Cloud Computing Event \
October 1, 2025 | 9:00 AM — 5:00 PM
Rogers Centre

Thank you to everyone who attended this year's event on Oct. 9, 2024.

Mark your calendars for next year's event on Oct. 1, 2025.

AWS Public Sector Symposium Ottawa

Bringing the cloud community together to innovate, build, and learn

Join us in Ottawa on October 1, 2025 to discover how the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud can help you transform the services you provide to Canadians, while meeting your security, sovereignty, and sustainability requirements.

Explore how the cloud can help you harness data at scale, strengthen your security posture, lead digital transformation, and advance generative AI—faster and at lower cost. Returning in 2025 with all-new content and speakers, this must-attend event features inspiring keynotes from Canada’s tech leaders, breakout sessions, hands-on workshops, networking hubs, and more.

With 20+ sessions, a Builder's Fair, and a full expo hall, the AWS Symposium Ottawa is the perfect place to connect, collaborate, and learn. Whether you're just getting started in the cloud or you're an experienced user, you'll gain key insights that you can use right away.

AWS Public Sector Symposium Ottawa | 2023 recap

See the highlights from last year's event.

Event highlights

20+ sessions

Lecture-style and interactive sessions to learn from, join us no matter where you are on your AWS journey.

Experiential zones

Join AWS experts to discover trends and possibilities for your data and experience the latest in innovation and live demos.

Ask an AWS expert

Speak to an AWS team member one-on-one and ask the questions you have on your mind.

AWS training

Get equipped with the knowledge it takes to move your company—and career—forward.  

F E A T U R E D  S P E A K E R S

2024 keynote speakers

Clint Crosier
Director, Aerospace & Satellite
Amazon Web Services

Ross Ermel
Assistant Deputy Minister (Digital Services) and Defence Chief Digital Officer, Department of National Defence 

Mark Messier
Six-Time Stanley Cup Winner

Cassie Campbell-Pascall
Two-Time Olympic Champion

Dave Lehanski
EVP, Business Development & Innovation
NHL

Kirsten Robinson
Federal Government Leader
Amazon Web Services

Opening Keynote

Time: 1.5 hours

Keynote description. 

Watch Opening Keynote on demand »

Morning Keynote

Time: 30 min

Keynote description. 

Watch Afternoon Keynote on demand »

Afternoon Keynote

Time: 30 min

Keynote description. 

Watch Afternoon Keynote on demand »

H E A R  F R O M  L E A D E R S H I P 

2024 AWS Executives & Enterprise Strategists

Chris Hennesey
Enterprise Strategist
AWS

Sean Roche
Director of National Security, Worldwide Public Sector
AWS

Tom Soderstrom
Enterprise Strategist
AWS

Agenda

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

This event is specifically designed to help public sector organizations across government, education, nonprofit, healthcare, and financial services navigate the increasingly complex and ever-evolving tech landscape. 

Our goal is to empower you, the leaders and architects of public sector digital transformation, with new capabilities and insights that help you accelerate your mission and improve the lives of people and the planet using cloud technology.

  • See cutting-edge products and the latest solutions from our sponsoring partners and learn how they can help you transform your organization. 

  • The Symposium features 20+ breakout sessions across four main tracks: technical, management, security, and data.  

    Discover content to accelerate your public sector mission, and hear from government, nonprofit, healthcare, education, and aerospace and satellite customers. Grow your existing cloud skills to learn how to build, deploy, and operate your infrastructure and applications learning from lecture-style and interactive sessions.

  • Learn from AWS experts about how AWS Training and Certification can help you gain practical experience with real-world cloud scenarios, validate your cloud expertise, and much more.

Schedule

8:00AM - 9:00AM ET: Registration
9:00AM - 9:50AM ET: Breakout sessions
9:50AM - 10:00AM ET: Break
10:00AM - 10:50AM ET: Breakout sessions
10:50AM - 11:00AM ET: Break
11:00AM - 11:50AM ET: Breakout sessions
11:50AM - 12:45PM ET: Lunch
12:45PM - 1:35PM ET: Breakout sessions
1:35PM - 1:45PM ET: Break
1:45PM - 2:35PM ET: Breakout sessions
2:35PM - 3:00PM ET: Break
3:00PM - 4:00PM ET: Keynote
4:00PM - 5:30PM ET: Closing reception

Agenda is subject to change.

Session level guide

Level 100: Introductory

Sessions are focused on providing an overview of AWS services and features, with the
assumption that attendees are new to the topic.

Level 200: Intermediate

Sessions are focused on providing best practices, details of service features and demos with the assumption that attendees have introductory knowledge of the topics.

Level 300: Advanced

Sessions dive deeper into the selected topic. Presenters assume that the audience has
some familiarity with the topic, but may or may not have direct experience .

Level 400: Expert

Sessions are for attendees who are deeply familiar with the topic, have implemented a
solution on their own already, and are comfortable with how the technology works.

2023 Keynote

Across the public sector, innovation and problem-solving are more essential than ever before. Join Colonel Chris Hadfield, First Canadian Commander of the International Space Station, to discover how you can drive innovation throughout your own team, based on lessons learned from his three decades at NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.

You’ll also hear from Dr. Kumar Chellapilla, general manager, AI and ML services at AWS., as he dives deep into Generative AI and the transformational role it can play in government, defence, health care, and education.

Whether you’re new to the cloud or a seasoned expert, you’ll leave this keynote with practical insights you can use right away.

2023 keynote speakers

Opening Keynote

Time: 1.5 hours

Keynote description. 

Watch Opening Keynote on demand »

Morning Keynote

Time: 30 min

Keynote description. 

Watch Afternoon Keynote on demand »

Afternoon Keynote

Time: 30 min

Keynote description. 

Watch Afternoon Keynote on demand »
 Download Agenda at a Glance

2024 Session Catalogue

Browse, filter, or search through the session catalogue below to find topics that interest you and view the presentations.

Agenda is subject to change.

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  • Expo Theatre

    PRT208-S
    200

    Accelerate cloud adoption & empower your organization with generative AI

    Marc-Antoine Pinard, CTO, Levio

    In your journey to modernize your IT systems and deliver better services to citizens and customers, GenAI is the ideal tool to empower your employees, increase your organizational capabilities, as well as accelerate your migration to the cloud. In this session we look at different applied GenAI use cases, including for compliance and efficiency in healthcare, IT architecture improvements, omnichannel customer service, and stewardship in agriculture and climate change. We also provide a concise set of best practices to help you chart the roadmap of your organization in terms of data readiness for AI.

    9-Oct | 15 mins
    12:45-13:00
  • Breakout

    DATA105
    200

    Accelerate innovation using a modern data strategy on AWS

    Mark Avery, Director of the NHS East of England Secure Data Environment for R&D (NHS); Katie Rose, Director, Division of Data Operations, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Kyle Pallanik, Director, Architecture and Information Systems, Ontario Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC); Abdalla Abdelrahman, Senior Data Scientist, Corporations Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED); Anubhav Srivastava, Senior Data & AI Specialist - Canada Public Sector, AWS

    In this panel discussion, you'll learn how global public sector leaders are generating better insights for decision-making by building a modern data strategy on AWS, with use cases from across Canada, the US, and the UK.

    9-Oct | 50 mins
    13:45 - 14:35
  • Breakout

    SEC101
    200

    Amazon's culture of security and Canada's national cyber security strategy: Partnering for success

    Sean Roche, Director of National Security, AWS Worldwide Public Sector and former Associate Deputy Director for Digital Innovation, CIA

    Explore how organizations can transform their security culture to enable successful cloud migrations. Attendees will learn strategies to position security as a business enabler, make security everyone's responsibility, and transition the security team into a strategic risk advisory role to empower the business.

    9-Oct | 50 mins
    09:00 - 9:50
  • Breakout

    DATA102
    200

    Anthropic for Canada: How to leverage the world's most trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) for the public sector

    Kunaal Sharma, Head of Public Sector, Anthropic; Anthony Pitfield, Senior Public Sector Data and AI Specialist, AWS Canada

    How can Canada's public sector leverage Generative AI to drive meaningful change in a secure, trustworthy manner? We'll introduce Anthropic, including its industry-leading contributions to responsible AI policy and engineering, and then turn to Canadian public sector opportunities for deployment via AWS services. Attendees will gain insights on policy, usage, and adoption of Anthropic models in ways that help inform their own thinking about where to start.

    9-Oct | 50 mins
    10:00 - 10:50
  • Breakout

    LEAD105-S
    100

    Can Canada have nice (digital) things?

    Joe Mariani, Research Senior Manager, Deloitte Center for Government Insights, Deloitte; Tanu Mohan, Digital Transformation Leader, Deloitte; Zaina Sovani, Executive Advisor, Digital Strategist, and Transformation Leader, Deloitte; Giselle D'Paiva, Partner, Government and Public Sector Digital ID Leader, Deloitte

    This session will look at how Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is accelerating service delivery and shaping digital governments. A passport on your phone, taxes with a few clicks: Services that once seemed like science fiction are now realities. In this session, we'll explore use cases from multi-jurisdictional countries, and roadmaps for building platforms that transform service delivery.

    9-Oct | 50 mins
    12:45 - 13:35
  • Expo Theatre

    PRT205-S
    200

    Cloud exposure management: 3 pillars to rein in cyber risk

    Bob Champlin, Cloud Security Territory Manager, Tenable

    As organizations adopt complex multi-cloud environments, the requirement for improved automation to implement and scale crucial controls has become essential. Exposure Management provides a transformative approach that harmonizes security initiatives across on-premise and cloud teams, and decreases complexity by minimizing the number of tools essential to protect the entire attack surface. The three primary areas this session will cover include: 1: Attaining comprehensive visibility across all your organization's public domains. 2: Integrating web scan data with cloud assessment results to detect critical weaknesses and hazardous combinations. 3: How adopting a unified approach to governing cloud configurations and access controls eliminates critical blind spots.

    9-Oct | 15 mins
    10:00-10:15
  • Breakout

    LEAD103
    100

    Cloud financial operations best practices for the federal government

    Chris Hennesey, Enterprise Strategist, AWS, Former VP of Finance, Capital One; Helen Braiter, Executive Director, Cloud Operations - Benefits Delivery Modernization, Employment and Social Development Canada; Erin Kelly, IT Senior Advisor - Benefits Delivery Modernization, Employment and Social Development Canada

    What does good cloud financial operations (cloud FinOps) look like in the public sector? This session will review cloud financial management best practices and how to implement them, through the lens of a large Government of Canada department. We'll share concrete lessons learned about implementing cloud financial management practices and how cloud fin ops can accelerate time to value.

    9-Oct | 50 mins
    13:45 - 14:35
  • Chalk Talk

    CHT104
    300

    Create an end-to-end modern data value chain for generative AI on AWS

    Fabrizio Napolitano, Principal Analytics Specialist Solutions Architect, AWS; Nicolas Bernier, AI/ML Solutions Architect, AWS

    Dive deep into data value chains and learn how to prepare your data for generative AI in this hands-on, step-by-step session.

    9-Oct | 50 mins
    09:00 - 9:50
  • Breakout

    SEC103
    300

    Deploying high value asset (HVA) workloads in AWS

    Brian Mycroft, Enterprise Technologist, AWS Canada

    Explore key considerations for high-value asset deployment on the AWS cloud, including best practices for ensuring high integrity and high availability.

    9-Oct | 50 mins
    12:45 - 13:35
1 4

Symposium sponsors

Join our AWS Partners sponsoring the AWS Public Sector Symposium Ottawa. Find inspiration from customer stories and learn how AWS Partners can build solutions to achieve your mission. Hear from organizations like yours on how and why they migrated to the AWS Cloud. 

 

Emerald sponsor

Platinum sponsors

Gold sponsors

Silver sponsors

Exhibitors

F I N D   O U T   M O R E

Frequently asked questions

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