Category: Thought Leadership

Organizations across the public sector are leveraging the cloud to drive their missions forward with cutting-edge innovation. At the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Sector Summit Online, vice president of worldwide public sector and industries Teresa Carlson and vice president of worldwide public sector Max Peterson at AWS shared the latest updates and spoke with leaders who are reinventing what’s possible using the AWS Cloud. Here’s what you missed.

The future of tech is diverse, and AWS Training and Certification is building an inclusive and diverse workforce for the future through accessible cloud education programs for anyone with the desire to learn. We believe when you remove barriers to education, you bring new learners to the cloud and open doors to jobs and long-term careers that people may have thought were out of reach or, in some cases, didn’t even know existed. Public sector organizations are vying for top cloud skilled professionals and have much to gain when we increase the pool of available cloud talent.

In 2020, education transformed like never before. Educational institutions needed to be able to provide students, teachers, and staff with immediate access to education and AWS helped customers and partners modernize their systems and applications and reach learners remotely, quickly, and at scale. In 2021, innovation continues in the world of teaching, learning, and research—as well as the use of technology to automate processes and drive better student outcomes.

I recently had the opportunity to record the keynote for this year’s AWS Public Sector Summit Online. This year’s keynote theme is “Inspiration Everywhere,” and I can’t wait to share a number of inspiring stories and examples from our customers with you when the keynote airs on April 15. What unites all of the stories is a commitment to achieving mission outcomes with AWS and cloud computing. And while we’ll spend some time talking about the technology, I’ll also share with you the organizational changes that mission owners can drive, today, to move fast, be responsive, and maximize the impact of limited resources.

At AWS, we place a high priority on innovation. And innovation is best served by a diverse team, which is why we support organizations like Girls in Tech, a global nonprofit of more than 70,000 members, that advocates for diversity, equality, and inclusion in the technology industry. A report from NCWIT found that women earned 57% of all bachelor’s degrees in 2019, yet only 21% of computer and information sciences bachelor’s degrees. And while women hold 57% of all professional occupations in the US workforce, they hold only 26% of all computing occupations. And, the numbers of women in STEM drop down to the low single digits when you look at BIPOC women. It is clear—the time for change is now.

I’ve always valued education, because it shapes our world and defines our future. At AWS, we work with K12 schools, higher education institutions, education technology, and learning companies to support both teaching and learning. The institutions and their dedicated instructors collaborate daily and deliver education to the current and future workforce. These students will help AWS, our customers and partners, and industries and governments across the globe continue to innovate. Alongside the education institutions, we are committed to providing access to cloud computing and technical skills to everyone, no matter their knowledge level. Learn how AWS is helping individuals on their cloud career journey for reskilling and upskilling, and how other companies can follow. 

When I travel around the world, I try to spend time with women leaders in different organizations, industries, and walks of life. In the time we have together, I try to learn about their hopes and dreams. In those conversations, I hear both a desire to think big about the future and a struggle to balance the commitments and responsibilities that fall almost exclusively to women. The numbers are clear: the percentage of the women participating in the global labor force is declining. I recently wrote about steps we can take to recover from the last year. Today, I want to share three stories that make me hopeful that we can collectively achieve gender parity. 

Data is at the heart of healthcare, but our wellbeing is complex. It is a challenge to find the right approach when analyzing or visualizing data. Technology like text-to-speech, augmented reality (AR), and deep learning can help us better understand and explain health data. By designing solutions in the cloud, we can leverage AWS to launch and scale helpful tools as needed, paying for only what we use while keeping data secure.

COVID-19 accelerated a number of rapid changes in higher education. Technology helped with continuity of education, and chief information officers (CIOs) had to overcome a number of challenges to achieve this. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and ucisa, the member-led professional body for digital practitioners in education in the United Kingdom (UK), brought together CIOs from across the UK and Europe to share and discuss their recent experiences and share lessons learned. Learn their recommendations.

Governments around the world want to accelerate their digital transformation to offer simpler access to citizen services online and earn trust with effective solutions. This includes things like being able to send notifications to users, providing a single log-in for government services, or publishing public health information in the wake of a pandemic. The AWS Government Transformation Team is here to help. We highlight available solutions and build new open source solutions that governments can leverage. Before developing new software, establishing a foundation with a sound design system is an important first step so our solutions are consistent, accessible, and simple to use. Read on to learn more about why starting with an open source design system is important and how we selected one for the software we’ve built and will build in the future.