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On the first day of its AWS re:Invent conference Nov. 29, the big news was the launch of AWS IoT RoboRunner, a new Amazon Web Services robotics service that the company said was created to make it easier for enterprises to build and deploy apps allowing fleets of robots to work together.

That announcement came via two separate blog posts by the company on the first day of the conference, held in Las Vegas and also streamed online.

In one of those blog posts, Eric Anderson, GM of AWS Robotics and Autonomous Services, said: “With AWS IoT RoboRunner, you can connect your robots and work management systems enabling you orchestrate work across your operation through a single system view.”

The new AWS service “builds on the same technology used in Amazon fulfillment centers and now we are excited to make it available to all developers to build advanced robotics applications for their businesses,” he explained.

Anderson provided an overview of AWS IoT RoboRunner, pointing to the challenge of using robots at scale that the new service is designed to overcome, and explained how enterprises could get started with their “own robotic fleets.”

In the other blog post, Channy Yun, a principal developer advocate for AWS, said: “AWS IoT RoboRunner lets you connect your robots and work management systems, thereby enabling you to orchestrate work across your operation through a single system view.”

The service follows the 2018 launch of AWS RoboMaker, a cloud-based simulation service that enabled robotics developers to run, scale and automate simulation without managing any infrastructure.

“As we worked with robot developers and operators, we have repeatedly heard that they face challenges in operating different robot types in their automation efforts, including autonomous guided vehicles (AGV), autonomous mobile vehicles (AMR), and robotic manipulators,” Yun said in his blog post Nov. 29.

“You can create a single facility (e.g., site name and location) in the AWS Management Console to get started with AWS IoT RoboRunner,” he said, adding: “Behind the scenes, AWS IoT RoboRunner automatically creates centralized repositories for storing facility, robot, destination, and task data. Then, the robots working on this site” are set up as a fleet and each individual robot is set up in AWS IoT RoboRunner as a “robot” within a fleet.

One day before the start of re:Invent, Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO and VP, said in a blog post that the company launched an AWS Robotics Startup Accelerator, delivered by MassRobotics, to “help robotics startups adopt and use AWS to boost their robotics development, as well as get hands-on support from industry and AWS experts to rapidly scale their business.”

Amazon is “running the accelerator with MassRobotics, a leader in launching innovative robotics programs,” Vogels noted, adding the accelerator is a “four-week technical, business, and mentorship opportunity open to robotics hardware and software startups from around the globe.”

The “Skills Gap”

Meanwhile, a key area of focus during re:Invent conference sessions throughout the day, including the evening Global Partner Summit Keynote, was the need to close the “skills gap” that is making it increasingly hard for AWS and other technology companies to find employees required to fill important job positions.

During the evening keynote, AWS CEO Adam Selipsky noted that “we made a commitment to train 29 million people on cloud skills by the year 2025.” He conceded “that’s an intentionally audacious goal” but said it’s one “I think is very doable.”

There has been an “explosion of data” and “continued explosion of use of the cloud and the use of AWS,” he pointed out. But to make all the innovation happen that will be required over the next decade, “there is a big gap…. We don’t think we’ll solve it by ourselves” but AWS intends to be a leader in solving it, he explained.

One of the company’s programs designed to accomplish that is AWS Skill Builder, an online learning platform for the cloud offering over 500 free on-demand classes in 16 languages (for now), accessible globally, he said.

AWS, meanwhile, is seeing “great results” from its free, 12-week Amazon re/Start program for people with any level of technical background, including no tech skills, he said. That program launched in 2017 and has grown across multiple countries since then.

The company also recently opened an AWS Skills Center, a facility for training and networking events, in Seattle.

“I’m hopeful that, over time, we’ll expand that to other locations as well,” Selipsky said during the evening keynote.

Earlier in the day, during a session called “Ready, set, innovate: Training to accelerate transformation,” Scott Barneson, AWS director of learning products, discussed AWS Skill Builder and AWS Skills Centers, going further than Selipsky on plans for the latter by saying: “We’ll be adding more locations over the coming months.”

AWS is “making these locations easily accessible to the public and at no cost,” Barneson noted.

AWS has “increased our investment in localized learning by an order of magnitude” and the company now offers learning in 16 languages across “hundreds of courses [and] we’re adding more every week,” he said of Skill Builder.

During the same session, Maureen Lonergan, AWS VP of training and certification, said: “The first trend that we’re seeing with our customers is that customers expect innovation, speed, convenience. Meeting their expectations requires everyone to be nimble, adaptable and resilient. So we have to pivot quickly and adjust to whatever unexpected circumstances we find ourselves in, much like the pandemic.”

Companies must “continue to innovate on behalf of their customers,” she said, adding: “For any company looking to innovate, the greatest asset is always going to be their people.”

Unfortunately, the “second trend that we’re seeing in the pandemic is the skills gap” that was already “tremendous before the pandemic and now more than 1.8 million jobs will go unfilled this year.” We can “add to that” a 4.5% increase in tech resignations in the market during what has become known as the “Great Resignation,” she said.

Needed: A “Culture of Continuous Learning”

The third trend that is being seen is a “shift in how organizations value training [and] empower their people, and that can’t happen through hiring alone,” Lonergan said, explaining: “Companies need to invest and create a culture of continuous learning. Ultimately, each of us wants to do super-interesting work and when you invest in your peoples’ learning experiences, they’re empowered to innovate. You want to create an environment that attracts and retains talent and we can help you do that.”

She pointed to the results of a recent study in which 97% of respondents said AWS training and certification leads to competitive advantage, with 91% saying such teams are better innovators, 86% reporting improved workload security and 90% reporting increased productivity and return on investment.

It’s also good for a company’s bottom line, she said, noting there was a 29% decrease in time for new hires to work at full capacity and 18.5% higher revenue generated per full-time employee.

Focusing on “reskilling” internal talent within a company also makes a huge amount of sense, she said. After all, “the people you have today are the people you need for tomorrow,” according to AWS.

“Training never stops,” so it is important to “mix it up” with different forms of training, including digital training, classroom training, education programs and AWS certification,” she said, noting the company offers a free AWS skills assessment to build a custom training plan. She added: “To get the most from your training you want to learn AWS from AWS.”