The pandemic transformed the world overnight, with the public sector being no exception.

Education was especially hit hard, with millions of students globally switching to remote classrooms and depending on the integrity of the internet to further their learning. With team efforts from educators and tech companies alike, education has been radically transformed, joining other industries in the digital migration era, according to Kim Majerus (pictured), vice president of U.S. public sector education, state and local government, at Amazon Web Services Inc.

“I take a look at all the K through 12’s and higher ed and how quickly they had to shift literally overnight. It was amazing to see how quickly these educators really shifted their focus to continue education,” she said. 

Majerus spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the AWS Summit Washington, DC event. They discussed the pandemic’s effect on education, AWS’ Innovation Studio and more. (* Disclosure below.)

Education transformation

The pandemic took the world by surprise, forcing industries everywhere to scramble to make services remote and safe.

“We saw that through the early stages of the pandemic, systems were failing because they couldn’t support all the legacy debt that the states, specifically, in some education institutions had,” Majerus explained. “There was a case in Utah about changing from a mainframe to moving it to the cloud. It was exciting to hear about the savings but, more importantly, the innovation that they see.”

Amazon stepped up to the plate to help governmental organizations transform digitally almost overnight, with services such as Amazon Connect allowing public sector employees to take calls from their homes rather than a call center.

“[Los Angeles Unified School District] was the most creative, when I think about how quickly they moved,” Majerus said. “They connected overnight and offered a whole different level of support, and LA USD took it even one step further and turned it into an opportunity to support students in English and Spanish overnight with our support.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Summit Washington, DC event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for AWS Summit Washington, DC. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE