Will AWS Disrupt Indian Public Sector?

Teresa Carlson leads the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector business, which includes state, local, central and regional overnments; educational institutions and Ed Techs, and non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGO), and acts as an advisor to Amazon Public Policy on global policy issues. Since starting AWS’s public sector business in 2010, Carlson has driven the business’ growth, which today accounts for 2,000 government, 4,500 education, and 17,500 nonprofit customers, and a vast partner ecosystem across all geographies. Prior to joining AWS, Carlson served as Vice President of Microsoft Federal Government, where she was responsible for defining the strategy for the company’s US Federal Government business. Before moving into technology, Carlson worked in health care, as a practitioner and consultant initially, then as a business manager and area vice president, responsible for national accounts, marketing, and business development. In an interaction with DATAQUEST, Teresa speaks on AWS and its traction in the Public Sector and the compelling need for the Government vertical to adopt cloud to improve efficiencies. Excerpts.

- Teresa Carlson

Public Sector IT demands are unique given the scale – why should they embrace cloud?

Public Sector today is at the cusp. They need to reach out to the people by offering quick and easy access to services. So clearly they need to improve efficiencies and Cloud is the natural choice. They can experiment on the Cloud and given the agility and elasticity they can fail fast, recover fast and in the end create a very robust infrastructure. Now that AWS has launched a region in Mumbai, Public Sector here can leverage AWS’ expertise and benefit from it.

How can Cloud disrupt Government Services?