Themes of innovation and customer obsession were especially relevant when Amazon Web Services Inc. announced its 2020 AWS Public Sector Partners Awards. The global pandemic lent particular importance to many of the innovative solutions that were recently recognized by AWS on behalf of public sector customers.

“During COVID, data became so essential,” said Sandy Carter (pictured), vice president at AWS. “We had a lot of partners who could help with that. Our partners did some extraordinary things working backwards from their customer.”

Carter spoke with Jeff Frick, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, about the AWS Public Sector 2020 Partner Awards Program. They discussed award winners in various public sector client projects and priorities for the remainder of the year. (* Disclosure below.)

Virtual court and contact center

This year’s awards included a specific COVID category — “Best New COVID-19 Solution From a Technology Partner” — which went to Salesforce.com Inc. However, there were other virus-related projects that garnered recognition.

Tyler Technologies Inc. received a “Best Remote Work Solution” award for implementing a virtual court in the city of Alvin, Texas, to keep the wheels of justice from grinding to a complete halt. Accenture PLC was recognized for its “Most Customer Obsessed Mission Based Win” as part of a project to assist the Canadian government with a sudden surge in call-center volume.

“They helped the government of Canada through some of the employment and social development areas, launching a 2,600 person contact center to help deal with the spikes in call volume,” Carter said.

Looking forward to the remainder of what has already been a challenging year, Carter noted that cloud migration and security will be key areas of focus in the public sector and for AWS.

“It’s not just about your superpower for profit,” Carter said. “That superpower for purpose is equally as important.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Public Sector 2020 Partner Awards Program. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Public Sector 2020 Partner Awards Program. Neither AWS, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE