In the last media briefing of the AWS re:Invent 2022, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Cameron Brooks, AWS’s General Manager of the Europe Public Sector spoke with GOLD, and other journalists, about their plans involving Cyprus.
The relationship between AWS and the island started in May 2022, when Deputy Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy Kyriakos Kokkinos and Brooks signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which focused on three areas. The first was to implement a cloud-first policy, which includes examples and advice about the best way to procure the cloud. “This is something we did quite successfully in Greece,” he said.
The second area is around the broad topic of skills and understanding the advantages of the cloud, both in the public and the private sector - AWS is working with the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy on educating public sector employees, and with local universities, like the University of Nicosia, to spread the cloud gospel. "Globally," he noted "we made a commitment to training 29 million by 2025 with cloud skills. And not just people who are our employees or customers – these are citizens who may be interested in joining or creating startups because they may be skilled in certain areas but do not implement that in a cloud environment. So that will complement what they can do." To this end, AWS Activate, which is a free program open to self-funded and bootstrapped entrepreneurs that guide on how to use AWS resources and scale their startup, is now available in Cyprus.
The third area revolves around launching pilot projects to show what is possible when moving to the cloud. “What I've seen, is that Minister Kokkinos is driving a very, very good momentum with the Cypriot government. We are in communication because I am sending people from my team there, even people that are not based in Greece, just to see what we can do in Cyprus.” While Cyprus is served by the AWS team in Athens, Brooks did not exclude the possibility of opening up an office on the island, given that their local customer base keeps growing, which includes financial broker Trading Point and software vendor Proto.io. “We're going to have a lot of ideas coming out of the discussions between my team and the Minister’s team, and then understanding how specific projects can be executed. I'm really excited! And I think in 2023 you'll see a lot more," he said, without excluding the possibility of opening up an office in the country in the coming months.
