Go find an issue and work backwards from the issue that someone is having to come up with a solution that works and then get feedback. That process, that can start early. It doesn't have to be once you're in a full-fledged career. You can start that at any age. Kind of like a great insight. Final question, what's new for you? What are you going to be up to? What's next? What are you going to break next? What are you going to do? So what's new for me, I now lead inclusion outreach within AWS for our data center community. And so I'm back really to square one when it comes to doing a lot of listening, trying to understand, understanding what the things are that are pain points within and outside of the organization. And I'll be working with employees and community members to continue iterating to continue solving problems and working together on those solutions. And so I'm really excited about it. Hopefully at some point we'll be able to come back together and I'll be able to give you some insight into how that's going. Well, we certainly will. We appreciate your time and thanks for joining our CUBE community. Really appreciate it. You're now CUBE alumni. We're always, door's always open here at theCUBE. And we want to hear more of those stories. We're going to do a lot more coverage and a lot more sharing of stories, certainly in this area. That's important and we're committed to it. And thank you for your time today and sharing the insights and your experience on the Women in Tech celebration of International Women's Day. Thank you so much. Thank you, happy International Women's Day. Okay, this is theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching the presentation of Women in Tech Global Event, celebrating International Women's Day. This is the season one, episode one of our ongoing program that we're going to have here on theCUBE. Thanks for watching.