Do stacks of paperwork detailing security and compliance regulations keep talented innovators out of government agencies that badly need them?

“There’s a lot of great people in the public sector who love their job. If they don’t give them the tools, you’re going to continue to see what I call a brain drain go on in public service,” said John Furrier (@furrier) (pictured, right), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C.

Furrier and his co-host John Walls (@JohnWalls21) (pictured, left) kicked off day 2 of the event by breaking down the news coming out of the summit. (* Disclosure below.)

Agile development of consumer applications, from social media to eCommerce, have raised end-user expectations, which is why many feel they are stepping back in time when interfacing with a government agency.

These agencies are beginning to respond to the public’s dissatisfaction by looking at how to make their employees and applications more agile with cloud, according to Furrier.

“User experiences are driving this, and it’s a forcing function,” he said, noting the current disarray in Washington is also contributing to the call for an overhaul.

Winds of change in Washington and beyond

This change appears to be underway at many agencies of all sizes, according to Walls, who says the term “public sector” might call to mind only large, national organizations.

“The presumptions go right to big government, but there are a lot of tentacles, if you will, out there. There are a lot of segments out there — 22,000 nonprofits, for example, that AWS is now working with,” Walls said.

Amazon is faring pretty well here, but there are many more organizations they ought to reach, Furrier stated, adding that he’d like to see more peer review and more case studies.

The biggest boon cloud could give to public servants would be the abstracting away of security and compliance, Walls and Furrier explained.

“That’s going to be the tipping point — when all those details around compliance can just be programmed in once and just work — that’s when you’re going to start to see some real acceleration, new apps, new developers, new environments,” Furrier concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit.

Photo: SiliconANGLE