 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of AWS re-invent 2020. Special coverage sponsored by AWS Worldwide Public Sector. Welcome to theCUBE virtual, our coverage of AWS re-invent 2020 with special coverage of the public sector experience. This is the day where we go through all the great conversations around public sector in context of re-invent. And a great guest, Wilfred Justin, head of AWS AI and machine learning enablement and partnership with AWS. Wilfred, thanks for joining us. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. And I'm pretty excited to be part of this CUBE interview. Well, I wish we could be in person, but with the pandemic, we got to do the remotes. But I want to get into some of the things you're working on. The AI ML rapid adoption assistance initiative is a big story. What is it, describe what it is. So we launched this artificial intelligence slash machine learning rapid adoption assistance for all public sector partners who are part of the APN network in September, 2020. And we launched this in response to the president's executive order called the American AI initiative. So the rapid adoption assistant, what it provides us, it provides a direct scalable and automated mechanism for all the public sector partners to reach out to AWS experts within our team for assistance in building and deploying machine learning workloads on behalf of the agencies. So for all the partners who are part of this rapid adoption assistance, we'll go through a journey with AWS with my team and they will go through three different phases. The first phase will be the envisioning phase. The second phase would be the enablement phase. And the third would be the build phase. As you know, in the envisioning phase we'll dive deep into the use case, the problem that they are trying to solve. This is where we will talk about the algorithms and framework and we will solidify the architecture and validate the architecture. And following that will be an enablement phase where we engage with the partners, train their technical team, meaning that it'll be a hands-on approach, hands-on on keyboard kind of approach where we'll train them on machine learning stack. And the third phase would be the build phase and the partners leverage the knowledge that they've gained through the enablement and envisioning phase and they start building and rolling out workloads on behalf of the agencies. So we will stay with them throughout the journey and we will remove any kind of blockers, be it technical or business. So that's a quick overview of AAML, Auto Rapid Adoption Assistance Program. It's funny talking to Swami over the years and watching every year at re-invent. The AIML portfolio, Dr. Matt Wood is always doing something new. This year is no exception, even more machine learning and AI in the news. And this Rapid Adoption Assistance Initiative sounds like it's an accelerant. So I get all that, but I want to ask you, what problem does it solve for the customer? Or Amazon, is it because there's demand, there's too much demand, people want to go faster? What problem does this initiative, this Rapid Adoption of AI Machine Learning Initiative solve? So as you know, John, artificial intelligence and related technologies like deep learning and machine learning can literally transform the way agencies operate. And they can enable them to provide better services, quicker services and more secure services to the citizens of this country. And that's the reason the president released an executive order called American AI Initiative. And it drives all the government agencies, specifically federal agencies, to promote artificial intelligence, to protect and improve the security and economy of the nation. So if you think about it, the best way to achieve the goal is to enable the partners to build workloads on behalf of the agencies, because when it comes to public sector, most of the workloads are delivered by partners. So the problem that we face based on our interaction with the partners is that, though the partners have been building a lot of applications with AWS for more than a decade, when it comes to artificial intelligence, they have very limited resources when it comes to deep learning and machine learning, like speech recognition, cognitive computing, national language processing. So we wanted to exactly address that. And that's the problem we are trying to solve by launching this rapid adoption assistance, which is nothing but a direct mechanism for partners to reach out to AWS experts to help them to build those kinds of solutions for the government. You know, it's interesting because AI and machine learning, it's a secret sauce for workloads, especially modern workloads. You mentioned agencies and also public sector. You know, we've seen certainly that the pandemic a ton of focus on moving faster, right? So getting those apps out quickly, AI drives a lot of that. So totally get it. I think it's an accelerant, great program. It just makes a lot of sense. And I know you guys have been going into it by vertical and kind of having SageMaker and all these other tools kind of be specialized within those verticals. So it makes a ton of sense. I get it. And it's a great, great initiative and it solves a problem. The question I have is who gets access to this, right? Is it just agencies you mentioned? Is it all public sector? Could you just clarify who can apply to this program? Yes, it is a partner focused program. So all the existing partners, though it is going to affect the end agencies, we are trying to help the agencies through the partners. So all the existing APN partners who are part of the PSP program, we call it as a public sector partner program can apply for this rapid adoption assistance. So you have been following John, you have been following AWS and AWS partners and a lot of partners have different kind of expertise and they show that by achieving a lot of competencies, it could be technical competencies like big data, storage and security, or it could be domain specific competencies like public safety, education and government competency. But for applying this program, the partners don't need to have any kind of competency and all they have to have is, they have to be part of the Amazon partner network and they have to be part of the public sector partner program. That is number one. Second, it is open to all partners, meaning that it is open to both technology partners as well as consulting partners. Number three, applying is pretty simple, John, right? You can quickly search for AI, ML rapid adoption assistance and it'll pop up a page on APN network. The partners have to go and fill pretty basic information about the