Meet the featured customer speakers for the Worldwide Public Sector Innovation Talk at re:Invent 2023

Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) 12^th annual re:Invent conference offers a variety of events that educate attendees about cloud-related topics. This includes keynotes, leadership discussions, technical sessions, training opportunities, and more. This year, AWS is introducing Innovation Talks, which are deep dives hosted by AWS thought leaders.

Dave Levy, vice president of AWS worldwide public sector, is hosting the session, “Empowering citizens through digital innovation” on Monday, November 27, at 4:30 p.m. PST. Join this session to hear how government, education, nonprofit, healthcare, and aerospace and satellite organizations are using the cloud to improve the lives of their citizens, students, patients, and more. Dave will be joined by speakers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Covered California, and Singapore’s Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) on the generational impact that cloud technology has helped drive—creating history’s most equitable financial system, reducing health disparities, building smart nations, and more.

Speakers joining Levy will include: Karen Johnson, chief deputy executive director, operations, Covered California; Dan Anthony, executive vice president and FedNow® chief information officer for Federal Reserve Financial Services; and Cheow Hoe Chan, government chief digital technology officer, The Smart Nation and Digital Government Group Singapore.

Covered California’s objectives are to increase the number of insured Californians, improve healthcare quality, lower costs, and reduce health disparities through an innovative, competitive marketplace that empowers consumers to choose the health plan and providers that give them the best value. Karen Johnson provides executive leadership for Administrative Services, Financial Management, and Information Technology at Covered California.

Johnson joined Covered California after serving as the chief deputy director at the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), California’s Medicaid agency, from 2007 to 2017. There, she managed and directed day-to-day operations and formulated and implemented policies to achieve the department’s mission. DHCS provides more than $100 billion in local assistance to provide essential services for the people of California.

Prior to that, Johnson served as the director of administrative services at the California State Board of Equalization from 2005 to 2007 and held various positions at the California Department of Food and Agriculture from 1989 to 2005. She also has served on the Marketing Board for the March of Dimes and continues to be involved in the Our Promise Campaign. She also served on the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Prevention of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Advisory Committee.

Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting from St. Louis University. She is also a licensed Certified Public Accountant in California. In her capacity as a leader, Johnson has received several awards of excellence for innovative leadership for California.

Dan Anthony serves as executive vice president and FedNow® chief information officer for Federal Reserve Financial Services. His responsibilities include managing and directing the program’s overall technology strategy, architecture, application development, and cybersecurity. Anthony oversees delivery of a FedNow® solution that will fully meet market-driven business requirements as well as resiliency and security standards.

Anthony formerly worked at Fletcher Building, one of New Zealand’s largest corporations, where he led the technology function. Previously, he held positions at Google’s gTech Flights division and senior level technology roles at Google, Accenture, LivingSocial, and Bearing Point. He has considerable expertise in strategic technology, portfolio management, solution delivery, software engineering, integration, and operations. Anthony holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

The Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG) spearheads Singapore’s digital government transformation and development of the public sector’s engineering capabilities to build a Smart Nation for its citizens and businesses. Driving innovation through cloud adoption has been central to its strategy in making Singapore a leader in the Smart City Index. To accelerate the government’s Smart Nation plans in transforming Singapore into a digital economy and society, SNDGG challenges the status-quo by working with AWS to migrate workloads that need a higher level of security and isolation.

Cheow Hoe Chan is the government chief digital technology officer (GCDTO) of the SNDGG. He is also concurrently the senior advisor of the Singapore Economic Development Board. As the GCDTO, Cheow Hoe oversees the development of the government’s digital infrastructure and digital technology capability, as well as talent development in information and communication technology and smart systems. He also oversees the development of platforms to enable resource sharing and interoperability across the government, so as to drive the development and delivery of innovative government digital services for citizens and businesses.

In his role as senior advisor to the Economic Development Board, Cheow Hoe works with the leadership team to shape the long-term vision for innovation in Singapore’s digital industry, and aid in the development of strategies to fulfill that vision. He is also involved in engaging and building local companies as well as anchoring new technology companies in Singapore. Cheow Hoe has more than two decades of extensive experience in both in the public and private sectors, with a strong track record in leading digital transformation changes in organizations and government. Prior to joining SNDGG, Cheow Hoe held senior appointments in international banks and consulting companies in the areas of technology, operations, finance, and business. Cheow Hoe graduated from the National University of Singapore, and obtained his master’s degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Reserved seating for re:Invent is now open and only registered attendees can reserve seats for the most popular sessions.  Search for “WPS213-INT” in the re:Invent catalog to add the Innovation Talk to your agenda. Register today!