 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell Technologies World 2018. Brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. Well, good afternoon, welcome back. We are live here on theCUBE, Dell Technologies World 2018 in Las Vegas. I'm John Walls with Stu Miniman, and I hope you're hungry because we have just something to satisfy that tech appetite of yours. We have a couple of guests to talk about plants, about eating, about vegetables. I'm looking forward to this. Mark Oshima, the CMO of Arrow Farms. Mark, thank you for being with us. Yeah, thank you. We're always excited to share what we're doing, how we're transforming our culture, how we are feeding communities, nourishing communities, by enabling local production to bring the farm to the cities where people are. Good, and also with us is Cache, who is the Vice President of Cloud and Solutions at Dell EMC. Cache, good to see you too. Thank you for having me again. You bet. So, Mark, let's talk about Arrow Farms. First off, to share your story with the folks at home in case they're not familiar when I said, I hope you're hungry, there's a reason why, Arrow Farms. Yeah, so this is one of the exciting things we're doing at Arrow Farms. I'm one of the co-founders. We are growing indoors. This is indoor vertical farming. We're growing in converted warehouses without sun or soil. We're really rethinking about agriculture and what we can do when we think about the rising challenges we have. Climate change, we think about access to fresh water, loss of arable land. But more importantly, again, how can we take back that control and grow? This is a way of growing. Arrow Farms, the arrow and arrow farms refers to arrow-ponics who are misting the roots with nutrients and water using 95% less water than the field farm. It's a way of growing that uses no pesticides. We use a fraction of the fertilizer. So we're really changing the inputs and thinking about how we have better outputs. And this is an exciting time for us. Well, I do want to say first off, congratulations to the Dell EMC Workforce Transformation Award winner. So congratulations on that front. So that's a great distinction, right? And I assume, quite proud and quite worthy, right? Yeah, at Arrow Farms, we have a number of great stories and it really starts with the company, right? So the idea, the culture, the people is really what makes us special. And so for us, it's very meaningful. And so we think about these farms being for the community to buy the community. Our global headquarters are Newark, New Jersey. It's an exciting time in that city, helping really be part of a revitalization there. But 40% of our team's coming from Newark. 85% live within 15 miles of Newark. So the idea that we can create these year-long jobs, better wages, better benefits, and then really address the fact that it's a food desert as well. Increase access to healthier foods. So it's exciting to think about what we can do with business. Yeah, okay. Cash, actually, I was trying to remember, was it an Innovation Award? That Arrow Farms- It was an Innovation Award. Maybe for our audience, talk about some of the, you know, what that means to be an Innovation Award. Obviously Arrow Farms do some pretty cool stuff, but bring it from the Dell's. Absolutely. And obviously we are working very closely. My team and myself have been working very closely with Arrow Farms. And the way I described Arrow Farms is, they are what I call the digital-born companies. They are completely disrupting their vertical they are in, the line of business they are in, from all aspects. I mean, the innovation is multi-dimensional, if I can say that. So if you look at the environment they are in, this is actually a warehouse. So there is no sunlight. There is no soil. And they are reducing the water by 95%, right? And they are using our IoT technologies, Internet of Think technologies. They have the gateways where they are collecting the logistics of location. They have the multi-spectral camera where they are taking the images of the plants as they are coming in on these trays in terms of what is the color, what is the texture, how they can make it more tasty. And that's where the machine learning comes in, where we are now looking at automating some of this process around when they have the images, rather than sorting through these images, how we can automate them and make it even more digital. But it's impressive in terms of how many aspects of digital-born and digital-first these guys are using. Because I don't think there is any customer that I've talked to in this area who's using all aspects of the disruption and the disruptive technologies as Mark and AeroForms is using. So to me, they really deserved the Win Innovation Award from so many perspectives and how they are leveraging the technology and how they are changing things in a very traditional industry. And if you look at farming, it's a traditional industry, but it's like from the ground up, all digital. Yeah, Mark, actually, I want to start there first before we get into the IoT and the ML and all of that wonderful stuff that we definitely want to cover. What do you consider your company? Are you a farming company? You're a technology company. You're one of the co-founders. Bring us back, I love, I'm from the area in New Jersey that you're based in no land, no soil, no area, a lot of time, no sunlight. Yup, sounds about right for that part of New Jersey. So the founding is, was it a point in time with the technology, the skill set? Bring us back and how do you think of yourselves? Yeah, so at the heart we're farmers, but we're also a technology company, right? And there's this symbiotic relationship and we realize if we want to be good at the farming, you need to be good at the technology. If you want to be good at the technology, you need to be good at the farming as well. So understanding this interaction, so we think about the biology, the engineering, the environment. And what's exciting now is we bring in the big data. So we're constantly sensing and looking at what's happening with the plants. So the plants are being monitored 24-7. So we think we are the world experts in understanding how to grow plants. We can grow a wide range of different types of crops. And so what's exciting is that we can really change the equation in terms of having a better product. We can think about things like the taste, texture, nutrition, and ultimately yield so we can have the right kind of sustainable business plan. Yeah, I love that. You say, you're farmers. It's not just, oh, we're a software company, we're a digital company, right? Farming's at the core. If people that have seen the videos or tried your products understand, this is great produce you create there. And that pairing with, you know, big thing we've seen at the show is it's the technology and the people and bringing those together. So bring us inside a little bit, your IT world, how you manage that, how you look at data as being a core piece of your business. Yeah, I mean, what we love about the theme of the show as well, make it real. This is what is so real in terms of it's very tangible. It's food and thinking about how we can have that impact in communities. And so everybody in organizations very much aligned in terms of, again, how can we think about a new way of farming from seed to package, new way of growing that has food safety at the highest level. And so how do we do that? So the technology, the IT is helping enable a lot of this, right? So we have an amazing workforce. We also have over 300 standard operating procedures on how to run a farm. But what the technology is allowing us to do is how to replicate that, how to scale the business and how to make sure we can do it consistently all year round. So the idea that we have eyes and ears, and literally we think of ourselves as the plant listeners or the plant whispers, what are the plants need? And the technology is allowing those windows into, again, how to optimize them. So what are you measuring? I assume soil, moisture, humidity, what other, what all inputs are you getting and how are you processing them? And then how is that, I guess, Cashman here from you, how you are enabling them to make sense of all this? The analytic side. Yeah, so we actually are growing without soil. So just make that perfectly clear. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're right. Yeah, sorry. We have patents on our growing medium. It's actually cloth, and so it's a reusable medium, but it allows us a lot of flexibility in terms of the types of crops we can grow. But we're looking at the environmental factors. So things like temperature, humidity. We're also thinking about things like the nutrients. We're thinking about lighting. So we talk about having this expertise on understanding how to have more effective photosynthesis. We can look at each plant, each stage of maturation, and understand not only what type of spectrum of light, but what intensity, what frequency. So we can actually have more effective photosynthesis indoors and then have that consistently. And so we actually develop these growing algorithms. So this idea, so we have an R&D farm. Our R&D team is taking this and really calibrating it. Then it gets handed over to our operations team. And the idea though is every harvest now becomes another learning opportunity. And the fact is, we can have up to 30 different harvest a year. So those are 30 learning opportunities. We think about that exponentially. How much more insight we have? How much more data? And that's what I think makes Aero Farms unique is that this holistic view. So we've been doing this since 2004. We'll be the first to tell you it's really challenging how to bring this together. And it's by working with partners like Dell can help us really amplify that work and be able to use the technology to make insights around the data. So we think of ourselves not only harvesting the plant, but harvesting those insights as well. Yeah. Cash, bring us inside this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't sound like just something that's off the shelf, you know. What's involved in putting together a solution like this? How does Dell work with customers like Aero Farm to do this? There are several aspects, right? So the way we started was we started with an IoT workshop with Aero Farms. We also started with the gateways, which as we discussed provide the logistics and location and all that good stuff. And then we started working with Mark and the team on looking at how we can automate some of the things, especially around imaging. As I mentioned, there is a multi-spectral camera that is mounted on the harvesting table, right? And then as you're taking the images and rather than manually sorting through the images, the idea is can we apply machine learning technologies to automate some of that? Because this is where we come in, especially from the machine learning and deep learning perspective. When we get involved, the first thing we evaluate is with the customers, do they have the right set of the data? Do they have the right amount of data? If they have the data that is classified and categorized, and then the next step is obviously we can apply automation and machine learning and deep learning to get them the faster insights rather than doing it manually. And in this case, as I said, they were pretty much already there because they are a digital-born company. They were using analytics. They were