Tag: APN Partners COVID-19

Monitoring and tracking student and staff exposure to COVID-19 and reports of those experiencing known symptoms continues to be a critical part of school plans for remaining open this fall. Colleges and universities are creating and using mobile applications that can track users’ symptoms, record COVID-19 test results, get connected to medical resources, and help with contact tracing. Some of these mobile apps built by the university or an AWS Partner use the cloud to securely handle this vital information.

Governments at all levels rapidly addressed the rising challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian governments  met citizens’ needs quickly by building secure, compliant solutions on AWS to deliver critical information and services. Working with partners and AWS, Canadian governments and agencies released multiple solutions for providing a modern, digital-first experience for all to interact with the government and receive the information and services they need.

While disruptive events are challenging for any organization, sudden and large-scale incidents such as natural disasters, IT outages, pandemics, and cyber-attacks can expose critical gaps in technology, culture, and organizational resiliency. Even smaller, unexpected events such as water damage to a critical facility or electrical outages can negatively impact your organization if there is no long-term resiliency plan in place. These events can have significant consequences on your employees, stakeholders, and mission, and can result in long-term financial losses, lost productivity, loss of life, a deterioration of trust with citizens and customers, and lasting reputational damage.

AWS is committed to helping our customers address the challenges brought about by COVID-19. In the months since the pandemic started, we have helped governments and organizations around the world accelerate efforts to track the virus, understand its outbreak, and better contain its spread. These are principles that have been reinforced by the World Health Organization (WHO). With the number of worldwide cases continuing to rise at an alarming rate, there is a global imperative to discover, test, and isolate patients in order to slow the viral spread, save lives, and fully reopen economies. To meet this public health imperative, governments are expanding their use of a well-established technique called ‘contact tracing’.

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.

As the COVID-19 outbreak began, advocates and public health officials grew concerned for the more than half a million people experiencing homelessness. Homeless populations are particularly vulnerable because they have higher rates of serious underlying health problems, generally lack access to quality health care, and have no way to self-quarantine. This prompted many communities to implement interventions to reduce the risk of exposure for people experiencing homelessness. AWS customers and partners have acted with compassion and care to assist the most vulnerable individuals across our communities. Here are a few ways they are using cloud technology to support those in need.

This morning, vice president of AWS worldwide public sector Teresa Carlson kicked off the AWS Public Sector Summit Online. Teresa reflected on the challenging times during these past few months, shared key trends and lessons learned and spoke about AWS’s commitment to helping people around the world continue to deliver on their missions. In her keynote address, Teresa highlighted AWS customers’ impressive global efforts and how AWS is helping support those customers’ missions. She also shared the latest news and announcements, resources, and more. Here’s what you missed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that public sector organizations need modern infrastructure, capabilities and controls to overcome the disruption caused by global health outbreaks. Organizations that embraced cloud services proved more responsive. They were able to continue operating remotely and serving their customers and citizens, demonstrating agility, scalability, and speed. In How Governments Can Build Resilience in a New Normal: Emerging Practices from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, a new policy paper from the AWS Institute, we outline how organizations can use the cloud to recover from the disruption that the virus brought, as well as become more resilient for future challenges.

At Amazon, we are committed to providing immediate relief and response to global communities impacted by natural disasters. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Disaster Response team plays an important role in this response, and the team has supported customers worldwide in the wake of hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, and disease outbreaks including COVID-19. We help by bringing our operational and logistics expertise, as well as cloud technology to support our customers and our communities when and where they need it most, working closely with organizations like the American Red Cross.