To address challenges in society through digital innovation, NITI Aayog announced on Tuesday the establishment of a Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Centre (CIC) with Amazon Web Services (AWS) — the first of its kind in India.
This CIC is part of the AWS CIC Global Program, which provides an opportunity for government agencies, non-profits, and educational institutions, to come together on pressing challenges, apply design thinking, test new ideas, and access the technology expertise of AWS.
The NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC addresses a core mission: to identify and deploy leading-edge technologies to drive continuous innovation in delivering citizen services. The centre will identify and prioritise projects as well as collaborate with local leaders, including subject matter experts at the state and district levels, to solve critical challenges. Local enterprises, start-ups, researchers, and universities in India can experiment and build prototypes on AWS Cloud.
“With AWS Cloud, public sector organizations get the power of the broadest and deepest cloud services to accelerate their missions and make the world a better place,” said Rahul Sharma, Regional Head, AISPL Public Sector, AWS India and South Asia. “We are deeply committed to help the public sector organisations in India achieve transformational economic and societal impact and look forward to sharing our global experiences to accelerate digital innovation in the country.”
“We are delighted to collaborate with AWS in this endeavour. The NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC will be a great enabler to budding innovators and start-ups and help in piloting state-of-the-art, cloud-centric digital innovations by leveraging emerging technologies such as AI, IOT, robotics, blockchain, etc. It is also aligned to the Prime Minister’s vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, as well that of NITI Aayog and Atal Innovation Mission,” said AIM (Atal Innovation Mission) Mission Director R Ramanan.
“We are seeing public sector organisations around the world use cloud technology to innovate in a fast and agile manner, address problems at scale, and transform public services for citizens,” said Max Peterson, Vice President, International Sales, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “Our Cloud Innovation Centers program is designed to be a catalyst for innovation in public sector, by bringing together technology experts to address challenges. We are excited to collaborate with NITI Aayog and support its public sector mission in India,” added Peterson.
“The NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Center will enable government stakeholders, start-ups, and local organisations in India to innovate and create new approaches to solving problems,” said Anna Roy, Senior Adviser, NITI Aayog “Through the AWS CIC program, we now have the opportunity to experiment with the latest technology, and access world-class expertise that will help us advance citizen services, and better understand how frontier technologies can address the unique needs of our country,” she added.
The NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC joins a global network of AWS public sector cloud innovation centers across Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Germany, South Korea, and United States. For more information about the Amazon Web Services Cloud Innovation Centers Program, visit https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/cloud-innovation-centers/. Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL) undertakes the resale and marketing of AWS Cloud services in India.
