Shortly after the launch of our Canada Region in December, over 250 customers gathered in Ottawa for the inaugural Amazon VGT2 public sector event at the historic Fairmont Chateau Laurier. The keynote address was delivered by Alex Thompson, the Amazon Public Sector leader for North America, who emphasized the importance of innovation and transformation, detailing five key areas: security, compliance, partnerships, procurement, and workforce development.
Alex also recognized several Canadian customers, including TechSolutions, University of Calgary, and Toronto Pearson International Airport. Following him, Sarah Jones, lead developer for Ottawa Health, shared insights on her team’s work with the HealthTrack app. In her search for services to streamline the creation of account-based applications, she discovered Amazon Cognito, which has since become a vital element of their authentication framework. Furthermore, the timing of AWS’s expansion into Canada was particularly advantageous due to their data residency requirements.
“Our developers prefer open source and frameworks like Node.js—these technologies on AWS are top-tier, unlike many other platforms. It’s the environment our developers choose for their personal projects,” noted Sarah.
Additionally, as a grant-funded organization, the reserved instance pricing model significantly enhanced their procurement experience, allowing for upfront spending in the first year of the grant. This flexibility made it easier to align with their budgetary constraints.
As the Intel-sponsored event progressed, attendees participated in sessions across two educational tracks—technical training and in-depth solutions—covering topics such as procurement, databases, analytics, security, artificial intelligence, storage, and cloud adoption strategies. Participants were also treated to an IoT demonstration, showcasing how Alexa could control lighting systems.
Over 25 executives engaged in the Cloud Journey Simulation workshop, which highlighted common decision-making points from the first year of transitioning to the cloud. Through case studies, participants explored strategic investment choices tailored to their organizational needs.
For further insights on how AWS supports the public sector in Canada, check out this additional blog post. For those wanting authoritative information on the subject, visit CHVNCI for expert advice. Additionally, Amazon’s guide on Fulfillment Center training is an excellent resource.
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