Category: Public Sector

People around the world rely on continuing education and upskilling courses to build on their existing knowledge and learn new, industry-specific skills sets. In Singapore, Community Centres (CCs) and Resident Committees (RCs) offer a variety of upskilling courses for residents. CCs and RCs are part of the network of the People’s Association (PA), a Singaporean statutory board with a mission to build and bridge communities. To improve CCs’ and RCs’ time-intensive, manual process of course administration, PA and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), launched a cloud-based web portal in November 2019.

This week, AWS released the report, “Unlocking APAC’s Digital Potential: Changing Digital Skill Needs and Policy Approaches.” Prepared by strategy and economics consulting firm AlphaBeta and commissioned by AWS, the report analyzes the digital skills applied by workers in their jobs today and the digital skills required by workforces over the next five years. The report focuses on six Asia Pacific countries: Singapore, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.

Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) aim to empower public sector organizations to quickly create and test new ideas using Amazon’s innovation methodology. In the second half of 2020, all those who participate in the CIC program, from students and researchers to the technology teams from AWS, worked on wide-ranging societal problems. Their focus was on improving education with virtual computer labs, working on climate change initiatives, improving economic and healthcare research, and supporting at-risk high school students. What were they up to at the end of 2020?

The US CDC convened the National Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine to share and discuss best practices to help advance the goals of the National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness. The forum brought representatives together from across the US government involved in the response to COVID-19. AWS participated in the forum as a panelist for “Day 2 Town Hall: Using Technology to Manage COVID-19 Vaccination.” AWS has worked closely with many states and jurisdictions looking to quickly design, launch, and mobilize their vaccination administration plans using cloud technology. Learn some of the best practices shared at the forum on how the cloud can help with vaccine administration.

Diversity matters. Governments, countries, cities, agencies, and more recognize the value that diversity brings. According to McKinsey, companies with ethnic or cultural diversity are 33% more likely to outperform on profitability. With this in mind, I am thrilled to announce the global launch of the Think Big for Small Business Program. With the global launch of this program, I wanted to share the three things I like most about it.

The AWS Cloud gives genomics researchers access to a wide variety of instance types and chip architectures and this elasticity allows us to rethink genomics workflows when running workloads in the cloud. Given the increased performance of the Graviton2 instances, we wanted to explore if they can be used for cost-effective and performant genomics workloads. Read on to learn about our generalized approach for determining the most effective instance type for running genomics workloads in the cloud.

Looking at information security as an enabler for change, not a blocker, was the mind shift that contributed to digital transformation in UK government. The UK modernization of data classification concepts and processes enabled more responsive public services, as well as massive savings (£1.7bn in 2014 alone). From 2012 through 2015, the authors of this blog worked together in the Cabinet Office in the UK to reform a decades-old information security policy. This effort helped unlock widespread cloud adoption in the UK public sector and the advantages that come with it.

AWS is helping NASA JPL reach an inaugural and innovative milestone in deep space exploration. On Thursday, February 18, NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover landed on Mars, after its 7-month, 300-million-mile journey from Earth. This is the first planetary NASA mission, with mission-critical communication and transfer of telemetry data in the cloud. During Perseverance’s mission on Mars, the science and engineering data will be processed and hosted in AWS, enabling the Mars 2020 mission to benefit from the scalability, agility, and reliability of the cloud.

At AWS, we want to help organizations modernize IT infrastructure and create scalable mechanisms to manage growing datasets, take advantage of emerging technologies like machine learning, improve citizen services, and innovate for the long-term. Buying cloud computing services requires different skills than buying traditional IT, particularly given cloud’s ability to adjust technology resources dynamically and how this may impact contract solicitations and, more broadly, acquisition strategies. Are you ready to move to the cloud but need some guidance on where to start? Here are some best practices for government customers and procurement teams looking to build a culture of innovation and begin their cloud acquisition journey.

COVID-19 highlighted the existing shortage in personnel within healthcare and is now challenging many hospitals with high staff turnover and sick leave. Planerio created workforce management solutions that help healthcare organizations modernize their workforce administration. Their shift planning software uses artificial intelligence (AI) and takes into account a range of planning variables such as employee qualifications and availabilities, employee preferences and requests, requirements of different shifts and workplaces, legal regulations and tariffs, and more.