Tag: government

When I worked in the UK government, I led the Government Digital Transformation Service (GDS) Transformation Program, where we used an Agile approach to modernize a range of services, from social care benefits to prison visit booking. Now, I work with the AWS Institute executive education program to teach public sector leaders how to accelerate and expand their impact for citizens with digital transformation. In this blog post, I share my experience using the Agile approach to transform government services, and offer some best practices for organizations who want to adopt a bias for Agile action to deliver successful modernization faster and at scale.

On April 1, the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released the 1950 Census data to the general public. Census data is released 72 years after a census is conducted, and it has been 10 years since the last census data for the 1940 Census was publicly released. With the support of cloud technologies, this release marks a number of important firsts. AWS is honored to support the release of the 1950 Census and help make this data available to the public.

In my time working for the UK government’s Digital Marketplace as the service manager, I saw first-hand the benefits of open source in government. Combined with transparent processes, using open source solutions helped streamline digital project execution, build trust with constituents and the global community, and save time and money. Now, as the senior manager of government services (GovServices) at AWS, and as a teacher for the AWS Institute Executive Education Program, I want to share best practices for government leaders looking to use open source solutions.

To drive innovation and optimise operations in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, UK public sector organizations need to transfer data quickly and safely, in accordance with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)’s guidance on how to configure, deploy, and use cloud services securely. The NCSC provides security guidance for protecting government systems, planning for cyber incidents, and more. In this post, we cover how you can configure AWS services—like AWS DataSync, AWS Storage Gateway, and AWS Transfer Family—to align your data transfer solution with the NCSC’s cloud security principles, as understanding these configurations is important to protect data and meet requirements for local force accreditation.

AWS plans to launch new AWS Local Zones across Latin America to contribute to the region’s economic diversification. The new locations include Bogotá, Colombia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Queretaro, Mexico; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Santiago, Chile. AWS is helping to develop more resilient economies that promote long-term economic growth. The low-latency offered by Local Zones can make new use cases possible for public sector organizations.

The AWS Summit Brussels is back. On Thursday, March 31, 2022, the no cost, in-person learning conference will bring together cloud enthusiasts from the public and private sectors at The Egg in Brussels, Belgium. Join to deepen your cloud knowledge and learn about the power of cloud innovation to transform organizations and businesses around the world.

To better understand the rapidly evolving workforce landscape and help our customers address barriers to digital skilling, AWS commissioned the strategy and economics consulting firm AlphaBeta to examine the skills needs of organizations across Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea. In this blog post, we outline key insights from the report, “Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce,” and provide examples for how governments, employers, training providers, and the technology industry can come together to meet this challenge.

AWS signed a new Cloud Framework Agreement (CFA) with the Malaysian government, together with local IT provider and AWS Partner Radmik Solutions Sdn Bhd, to help accelerate cloud adoption in the public sector and help agencies save costs, boost digital skills, and drive innovation. AWS is the first international cloud service provider to have concluded and signed a CFA with the Malaysian government, as part of our long-term commitment to support Malaysia’s digital transformation.

Increased digitalization is transforming the payments landscape. Over 85 countries, representing over 90% of global GDP, are researching the possibility of launching a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). However, as central banks evaluate the pros and cons of CBDCs, they are considering different approaches and designs to address the variety of needs and situations of each country. To advance understanding in this space, AWS worked with the Oliver Wyman Forum on a whitepaper which outlines a framework that can help support policymakers in evaluating the interdependencies between policy and technology choices. In this blog post, we summarize key principles outlined in the framework.

The AWS Secure Environment Accelerator (ASEA) landing zone helps customers deploy and operate a secure multi-account, multi-Region AWS environment. Governments in Canada and others around the world currently use the ASEA, with over 30 deployments to date. Some of these same customers also use VMware Cloud on AWS to integrate on-premises vSphere environments, allowing them to move existing workloads to the cloud more quickly. Integrating your VMware workload with natively managed AWS services can help you reduce your operational overhead and optimize your total cost of ownership (TCO). In this blog post, we review the technical considerations related to integrating your ASEA landing zone with your VMware Cloud on the AWS environment.