already using, they have a lot of data. And so for us, it was a matter of making sure we focus on what is that they are trying to achieve. You know, there are several aspects, as Mark said. There is yield, obviously, you want to increase the yield per square foot. And one of the matrix I saw was 390 times better productivity per square foot, right? So the end of the day, they are trying to increase the yield. And for us, it's a matter of, as we are gathering these images, how we can make the process more automated using machine learning and deep learning if I can simplify that with the right amount of data. And to answer your other part of the questions too around, in some cases, it's very customized, right? Because there are different kind of customers. I mean, as I said, for me, AeroFarms is an example of Digital Lord First. They are already there. They have most of the technologies. In some cases, we work with the customers. They are in mature industries and they are mature customers. But they are now trying to be more digitally transformed. They are using some aspects of digital transformation and we help them leverage machine learning or deep learning to get the faster insights and intelligence that can help them with a competitive differentiation. What we are trying to do is, as a part of these engagements, as in working with really advanced customers like AeroFarms or some other customers, is figuring out what are the typical challenges these customers run into, right? And if I can summarize it because there are a variety of customers, there are obviously early adopters. They come to us, they have figured out most of the things, but they have a particular problem around, let's say a framework, TensorFlow, Cafe2 and what have you, right? Large majority of customers, they have heard about AI, they come to me and they're like, Cash, help us get started on this journey. It's just basic stuff, like how do I get, even if I have IoT, how do I get started, right? So I've heard about GPU and AI, which is a cool thing. At the end of the day, I'm trying to solve my business problem and use it as a competitive differentiation. To me, my job, especially as a solution lead for Dell EMC, is to bridge that gap. Not just give them a building block, give them a solution. So what we do, we have a lab, we put together solutions. So AI complicated, you have various kinds of accelerators, you have operating systems and then you have these frameworks and then there are vertical softwares, what I call the AI. What we are doing in our labs is based on learning from some of the customers, we are developing an AI validated stack, which can be customized depending on what customers are trying to do, but they take out a lot of guesswork, take out all their self-learning. Along with that, we provide consulting services. So for example, these data scientists, they are a premium resource, hard to find skill set. We don't want our customers to have the data scientists setting up these data lakes or figuring out all the other stack stuff on their own. Give them the stack, provide them the services. So the idea is from accelerator, GPU, the solution faster. So Mark, your peers really appreciate that you're chewing some glass and working on some of these early solutions. Most customers I talk to, IOT is still relatively early days, same things with machine learning. So I wonder if you could just take a second and talk to some of the things you've learned, anything now that you look back and say, I wish I'd understand this either from a technology organizational standpoint, kind of key lessons learned that we can all learn from what you've done. Yeah, sure. And I think at the heart of what we heard is that this was a customized approach. So the idea that there's some key lessons, but we're writing a new playbook, right? And that's what's exciting about this. And I think what was so key though, what we saw with Dell is that there was a process, right? And there was a collaboration in terms of hearing. So these are important lessons because this is foundational work. So I mentioned about the IOT workshop, right? Really being able to get the stakeholders together, really understanding what are the business and understanding our business needs. But it's not just that one point in time, it's ongoing. It's a really great collaboration and understanding how we're integrating the data, what are the data insights, and then how do we, it's an iterative process in terms of again, how do we continue to evolve and make sense of this. And so those are important, I think, lessons for any partner and any person starting out in this journey is making sure, understanding what the business is, business needs, but then being able to articulate that in a way that can be turned into action and insights. Yeah, anything that surprised you or caught you off guard in the process? Yeah, I mean, these are things that, again, because it's new, so it's making sure we have an organizational commitment in terms of again, how we prioritize. As a scaling business, as an emerging business, there's a lot of competing objectives at different times. But at the heart of this is we really need to see what's the pulse of the business and this is what's allowing us so this is really important about making sure strategically it's front and center. What's cool concept, no doubt about it, hydroponics, technology, an idea that's, you could say it's taken root, but that would be a terrible joke and I wouldn't do that. Mark, thanks for being with us, Cash, a pleasure as well and continued success. Well, I appreciate it. AeroFarms based in Newark, New Jersey. Back with more, you're watching Del Technologies World 2018 and we are live on theCUBE in Las Vegas, Nevada.