 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of AWS re-invent 2020. Special coverage sponsored by AWS Worldwide Public Sector. Okay, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of re-invent 2020 virtual, it's theCUBE virtual. I'm John Furrier, your host. We're here celebrating the special coverage of public sector with Sandy Carter, Vice President of AWS Public Sector Partners. She heads up the partner group within public sector now in multiple, I hope about a year now, right Sandy? You're so, good about a year. Congratulations, welcome back to theCUBE for re-invent. Always a pleasure to be here and what an exciting re-invent, right? It's been exciting, we got wall-to-wall covers, multiple sets, a lot of actions, virtual, it's three weeks, we're not in person, we have to do it remote this year. So when real life comes back, we'll bring theCUBE back. But I want to take a minute to step back, take a minute to explain your role for the folks that are new to theCUBE, new theCUBE virtual and what you're doing over there at Public Sector. Take a moment to introduce yourself to the new viewers. Well, welcome, theCUBE is phenomenal and of course we love our new virtual re-invent as well. As John said, my name is Sandy Carter and I'm Vice President with our Public Sector Partners group. So what does that mean? That means I get to work with thousands of partners globally, covering exciting verticals like space and healthcare, education, state and local government, federal government and more. And what I get to do is to help our partners learn more about AWS so that they can help our customers really be successful in the marketplace. What has been the most exciting thing for you in the job? Well, you know, I love, wow, I love everything about it, but I think one of the things I love the most is how we in Public Sector really make technology have a meaningful impact on the world. So, Johanna, I get to work with partners like Orbis, which is a nonprofit. They're fighting preventable blindness. They're a partner of ours. They've got something called CyberSite AI which enables us to use machine learning over 20 different machine learning algorithms to detect common eye diseases in seconds. So you know that that purpose for me is so important. We also work with a partner called Twist Think. It's hard to say, but it just does a phenomenal job with AWS IoT and helps make water pumps smart pumps. So they are in 7,300 remote locations around the world helping us with clean water. So for me, that's probably the most exciting and meaningful part of the job that I have today. And it's so impactful because you guys really enable Amazon's business model has always been about enablement from startups to now up and running Public Sector and entities and agencies, education, healthcare. Again, and even in space, this IoT in space. But you've been on the 100 partner tour over 100 days. What did you learn? What are you hearing from partners now? What's the messages that you're hearing? Well, first of all, it was so exciting. I had 100 different partner meetings in 100 days because John, just like you, I missed going around the world and meeting in person. So I said, well, if I can't meet in person, I will do a virtual tour and I talked to partners in 68 different countries. So a couple of things I heard. One is a lot of love for our MAP program and that's our migration acceleration program. We now have funding available for partners as they assess migration, as they look at mobilizing it and as they migrate it. And you may or may not know, but we have over twice the number of migration competency partners doing business in public sector this year than we did last year. The second thing we heard was that partners really love our marketing programs. We had some really nice success this year showcasing value for our customers with cybersecurity. And I love that because security is so important. Andy Jassy always talks about how our customers really have that as priority zero. So we were able to work with a couple of different areas that we were very proud at. And I love that the partners were too. We did some repeatable solutions with our consulting partners. And then I think the third big takeaway that I saw was just our partners love the AWS technology. I heard a lot about AI and ML. We offered this new program called the Rapid Adoption Assistance Program. It's going global in 2021. And so we help partners brainstorm and envision what they could do with it. And then of course, 5G. 5G is ushering in kind of a new era of new demand. And we're going to do a partner cast all about 5G for partners in the first quarter. Okay, I'm going to put you on the spot. What are the three most talked about programs that you heard? Oh wow, let's see. The three most talked about programs that I heard about. The first one was, it's something I'm real excited about. It's called a Think Big for Small Business. It really focuses in on diverse partner groups and types. And what it does is it provides just a little bit of extra boost to our small and medium businesses to help them get some of the benefits of our AWS partner program. So companies like MFT, they're based down in South Africa. It's a husband and wife team that focus on that black economic empowerment rating and they use the program to get some of the go-to-market capabilities. So that's number one. Let's see, you said three. Okay, so number two would be our pro-serve ready pilot. This helps to accelerate our partner activation and enablement and provides partners a way to get badged on the pro-serve best practices, get trained up and does opportunity matching. And I think a lot of partners were kind of buzzing about that program and wanting to know more about it. And then last but not least, the one that I think of probably really has impact to time to compliance. It's called ATO, Authority to Operate. And what we do is we help our partners, both technology partners and consulting partners get support for compliance framework. So FedRAMP, of course, we have over 129 solutions right now that are FedRAMPed, but we also added John, PCI for financial hip-hop for healthcare, for public safety, IRS 1075 for international GDPR and of course for defense IL-45 and six and CMMC. That program is amazing because it cuts the time to market and half cuts the cost in half and really steps partners through all of our best practices. I think those are the top three. You know, I've been like a broken record for the folks that don't know all my interviews I've done with public sector over the years. The last one is interesting and I think that's a secret sauce that you guys have done. The compliance piece, being an entrepreneur and starting companies, that first three steps in a cloud of dust momentum, the flywheel to get going is always the hardest and getting the certification. If you don't have the resources, it's time consuming. I think you guys really cracked the code on that. I really want to call it out because that's I think really super valuable for the folks that pay attention to. And of course, sales enablement through the program. So great stuff. Now, given that's all cool, the question I have and I hear all the time is, okay, I'm involved. I got a lot of pressure. Pandemic has forced me to rethink. I don't have a lot of IT. I don't have a big budget. It's always been the complaint, but not anymore. Mandate is move fast, get built out, leverage the cloud. Okay, I want to get going. What's the best ways for me to grow with public sector? How do I do that? If I'm a customer, I really want to, I won't say take a shortcut because there's really no shortcuts. How do I throttle up quickly? What's your take on that? Well, John, first I want to give one stat that came to us from Trilio. They had interviewed a ton of companies and they found that there was more digital transformation since March, since when the pandemic started to now than in the last five years. So that just blew me away. And I know all of our partners are looking to see how they can really grow based on that. So if you're a consulting partner, one of the things that we say to help you grow is we've already done some integrations. And if you can take advantage of those it can speed up your time to market. So I know you know this one, VMware Cloud on AWS. What a powerful integration. It provides protection of skill sets to your customer, increases your time to market because now VMware, vSphere, vSan is all on AWS. So it's the same user interface and it really helps to reduce cost. And there's another integration that I think really helps which is Amazon Connect, one of our fastest growing areas because it's a ML AI bread solution to help with call centers. It's been integrated with Salesforce, both the service cloud and the sales cloud. So how powerful is that? This integrated customer workflow. So I think both of those are really interesting for our consulting partners. That's a great point. In fact, well, that's the big part of the story here at Reinvent this three weeks has been the integration. Salesforce, as you mentioned, Connect has been huge and partner. So just great success. And again, I've seen great momentum. People are seeing their jobs being saved, they're saving lives. People are pretty excited. And certainly a lot of work to have done healthcare and education, two big areas of activity with this really hard core pressure, really, really hard. So congratulations on that and great work. Great to see you. I got to ask you one final question. What's the big message for your customers watching as they prepare for 2021? Real life is coming back. Vaccines on the horizon. We're hearing some good news. A lot of great cloud help there. What's your message to send to 2021? For our partners for 2021, one, there is tremendous growth ahead and tremendous value that our partners have added. And that's both on the mission side, which both Teresa and I discussed during our sessions, as well as technology. So I think first message is there's lots of growth ahead and a lot of ways that we can add value. Second is all those programs and initiatives, there's so much help out there for partners. So look for how you could really accelerate using some of those areas on your customer journey as you're going along. And then finally, I just want John, everybody to know that we love our partners and AWS is there to help you every step of the way. And if you need anything at all, obviously reach out to your PDM or your account manager or you're always welcome to reach out to me. And my final message is just thank you through so many different things that have happened in 2020, our partners have come through amazingly with passion, with value, and just with persistence, never stopping. So thank you to all of our partners out there who have really added so much value to our customers. And Amazon's recognizing the leadership of partners and the work you're doing. Your leadership session was awesome for the folks who missed it, check it out, it's on demand. Thank you very much, Sandy, for coming on theCUBE and sharing the update. Thank you, John, and great to see all your partners out there. Okay, this is theCUBE virtual covering AWS, reinvent 2020 virtual three weeks, wall-to-wall coverage, a lot of videos. Check out all the videos on demand, the leadership sessions, the CUBE videos, and of course the public sector video on demand, microsite with theCUBE, John Furrier. Thanks for watching.