AWS and EkStep partner to enable and accelerate creation of digital public goods

Amazon Web Services (AWS) India Private Limited has joined forces with EkStep Foundation (EkStep) to establish a Joint Innovation Center (JIC) to enable and accelerate the creation of digital public goods (DPGs) and digital public infrastructures (DPIs).

The JIC is a customer-centric program that aims to support both public sector and commercial entities in crafting and harnessing digital solutions for population-scale use while helping governments build socially and digitally inclusive economies.

It will promote collaboration among key stakeholders, including owners and developers of DPGs/ DPIs; enablers like startups, independent software vendors (ISVs), and system integrators (SIs); and adopters/ implementers like governments, multilateral organisations, and private sector entities, to develop DPGs and DPIs for sectors such as education, agriculture, finance, healthcare, and climate change, and help accelerate societal transformation.

By leveraging the power of technologies such as cloud computing, generative artificial intelligence (AI), and analytics from AWS, the JIC will help startups, ISVs, and SIs imagine and invent new use cases for DPGs and DPIs, incubate them, and enhance existing ones and offer comprehensive starter kits for states and countries interested in such solutions.

To facilitate ease of use and swift adoption, the new DPGs and DPIs will be available for one-click deployment via the AWS Partner Network (APN), which boasts over 130,000 partners across more than 200 countries.

"Building newer DPGs and DPIs requires collective focus from stakeholders on solving problems of scale, and we are pleased to have EkStep’s visionary thinking and commitment in this initiative. The two organisations share a belief that technology should cut across barriers and enable the creation of a more equitable and inclusive society," said Shalini Kapoor, Director and Chief Technologist, AWS India Private Limited.

"The establishment of a Joint Innovation Center with AWS marks a significant leap towards the adoption and scaling of India's Digital Public Infrastructure with the extensive reach and expertise of AWS’s Partner Network. It truly takes a collaborative effort to come together with deep conviction to build and implement digital solutions at population-scale, especially in the era of AI . We look forward to delivering on this vision by building on AWS's proven global abilities of scale, resilience, and security, and the innovation community," said Shankar Maruwada, Co-founder and CEO, EkStep Foundation.