Author: Sandy Carter

Diversity matters. Governments, countries, cities, agencies, and more recognize the value that diversity brings. According to McKinsey, companies with ethnic or cultural diversity are 33% more likely to outperform on profitability. With this in mind, I am thrilled to announce the global launch of the Think Big for Small Business Program. With the global launch of this program, I wanted to share the three things I like most about it.

At re:Invent 2020, AWS announced the release of Amazon Location Service in preview. The fully managed service helps developers add location data to their applications while maintaining data security and user privacy. Amazon Location Service integrates data sources and services from AWS Partners Esri and HERE. AWS built Amazon Location Service to help users access high-quality global data from these longtime, trusted, geospatial location data providers.

At AWS, we are mission focused. A mission is a purpose—supported by but not driven by IT. How can the AWS Partner Network (APN) help public sector partners and their customers meet their missions? No matter where you are in your journey to cloud adoption and IT modernization—from getting started, to easing the adoption of technology, to planning to take the solution to market, to growing beyond storage and compute, to renewing and scale—APN and its programs and initiatives can help. During my leadership session at AWS re:Invent 2020, I shared new and noteworthy AWS Public Sector Partner programs available to help partners keep their focus on their mission-critical work while also keeping it simple—and I shared some partner successes along the way.

According to the 2020 Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Study for state governments, 54 percent of states are not confident in their ability to protect emerging technology. Traditional cybersecurity approaches can result in singularly focused solutions that don’t provide holistic protection. It can also inhibit an organizations’ ability to monitor and respond to security threats in real time. As more organizations shift to cloud-based workloads, security mechanisms and components need to be developed and integrated using a Security by Design (SbD) approach. Our AWS Partners have developed pre-configured security solutions, which allow customers to deploy applications using SbD strategies and also use AWS security solutions to ensure continuous security alignment. 

We’re in the midst of the information age and the Internet of Things (IoT) is at the center. What is IoT? It describes the billions of devices around the world that are connected to the internet, devices that can capture and analyze data and then perform an action based on that analysis. Whether it is an emerging IoT device, an innovative solution pivot, or a tried-and-true IoT application, a few things remain constant: we can look to leading examples from smart cities and healthcare to understand current and future uses and securely deploying and managing devices is an absolute must.

According to the World Bank, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for about 90 percent of all companies. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), more than half of our partners serving the public sector are fast-growing SMEs and minority-owned businesses (MOBs). To support this important partner community, we’re launching a pilot of the Think Big for Small Business Program in August 2020.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) Public Sector Partners leaned into innovation and customer obsession to deliver amazing results, especially in the time of COVID-19. In light of these significant contributions, we are excited to announce the winners of the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partners Awards. Read more about our winners.

Government agencies have accelerated their transition to the cloud over the last few years, and COVID-19 has accelerated the urgency and pace of that move. A benefit of moving to the cloud is increased security. But to realize this, new infrastructure must be implemented and managed correctly, using best practices and the right technologies. Working with our partners, AWS has helped dozens of solutions accelerate their FedRAMP authorizations. There are more than 100 FedRAMP-authorized solutions running on AWS.

Last year, we launched the AWS Public Safety and Disaster Response Competency for Consulting Partners, recognizing top APN Advanced and Premier Consulting Partners with proven public sector success and deep technical proficiency. Building on these efforts, today we’re excited to pre-announce the launch of the AWS Public Safety and Disaster Response Technology Competency. Coming later this year, the expansion will include the addition of Independent Software Vendor (ISV) solutions that deliver APN Partner technology in the areas of emergency management operations, justice and public safety applications, infrastructure resilience and recovery, 911 and emergency communications, and public safety and disaster response data and analytics.

AWS is grateful for our AWS Partner Network (APN) Public Sector Partners that have stepped up to support customers during this rapidly changing and dynamic global health situation. I thought I’d share a few examples of how our innovative and agile APN Partners are collaborating with public sector organizations around the world. I hope this list gives you some ideas of ways in which our partner community can support you during this time. Here are just a few examples: