Maggie Carter of Amazon Web Services (AWS): Decisiveness and Cloud Infrastructure Are Essential for Immediate Disaster Relief

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Maggie Carter, global lead for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Global Social Impact Team.

Maggie Carter is Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) global lead for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Global Social Impact Team, which applies Amazon’s scale, technology expertise, and resources to make a positive impact across communities globally. The Global Social Impact team focuses on disaster response, rights and equity, and global public health. Prior to joining AWS, Maggie served in a number of senior social impact roles including Vice President for Corporate Partnerships at UNICEF USA and Deputy Director of the Shot@Life campaign at the United Nations Foundation.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in a multi-generational household in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. I’m one of four kids. My father was an engineer in the Navy and my mom kept everything running at home — volunteering and working part-time as soon as the youngest started school. Despite managing a busy household, she also made it a priority to help the community. She would package hot meals, blankets, and winter clothes for the homeless in Washington, DC. Over time, we would make it a family and friends event every Thanksgiving and Christmas to give back to the local homeless community. My parents taught me the value of hard work and the importance of giving back to others.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One story that sticks out in my mind about the positive difference technology can have happened in 2017. Three hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, and Maria — struck the Gulf Coast and Puerto Rico respectively in quick succession. I had just arrived at AWS and was in the process of building out our Disaster Response team when I heard from the American Red Cross. Their call centers were overwhelmed by calls from victims and donors. We worked with APN Partner Voice Foundry to spin up a cloud-based call center within 48 hours. We also sourced Amazon employee volunteers who helped by taking calls and adding overall support capacity to assist the Red Cross in fielding questions, donations, and requests in the critical days after the disaster.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Absolutely — Kathy Behrens, President of Social Responsibility and Player Programs for the National Basketball Association (NBA), comes to mind. When I interviewed with Kathy in 2005, I knew I had to work for this woman. She is a strong leader and a real visionary. My instincts told me I would learn a lot under her leadership — and I was right. One of the most important lessons I learned from Kathy is how to create the harmony between work and personal life. I observed her work ethic and relentless pursuit for results while creating space and time for her family. It has shaped how I prioritize my work and influenced my leadership style.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Become the best version of yourself.” This reminds me to continually reflect on where I am and how I’m doing both professionally and personally.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

The first is decisiveness. Responding to disasters means operating on short timelines with little information and usually a very chaotic environment. I’ve had to learn to get comfortable making the best decisions fast with the information available at the time. Every minute matters in disasters.

The second is grit. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to work at the intersection of professional sports and social responsibility. Getting that first job was hard going — and I had to put in a lot of applications and keep striving to get the job I knew I wanted. That tenacity paid off, and I was hired by the Atlanta Braves.

Finally, I’d call out integrity. In order to effectively lead and inspire others, you need to earn their trust and maintain it.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on the planet and the environment. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

Disaster response is an important focus area within the Global Social Impact, led by the AWS Disaster Response team. This team helps governments and customers respond to natural disasters and health outbreaks through our cloud services and technology around the world, using our operational, logistics expertise, and our leading cloud technology to help communities prepare for and respond when disaster strikes. We’ve worked alongside organizations including the American Red Cross and Help.NGO to deploy cloud technology in order to help those who are most in need as well as to restore data and connectivity to areas that need it the most.

How do you think your technology can address this?

As the severity and frequency of natural disasters increase worldwide, we expect an increased need to provide support and help restore connectivity to impacted communities. AWS is uniquely positioned to help. We have solutions including the AWS Snowball Edge that can provide computing and storage in low- or no-connectivity environments — and in a device that’s the size of a suitcase for portability. For example, when cyclones Idai and Kenneth made landfall in Mozambique in 2019, Help.NGO, with support from AWS Disaster Response, used AWS Snowball Edge to store drone imagery they had just collected and make the data available for analysis in order to map the disaster area — all from the back of a van on the side of the road. By being able to validate our drone data, almost in real-time, the Help.NGO team was able to assess which roads were passable and prioritize the distribution of resources.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

I fell in love with strategic philanthropy as Senior Manager of Community Relations and Social Responsibility at the NBA. I was managing the NBA’s disaster response program, cause marketing platforms, and many corporate and community partnerships globally. In my first few weeks at the NBA, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Through this experience, I saw firsthand how vulnerable populations are disproportionately impacted by catastrophic events. That stuck with me when I became the Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at UNICEF USA. That’s where I led the creation of an initiative to engage private sector strategically in disaster preparedness, response, and risk reduction efforts. This was adopted by other national committees globally and continues to be iterated on as disasters become ever more complex. I feel great pride and satisfaction in collaborating with colleagues and partners to co-develop sustainable solutions that positively impact society.

How do you think this might change the world?

Our program was founded on the belief that technology has the power to solve the world’s most pressing issues. That’s what drives us.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I’d call this a caution rather than a drawback: make sure you’re building the technology for the right reason. You want people to solve problems for customers, as opposed to solving problems because they like the technology and think it’s cool. That can result in a lot of wasted effort.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)

1/Work backwards from the customer’s needs. 90 percent of what AWS builds is driven by what customers tell us matters. We resist the urge to build things for the sake of it. For example, in the early days of the pandemic, we heard an urgent need for COVID-19 diagnostics. That led us to launch the AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative in March 2020, a $20 million commitment we made to accelerate diagnostic research, innovation, and development to speed our collective understanding and detection of COVID-19. More than 87 customers globally have benefited from the program, and we are continuing to support organizations through this program.

2/Embrace the power of partnership. When Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm, struck the Bahamas on September 1, 2019, first responders and aid organizations knew the damage would be significant. Dorian set the record for worst natural disaster to strike the Bahamas and became one of the two most powerful storms to make landfall from the Atlantic Ocean. AWS worked alongside organizations including NetHope, a consortium of leading global nonprofits, that used the AWS Disaster Response Team (DRT) members to help set up connectivity and communications networks at more than 40 medical facilities and shelters in Nassau and Abaco.

3/Empower volunteers. Volunteers can be a powerful force multiplier. The AWS Disaster Response team taps a network of AWS volunteers to give additional capacity and reach. They are invaluable to our efforts, received specialized training from FEMA and the Red Cross, and assist in open-source mapping, staffing cloud-based call centers, and working alongside government organizations and non-profits in the wake of a disaster to help rebuild connectivity.

4/Share knowledge. COVID-19 provided numerous strong examples about how knowledge-sharing can help accelerate tech innovation and adoption. We have made a public AWS COVID-19 data lake available — a centralized repository of up-to-date and curated datasets on, or related to, the spread and characteristics of COVID-19. Globally, there are several efforts underway to gather this crucial data, and we are working with partners to make it freely available and keep it up-to-date. Hosted on the AWS cloud, we have seeded our curated data lake with COVID-19 case tracking data from Johns Hopkins and The New York Times, hospital bed availability from Definitive Healthcare, and over 45,000 research articles about COVID-19 and related coronaviruses from the Allen Institute for AI.

5/Be open to a pivot. Innovation often is not a tidy, linear process. It takes a lot of iteration and directional changes. It’s hard but can lead to great results. One of our customers, the Stanford University School of Medicine’s Healthcare Innovation Lab, did this with great success. The Lab had been doing a lot of on health and wearables prior to the pandemic. When COVID-19 hit, they saw the potential to apply the knowledge and technology they had built to use wearables as a COVID-19 diagnostic tool. The app is powered by an algorithm that detects changes in an individual’s resting heart rate and step count and has been able to identify COVID-19 symptoms as much as 10 days before a diagnosis.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

Be kind: be kind to yourself, your community, and the Earth.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

I grew up playing soccer (football!) and it’s a passion of mine. So, I’d have to say N’Golo Kante for this question — he is one of the best footballers in the world, yet he is humble and kind.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can read more about AWS Disaster Response and what we do here, and read more stories about our work (and much more) at www.AboutAmazon.com.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.