While many industries have struggled, and some sank, due to COVID-19 constraints — just look at retail bankruptcies — others, like government agencies, have eeked out an advantage from them.

The public sector has typically not prioritized speed, agility or the latest technology. COVID-19 gave them a reason to do so, and this is resulting in better experiences for the citizens they serve, according to Max Peterson (pictured), vice president of international sales, Worldwide Public Sector, at Amazon Web Services.

“It, in a nutshell, has been a tough six months for people, but a relatively busy six months for innovation and for IT for the public sector customers,” Peterson said.

AWS has worked with customers across the globe from Egypt to Singapore to the U.S. as they ramped up emergency responses to the pandemic. They needed websites, applications, communication systems, chatbots, contact-tracing tools, etc. 

Many of these organizations had similar needs at a high level but unique requirements for implementation, delivery, etc. They all learned that speed does indeed matter in the public sector. They are also learning ways in which cloud and remote communication and collaboration can improve operations and service delivery.

“It’s different; but done well, there’s new benefits,” Peterson said while speaking with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the AWS Public Sector Summit Online event. They discussed the benefits customers are realizing from cloud and remote, as well as a new, citizen-centric model taking shape. (* Disclosure below.)

Speed, scale and the citizen-centric future

Speed and scaling figures alone were impressive in organizations leveraging cloud to install new pandemic programs, Peterson pointed out. For example, in India, a public-health organization had to put together a no-cost telemedicine system able to scale to reach a billion people. In 19 days, the company got a system up and running that is now doing 6,000 consultations a day. These numbers are excellent even in non-pandemic terms, Peterson added.

Many government organizations’ call centers could not handle the surge in calls from citizens seeking information or aid. Some have remedied the situation with cloud-based call centers and chatbots. An Australian AWS customer managed to set up a complete digital suite to support 5,000 elderly patients and over 3,000 employees in less than a week, Peterson shared. It included a video-conferencing and tele-consultation capability based on the AWS Chime communications service. Since the introduction of video meetings, the frequency of communication and check-ins with the elderly in such programs has gone up in many places, according to Peterson. 

In the U.S, AWS partner Smartronix LLC automated the welfare and social care systems for a number of states. The results are such that, now, 90-plus percent of inbound calls are satisfied using a chat bot, which frees agents to deal with more difficult calls. 

Peterson predicts that citizens and constituents will quickly become accustomed to these types of improved digital experiences and this will drive cloud adoption. What does the “virtual experience 2.0” in the public sector look like according to Peterson? It goes way beyond speed.

“That connectedness can be in terms of making sure that a citizen, who is on their life journey, doesn’t need to continuously explain to government where they’re at, but rather government learns how to create secure scalable data stores so that they understand the journey of the citizen and can provide help through that journey,” he concluded. 

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 Online event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Public Sector Summit Online event. Neither AWS, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE