What you missed in the AWS Summit Washington DC keynote 2022

On Tuesday, May 24, Max Peterson, vice president of worldwide public sector at Amazon Web Services (AWS), took the keynote stage at AWS Summit Washington, DC to share announcements, news, and stories of how our public sector customers are leveraging the cloud to deliver mission-critical outcomes. Three customer speakers joined him to share how they’re using AWS to get the agility, resilience, and security needed to keep pushing boundaries and driving impact.

What’d you miss?

Supporting startups to accelerate innovation at home and beyond

Focusing on health equity: Launching the next AWS Healthcare Accelerator

AWS is helping organizations improve health outcomes through AWS for Health, which was first introduced in July 2021 as a set of curated AWS services and AWS Partner Network solutions, now used by thousands of healthcare and life sciences companies around the world. AWS for Health helps our customers accelerate their digital transformation with proven and accessible capabilities.

As part of AWS for Health, we also launched our AWS Health Equity Initiative program last year to address health disparities and advance equity globally – committing $40 million over three years in AWS Cloud credits and technical expertise. To build on this, AWS is launching the next AWS Healthcare Accelerator with a focus on improving health outcomes for the underserved. Now in its second year, the Accelerator will support 10 startups with a four-week technical, business, and mentorship program. This will help drive coordination between healthcare leaders and startups, providing them with the support they need to take their concepts to the next phase using the power of the cloud. Applications are now open until July 1, 2022. Learn more about the program.

To space and beyond: Announcing the AWS Space Accelerator participants

The cloud is democratizing access to space, and increasing accessibility to space is important for ongoing innovation. After the launch of the second AWS Space Accelerator program in March, AWS and delivery partner AlchemistX announced the 10 selected participants from around the world. The program kicks off in two weeks. These startups represent a broad set of mission areas—from the ocean floor to the surface of the moon, and everything in between. Read more about the selected startups.

Driving prosperity for all people and our planet: Announcing the AWS Sustainable Cities Accelerator participants

Amazon is committed to building a sustainable future. To this end, AWS launched the AWS Sustainable Cities Accelerator program earlier this year. The accelerator will kick off in June, providing the selected startups with up to $100,000 in AWS Promotional Credits, mentorship, and more. In coordination with delivery collaborators Freshwater Advisors and Public Spend Forum, AWS chose 12 startups using technology to innovate in sustainability, with solutions ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) traffic analysis to smart Internet of Things (IoT) lampposts. Learn more about the startups selected.

Helping our customers move faster with the highest levels of security

Making sure you have the highest level of security: Announcing Landing Zone Accelerator on AWS

Security is AWS’s top priority. AWS is launching the Landing Zone Accelerator on AWS, a new, open-source solution that integrates with AWS Control Tower. This accelerator helps automate and orchestrate foundational AWS services, and accelerate customers’ compliance needs in highly-regulated environments. The Landing Zone Accelerator on AWS speeds up the implementation of technical security controls and an infrastructure foundation on AWS, and provides an accelerated path to achieve an Authority to Operate (ATO) or other compliance accreditations, such as Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), Protected B, Medium Integrity, Medium Availability (PBMM), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This allows customers to deploy to the cloud more quickly, in all AWS Regions.

Building secure and scalable cloud environments: Announcing DoD Cloud Infrastructure as Code for AWS

Implementing the highest level of security quickly and efficiently is more critical than ever. The Department of Defense (DoD) Cloud Infrastructure as Code for AWS can help defense mission owners build out secure and scalable cloud environments faster. This offering provides a collection of templates for a flexible and cost-effective way to adopt cloud capabilities and has already received a three-year Authority to Operate, to help customers create secure and compliant cloud environments. Learn more about this offering.

Modernize faster: AWS Mainframe Modernization

To help more customers modernize faster, AWS recently announced the new service AWS Mainframe Modernization, which will be generally available in select Regions soon. This service speeds up the migration of mainframe workloads and legacy applications to the cloud. AWS Mainframe Modernization provides an end-to-end set of tools to support the full migration process, no matter if customers choose to refactor their mainframe workloads or keep their applications as-is and re-platform them to AWS.

Sparking inspiration and furthering innovation: our customers reimagine what’s possible

Three customers shared the stage with Max to inspire the audience with their own stories of using the cloud to accelerate their missions. These pioneers led digital transformation initiatives within their organizations, breaking barriers and driving change.

USPS

Pritha Mehra, chief information officer at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), shared how her organization moved quickly using the cloud to support the White House’s COVID-19 pandemic response initiative that has delivered more than 360 million free COVID-19 test kits to households across the U.S. Pritha’s team had only three weeks to design a system that could handle millions of orders an hour. In the face of requiring such unprecedented load, Pritha’s team decided to use AWS to build their application. “We’re very proud of what happened next,” Pritha told the audience. When the covidtests.gov website launched, at peak, the USPS accepted 10 million orders an hour, and over 54 million orders in the first two days. Since launching in mid-January, the COVID-19 test kit website has received more than 100 million orders. Read more about how the USPS provided free COVID test kits to US households here.

Hypergiant

Quentin “Q” Donnellan, president of space and defense at Hypergiant, shared how his organization is using AWS to provide insights and visualizations to customers operating under compressed timelines on the edges of connectivity – helping them make mission-critical decisions at the speed of relevancy. “We reduce the time it takes to make decisions—from 20 minutes to 20 seconds,” Quentin told the audience. “This is only possible through AWS.” Hypergiant uses AWS to access siloed data, manipulate it with artificial intelligence and machine learning, and deliver mission-critical overlays to operators and analysts that enable more rapid, informed decision-making. Plus, Hypergiant uses AWS Snowball–“a mailable and droppable box of awesome,” said Quentin–that brings cloud computing capabilities to the tactical edge, so operators can make informed decisions even in places with limited or no network connectivity. Using AWS, Hypergiant supports the military and public sector by accelerating their “time to context and time to decisions.”

Tufts Medicine

Dr. Shafiq Rab, chief digital officer, system chief information officer, and executive vice president at Tufts Medicine, shared how his organization launched its digital healthcare environment and implemented Epic on AWS to better support over 2,400 physicians and four million patients across eastern Massachusetts. They are using the cloud to unlock the potential of data for more personalized healthcare. “We are the first health system to implement EPIC electronic health record environment in the AWS Cloud – but we did not stop there,” Dr. Rab told the audience. They recently used AWS to make patient care more accessible, while keeping security top of mind. They launched multi-channel patient services in multiple languages, including chatbots and a call center built with Amazon Connect. “We are making it easier and simpler for patients and consumers to access care,” said Dr. Rab. Read more about how Tufts Medicine (formerly known as Wellforce) uses AWS to enhance patient services.

Paving the way to the next normal: how customers use the cloud for digital transformation

As we move into the next normal, organizations are continuing to adapt to meet the new needs of citizens, students, customers, and the planet with the cloud. Max shared with the audience how some AWS customers are using technology to provide for the public sector.

To help address supply chain issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, the Port of Long Beach turned to the cloud. Handling over $200 billion worth of cargo each year, the Port of Long Beach is the second busiest port in the US. By leveraging AWS, the Port was able to launch its “Supply Chain Information Highway” for a central system to host cargo data. This provides secure end-to-end visibility to the thousands of customers and stakeholders who interact with the supply chain every day, ranging from ocean carriers to trucking companies.

The U.S. Army 18th Airborne Corps worked with AWS to architect and build Dragon Cloud, which serves as a unified data fabric that exists outside the range of enemy conventional kinetic effects. It uses Nitro-based Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance types to accelerate workload processing and reduce costs. Dragon Cloud represents a departure from traditional ways of running mission command applications at the edge and in tactical warfighting environments. Read more about Dragon Cloud.

Maxar Technologies delivers high-resolution, unclassified imagery to help their customers, including the US government and international allies, have an accurate, up-to-date view of conditions on the ground. Cloud-based dissemination through Maxar’s SecureWatch platform and similar US government programs make multiple sources of optical imagery and radar data accessible to mission collaborators across the community. Maxar also produces commercial satellite imagery that can be shared more broadly, helping to provide global transparency and combat the spread of disinformation.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a global environmental nonprofit, uses the cloud to develop more livable cities by addressing tree shade inequity. Tree shade provides significant health benefits, ranging from lower levels of air pollution to improved mental health, which is not equally accessible to everyone. TNC is using AWS services to conduct research and store and analyze data, and then sharing these insights with legislatures, policymakers, and stakeholders to scale actionable solutions. Watch this episode of Climate Next to learn more.

Watch the keynote on demand here.

Check out the top 10 announcements from the Public Sector Partner Forum at the AWS Summit Washington, DC.

AWS Public Sector Blog