 From Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage here in Bahrain in the Middle East for AWS Summit. Wrapping up an event here with the cloud computing shift that's happening. Amazon region is live, a lot of innovation in the area, Middle East and Africa. We're here with the head executive of AWS who manages the territory, SuperChagPAR, head of Middle East Africa for Public Sector. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. Absolutely, John, thank you. Thank you for having me here and thanks for being here with your team learning about the story from the Middle East and of course all the way to North Africa and Africa as well too. Well, it's been a lot of the work that you and your team have done has been successful. We're super interested because there's a big story developing here. The Amazon region, which was announced two years ago, is available on day one, pun intended. A lot of companies shipping their products on the cloud but it's also a cultural revolution happening for a whole nother generation that could change the landscape of the Middle East culture. Technology, innovation, banking, entrepreneurship. This is a grassroots groundswell of change, empowerment, self-esteem, money making, banking. I mean, all this stuff's going on. Absolutely. Well, hey, we're proud to be part of it and we're proud to be partners with many different organizations here as well. I think it's actually coming from all different directions, not just the groundswell, but even the leadership, the leadership of the countries that can barrain, but also the other countries in the Middle East and across the region. What we're seeing is that these countries are creating these vision plans and these vision plans are about diversifying the economy, creating opportunity for youth, creating opportunity for folks that are diversifying from their economy so then they're actually being displaced. And what do you turn to? So these countries are turning to technology and in barrain in particular, they've set up programs where they help to develop youth, they help to develop citizens, they can get free training on technology. All they have to do is seize it and take it and we've seen that uptake as well too. So we're seeing a lot of barraines just taking courses, getting trained and then building. And that's what you've witnessed today at our summit. You know, innovation takes on many forms. You've seen in every wave, in the mobile wave you saw countries that didn't have good infrastructure, stand-up mobile infrastructure and be more connected than some of the incumbent countries that had connectivity last mile in the U.S. They're doing a leap, leap is. The leap frog, right? So this is happening here, but the trend we're seeing is that the old business school adage of focus on your core competency and then it's okay to outsource stuff that's not a core competency. It's a trend we're seeing with cloud where you guys are providing the infrastructure for countries, not just businesses. To focus on their core competency. And it's making things go faster. So speed is the table stakes. So if it's slow, it's probably the old way. What are some of the conversations around this? Because this seems to be the hottest topic from things I've seen in the United States with CIA and Jedi that Teresa's been involved in to education, educate and now here with the government modernizing with cloud first, it's trickling throughout the entire country. Well, I mean, it's need and part of that is need. So in some of the countries in the region, Bahrain included, they want to do spend controls. They want to reduce their costs. They want to get away from legacy. They want to get away from licenses they're not using or hardware that's sitting on shelves. So then they come and they look at what we're doing and they're saying, well, wait a second, you're investing in the region. You're making infrastructure available. I can build on top of that. I can leverage open source. I can create, I can make citizen services. It's almost a no brainer for them too. One of the biggest problems they have is that they train people and then those folks go and they do startups or they go and start work for other businesses as well, which is fantastic. It's actually creating that virtue to cycle that we want to be a part of as well too. So we're already starting to see that happening in the past couple of years that we've been here. And of course, now we have the region launch which is only accelerating the journey. Talk about the business because you guys are active, you're present certainly with a region which we think is a revitalization, creates economic value. That's something that we've been reporting on. But there's more than that. It's not just Bahrain. It's the whole region that you cover. What's the business landscape like? What are some of the deals you're doing? What's the startups look like? Can you talk about some of the landscape dynamics? Absolutely. So first of all, the startup ecosystem is very, I was gonna say robust, but it's to use the word that use, it's a groundswell right now. We're seeing a lot of interest, a lot of activity, a lot of folks getting into it and experimenting very quickly. But it's not easy, as we know, doing a startup is not easy. So that robust work will come with time. We're seeing that more funding is going into the space. Now it's still very anemic. So in the Middle East, there's not enough funds going in there, especially for the early stage. We're seeing interest coming from outside for the later stages. We're talking about the creams and we're talking about the cabbages and some of those companies. But at the early stage- The ones that are clearly validated growing like a week. Exactly. The ones that have already earned market share. But the ones that are starting right now, they're finding their way. So we do need more funding for experimentation. Enter AWS and what we provide is programs like Activate, which is an early stage startup program. We work very closely with the VCs and the accelerators. So they're leveraging that now too. So we're starting to see that growth, whether it's in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Riyadh or Cairo or here, it's just starting to grow, which is great. And we're seeing that