Headlines for the tech industry over the past year have not all been good. Between growing concern about privacy and users’ control over their data, to allegations of antitrust violations by some of the world’s largest tech companies, the industry has increasingly found itself confronted with negative press.

This is the shadow that looms over the AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C. this week.

“You’ve got senior people at the government level here, you’ve got senior tech people here, all kind of mingling and trying to figure out how to let the tailwinds of cloud computing drive change within government against this backdrop of ‘tech for ill,’” said John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the second day of the AWS Public Sector Summit. “People are tiptoeing a little bit but also want to run hard, and that’s pretty much the big story here.”

Furrier was joined by co-host Rebecca Knight, and they discussed growing frustration in the tech world around obstacles to solving critical world problems and the need for the industry to share data and educate government officials (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Sidetracked from key issues

Frustration around technology’s move into the dark side of public opinion was echoed in presentations by some conference speakers. There was concern that current negativity was impacting the tech world’s ability to make a positive impact on important issues.

“These are problems about not just selling more widgets,” Knight said. “This is actually about saving lives, helping with the delivery of healthcare, finding missing persons and prisoners of war.”

One of the problems the tech industry is grappling with continues to be a preference among large technology firms to silo valuable data. Solutions to the tech industry’s woes may rest on its willingness to share information and work more diligently to educate government officials in the process.

“Visibility into cyberattacks isn’t there because there’s no sharing of data,” said Furrier, a point made during the conference by General Keith Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency. “The role of data and information is going to be a critical conversation, and I don’t think government officials are educated enough to understand that. If industry doesn’t step up and partner with government, it’s going to be a real mess.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Public Sector Summit. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Amazon Web Services Inc.