Category: Higher education

Whether you are a local employer, a dean at a higher education institution, or a government entity, finding and training your workforce is top of mind. As we continue to find solutions to skill, reskill, or upskill our workforce, the answer will not be found by working in silos but rather through public-private collaboration. Recently, a number of education and government leaders from across the country participated in a panel to discuss the challenges facing local state leaders and education institutions around workforce. Five key suggestions emerged as ways to improve the workforce of tomorrow.

The 2021 IMAGINE Education conference brought together education leaders and executives from across the country and around the world in an all-day event to discuss the future of education. It was my honor to deliver the keynote address to highlight some of the ways that the education community in the public sector are transforming the very essence of learning with the cloud. I was joined by Kathryn Finney, the chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Genius Guild and General Partner of the Greenhouse Fund, who expressed how educators are driving innovation for their students and making the impossible, possible.

The Allen Institute seeks to understand how our brains, cells, and immune systems work when we are healthy and, ultimately, how they go wrong in disease. Allen researchers have generated and shared atlases that map the brain, gene-edited stem cell lines, and many more resources that have been used by millions of scientists around the world to accelerate their research. In collaboration with AWS and the Registry of Open Data on AWS, they make many of their datasets publicly available. In celebration of Open Science Week, check out some of these open datasets from the Allen Institute, and their impact on the research community.

Higher education institutions that hadn’t previously considered the cloud prior to the pandemic are now investigating how to begin their cloud journey. In this blog post, we highlight some strategies and first projects to help higher education institutions get started with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud simply and efficiently. 

To solve some of the most pressing water and energy challenges, scientists and engineers need access to robust, reliable data that is often sensitive and protected. Data providers, researchers, and host institutions need to adhere to strict requirements for protecting and securing this data. The Center for Water-Energy Efficiency (CWEE) at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) used AWS to create a centralized, secure data repository that streamlines data sharing.

The Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) uses email as their main communication method, with over 800 email accounts using up to 50GB of storage space each. IHVN used AWS to migrate their email to Amazon WorkMail to reduce the cost of each mailbox by 64 percent, allowing their IT team to easily manage the corporate email infrastructure and get enterprise grade security.

At the AWS Summit Online – Americas fireside chat hosted by Max Peterson, vice president of AWS worldwide public sector, three public sector leaders discussed recovery and digital transformation across education and healthcare in the Americas following the COVID-19 pandemic. The fireside chat panelists experienced firsthand the need to scale rapidly due to the pandemic and their stories illustrate the transformational power of the cloud to drive impact in the public sector.

According to EdTech Magazine, at the height of the pandemic, 94 percent of educators agreed that students will need increased social and emotional support throughout the school year. There’s a renewed focus on social-emotional learning (SEL) support in the classroom, with educators looking for additional ways to help students be healthy and engaged in class. Four AWS EdStart Members are addressing different aspects of SEL and helping to positively impact the student experience.

Our global network of Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) powered by AWS and in collaboration with our CIC sponsors, who host and run the centers, aim to empower public sector organizations to quickly create and test new ideas using Amazon’s innovation methodology and cloud technology. Check out some stories of digital prototypes the CICs have published over the last few months that focus on improving public safety, adapting to the pandemic, and innovating through voice and video technology.

College exams are stressful enough without a pandemic. Singapore University of Social Sciences wanted a remote contact center solution to make it easier for students and faculty to get support during remote learning and examinations. They turned to Amazon Connect to create a streamlined, accessible, and equitable solution for their community.