interest. And some of that, should I go into this field? What would my mom say if I'm an entrepreneur versus a doctor? That's starting to sway now to where people say, Hey, entrepreneurship is actually pretty cool. It's a legitimate field. It's a legitimate field now, believe it or not, which is exciting and people are going into it as well. On the enterprise side, SMEs all the way to large enterprises, we're seeing that folks are saying, Hey, I can actually maybe even get new markets. So if you look at Altair Group, Altair Travel Group, which is out of Saudi Arabia, they're using that to learn more about their customers, come up with new solutions and new packages that they can offer all using AI and ML, which is incredible. Or Fly Dubai, Fly Dubai in Dubai, you probably guessed that. They need to stand up very quickly in online booking system. We did it in four months just leveraging cloud. So they're getting that. They're getting that idea that you can kick it off real quick, get it running and then launch it as well too. And then the government. So we're seeing governments across the region saying, Hey, we've got to control our costs, first of all, and we've got to make better citizen services. We want to make sure that we improve the lives of our citizens. So being able to launch new services in a short amount of time. Today we heard about the IGA working on a building permit system that allows people to build quicker because they're able to get a permit in days instead of months. And that's just an example of saying where speed matters. To the point where we now have the government challenging business in terms of moving quicker, which is unheard of anywhere else in the world, which is super exciting. Not certainly in the United States, that's for sure. I would like just to point out that from my standpoint, I heard this many VCs here. I've seen them in the hallways, the mix of VCs, entrepreneurs, business, global ISVs and new ISVs, the Amazon partner networks here. It is partner network. All the things are in place now. Yes. What's missing? What do you see as to do items? Where do you think that you can raise the bar for AWS? What do you see as to do items for you? What's your plan? Got it. Well, to your point, I mean all the ingredients are here. So in terms of what's missing, I don't think there's anything missing. It's about putting the ingredients together and baking that cake. That's what we got to work on right now too. So that's why we're doing a lot of activity in the schools across the region, getting our program educate and Academy, which are two different programs. One's broad and one is very direct into the schools. That is what we're helping to make sure that we get the next generation of learners. We're working on items like cloud degrees. So in four years you can actually have a degree leveraging all the technologies that are enabled by cloud. That's happening at the University of Bahrain and we hope to get that in other schools. But also just getting training out there, just getting quick training. So you learn, you learn them in modules and then you go and build something. That's another area you need to spend more time. And again, encouraging experimentation, try some new things, get it out there, see what the market says. So in terms of what we could do more of at AWS is continue to push that message, continue developing the people out here so that they're building. I got to ask you, you've been in Silicon Valley, you know that game. For the folks living in Silicon Valley or in the US, what should they know about what's going on in your territory out here that they may not know or maybe that it was fleeting thought or something that's not being reported. What should people know about what's going on in this region? Absolutely. I think sometimes for many markets that are outside of Silicon Valley, outside of the US, it's about copycat startups, which is fine. You can actually do quite well with that. Usually the returns on that when you go to an exit event is less than what you might see in the Valley. But again, there's a great triage opportunity so you wanna bring the funds here. But I do see now a change where folks are building original technologies as well too. And I think we're gonna see more of the multiples, tens or 20 time multiples out here in the region which will be wonderful. We saw a company today Uniphonic, which is from Saudi Arabia that is building telecommunications and contact and voice type of services. That's gonna be huge. If they get this right and I think they will because they got a really scrappy and hungry team, that's one of those companies that actually could start getting people to notice the Middle East as a place for original innovation. Awesome. Anything else on your to-do list for next year? What's, give a quick plug for your group. You guys hiring, obviously the region here, you got to fill staff here. Obviously you got curriculum in the schools here. What are you looking for? Yeah, you cover all the big ones. What's on your to-do list? Yeah, on to this is continuing to develop my team. We got a wonderful team here. A lot of people that are local to the region that we wanna make sure that they're growing and contributing as well too. Our team mission is to do good and do well at the same time. I think they go hand in hand. So we wanna do more around programs that help to develop communities. There are refugee crisis around the region. We wanna make sure we can help out over there. Women in tech is a big area of focus for us. How can we get more women into technology and leading in technology as well too? I've got my team having a mandate to get more solution architects that are women as well too. We don't have one yet. We have a lot of great women on our team but we need more technical women too. So that's another key focus area for us. And then just continue building. Continue to help the communities build solutions on the cloud. Zubin Changpar here, head of the territory here in the Middle East and Africa. This is theCUBE's coverage of AWS Summit in Bahrain in the Middle East. Signing off for our second year. We'll be back with more next year and you'll see us around in the territory. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. Thanks for watching.