As the full impact of COVID-19 began to spread throughout the U.S., state government agencies needed help. Many were overwhelmed with calls from citizens seeking medical assistance or unemployment support.

The numbers were staggering. The Kansas Department of Labor received approximately 1.6 million calls from people requesting guidance for unemployment claims. Similar volumes were reported in other states, including West Virginia where the state’s technology office reached out to Amazon Web Services Inc.’s Public Sector Partner Program for help.

“West Virginia had callers waiting for hours, 77,000 calls a day,” said Sandy Carter (pictured), vice president of the worldwide public sector partners and programs at AWS. “They worked with one of our partners, Smartronix, and they got this new solution — a remote virtual call center — up in 72 hours. The average wait time was 62 seconds.”

Carter spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the AWS Public Sector Summit event. They discussed how current emergencies have accelerated digital transformation for government agencies, support for small businesses, a new program for disaster response, and solutions for meeting agency compliance requirements. (* Disclosure below.)

Transition to digital services

The AWS Public Sector Partner Program is designed to leverage private sector expertise in delivering government, education and nonprofit services on a global basis. For government agencies, in particular, the onset of COVID-19 has hastened a transition to digital platforms and services.

“All the agencies had this tidal wave of digital transformation,” Carter said. “Things that were going to take them years ended up taking weeks or months.”

AWS has also played a role in supporting companies seeking to provide assistance to other firms during a time of crisis. One of these was Hello Alice, a resource site for small businesses, which recently set up a COVID-19 business support center to help facilitate applications for emergency grants.

“They integrated with our artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a small-business platform to help businesses get access to funding or answers to questions during this really hard time,” Carter said.

Responding to emergencies

To help organizations find businesses with specialized services tailored for managing public safety emergencies, AWS launched a new program in December. The AWS Public Safety & Disaster Response Competency helps customers identify partners in the firm’s network to implement technology solutions for preparing and responding to emergencies and disasters.

“We want to introduce this for our technology partners,” Carter said. “We have COVID-19, but we also have all of these hurricanes and earthquakes that are happening around the world. We’ve got some great partners that have solutions here, and we’ll be welcoming them into this competency fold as well.”

Providing services to support government agencies can be a challenging process, even in times of severe emergency. The AWS Partner Network Program provides assistance to companies seeking compliance authorization. Authority to Operate helps solution providers running on AWS navigate compliance requirements for frameworks such as the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP.

“A lot of our customers require FedRAMP, which is not only costly, but takes a lot of time,” Carter explained. “Today we have 110 FedRAMP solutions that have gone through our ATO process. We can dramatically reduce your time to market with FedRAMP, really help you through it with all of these best practices.”

In what seems at times to be a layer cake of crises, the AWS Partner Network Program offers a window into the mood of both private and public sectors as teams of people respond to unprecedented need for emergency support.

“The vibe is hopeful,” Carter said. “Our partners are jumping in all kinds of areas. They are doing things they never thought were possible based on what’s happening today.”

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 Summit event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Public Sector Summit Online event. 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