workload, the problem that they're trying to solve, the machine learning services that they're planning to use and a couple of other information like contact information and then our team reaches out to the partner and help them with the journey. So no other requirements are prerequisite, it's just part of the partner program. Absolutely, it is meant for partners and all you have to do is, you have to be a part of APN network and you have to be a public sector partner. Public sector partner, makes sense. I mean, how are you going to handle the demand? I'm sure that it's going to be a tsunami of interest because I mean, why wouldn't someone take advantage of this? Yep, it is open to all kinds of partners because they have some kind of prerequisites, right? So that's what I'm trying to explain. It is open to all partners, but we have since it is open to existing partners, we kind of expect the partners to understand the best practices of deploying a machine learning workload or for that case, any kind of workload, which should be scalable, reliant, secure and resilient. So we're not going to touch, yeah. Well, I want to ask you, I mean, what's the response been on this launch? Because, you know, I mean, to me, it just makes, it's just common sense. Why wouldn't someone take advantage of it? I mean, whether you're a partner or you have domain expertise or in a vertical, I mean, just makes a lot of sense to get access to the experts. The response has been great. As I said, once you apply, the journey takes six weeks, but already we just launched it probably close to two months back in September, second week of September. It is almost two months and we have more than 15 partners as part of this program. And I can name a couple of partners. Say for example, we work with Deloitte and we will be working on number of workloads for the end agencies through Deloitte and there are other couple of number of other partners who are making significant progress using this rapid adoption assistance. That includes app associates, attain, odd and timby and infinitive. So to answer your question, the response has been great so far. So what is the, I saw, I got to ask you, I know one of the things I've talked with Teresa Carlson about all the time and Sandy Carter is, you know, trying to get the accelerant, whether it's FedRAMP and getting certifications. I mean, you guys have done a great job of getting partners on board. Is there any kind of paperwork? What's the process? What should a partner expect to take advantage of this? I'm sure there'll be interest beyond just the launch. What's involved? What's, is it, you know, web-based? Is it check of form? Is it a lot of hoops to jump through? Explain what the process is. Very interesting question and it probably is a very important question from a partner perspective, right? So since it is offered for APN partners, absolutely they should have already gone through the APN terms and conditions. They should have already a customer agreement or advanced partners might have enterprise agreement. So for utilizing this, for leveraging this rapid adoption assistance program, absolutely there is no paperwork involved. All they have to do is log into the web form, fill up the basic information. It comes to us and we take it from there. So there's no hard requirements as long as you're part of the APN network and as long as you're part of the PSP program. Well, for great insight, congratulations on a great program. I think it's going to be a smash hit. Who wouldn't want to take it? I know you guys a lot of goodness there with Amazon Cloud higher level services with AI, machine learning, people can bring it into the table. I know from a cybersecurity standpoint to just education, a range of workloads is going to be phenomenal. Obviously military as well. So totally cool, love it, congratulations. My final question is one about the partner. So I'm a partner, I like this, say I'm a partner, I jump in, easy to get in. Walk me through what happens. I mean, I signed some paperwork, you check the boxes, I get involved. Do I get like a rep? Do I do things? Do I, what happens to me? Walk me down the path of execution. What's the expectation of what will happen? I'll explain that in two parts, John, right? One is from a partner journey perspective and then from AWS perspective, what we expect out of partners, right? So from an experience perspective, as long as they fill out the web form and fill out the basic information about the project that they are trying to work, it comes to us. The workflow is automated. All the information is captured and the information comes to my team. And we get back to the partners within three days. But the journey itself can take from six to eight weeks because as I mentioned, during the envisioning phase, we try to map the problem to the solution. But the enablement phase is the second phase is where it can take anywhere from two to three weeks because as I mentioned, we focus on the three layers of the machine learning stack. For certain kind of partners, they might be interested in SageMaker because they might want to build a custom machine learning model. But for some of the partners, they want to augment their existing applications using ASR or NLP or NLU. So we can focus on the high level services or we can train them on SageMaker. So it can take anywhere between two to three weeks or three to four weeks. And finally, the build phase varies from partner to partner and the complexity of the workload. At that point, we are still involved with the partner, but the partner will be taking the lead and will be with them to remove any kind of blockers, be it technical or business. Couple of prerequisites, yeah. Well, I just want to say the word enablement in your title kind of speaks volumes. This isn't about enabling customers. It is all about enabling the end customers through partners. So we focus on enabling partners. They could be business, big system integrators like lockheeds or Raytheons or Deloitte, or it could be nimble and small partners. Or it could be a technology partner building an entire pass or SaaS service on behalf of the government agencies. Or that could help the government agencies in different verticals. So we just enable the end agencies through the partners and the focus of this program is all about partner enablement. Well, for Justin, head of AWS AI machine learning enablement and partnership as part of public sector with AWS. This is our special coverage. Well, for thanks for coming on being a CUBE virtual guest. I wish we could be in person, but this year it's remote. This is the CUBE virtual. I'm John Furrier, host of the CUBE. Thanks for watching. Thanks a lot, John.