Tag: education

Novel challenges require novel solutions. To address the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector organizations are holding virtual hackathons to solve problems that arise from the virus and its effects on society. Hackathons #WirVsVirus in Germany, Hack the Crisis in Sweden, and #EUvsVirus brought together thousands of stakeholders to brainstorm and create innovative solutions using technology and cloud computing to address the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. Attendees at these virtual events worked to find solutions for problems like faster diagnosis of COVID-19 and connecting food with those in need. From technical mentorship to AWS Promotional Credit and providing access to technologies like AI, AWS supported these hackathons, their participants, and their solutions.

In July 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for education, best practices for moving your research workflows to the cloud, and more. For more blog highlights from this month, you can also check out The Brief.

The leading vocational and professional education provider in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) Information Technology Discipline, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), through its AWS Educate initiative, announced the launch of a new cloud computing diploma to prepare students for entry-level cloud technology jobs. Starting in September 2020, the two-year program will be available to IVE students and will support approximately 100 cloud computing students annually.

The impact of COVID-19 has K12 and higher education institutions working hard to prepare for students to return to learning that will be anything but typical. The 2020-2021 academic year will include various teaching and learning modalities—virtual, hybrid, and face-to-face—and most expect a shift from one to another throughout the year. Globally, EdTechs are working with AWS to accelerate features and solutions to better support students and educators in teaching and learning, physical and mental wellness, and health and safety.

For public sector organizations, there is no room for service disruption. When faced with a natural disaster, emergency, or cyberattack, these organizations need to continue running mission-critical applications to power essential platforms such as call centers, patient and judicial databases, and online learning sites. A disaster recovery (DR) strategy is necessary for public sector organizations that need to be there for their communities. CloudEndure Disaster Recovery, offered by AWS, can help organizations reduce DR total cost of ownership (TCO) and achieve business continuity.

States are transforming their workforce and addressing immediate unemployment and re-skilling challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. One state—Utah—announced a plan to train and certify 5,000 students for cloud careers by June 2022. Yesterday, Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert announced the statewide initiative, enable training at Utah technical schools, community colleges, universities, and select K-12 career and technical education schools with access to AWS education and training programs.

In June, Australian startup and AWS EdStart Member Dystech, launched the world’s first screening app for dyslexia and motor dysgraphia. Dyslexia and dysgraphia impact between 10-20 percent of individuals worldwide. With this release, Dystech has the opportunity to change lives and accelerate testing for millions of individuals around globe. Dystech uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create an app that transforms how education and healthcare organizations screen for this disorder.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) Public Sector Partners leaned into innovation and customer obsession to deliver amazing results, especially in the time of COVID-19. In light of these significant contributions, we are excited to announce the winners of the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partners Awards. Read more about our winners.

Reporting on Amazon WorkSpaces, a managed, secure desktop as a service (DaaS) solution, allows you to capture information about your Amazon WorkSpaces deployment and the relationships to Active Directory users. It helps capture important details that can help with chargeback, general utilization of Amazon WorkSpaces, and confirming consistency of what is deployed in your environment.

As a physical oceanographer focused on remote sensing, Dr. Chelle Gentemann, senior scientist at Farallon Institute, has worked for over 20 years on retrievals of ocean temperature from space. She uses measurements of sea surface temperature from satellites to understand how the ocean impacts our lives. Chelle’s work requires analysis of large volumes of data, which requires access to large data storage and computational resources. Although most large research institutions can secure those IT resources, that is not the case for smaller organizations or underserved communities around the world. As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative, we invited Dr. Gentemann to share her perspective on the value of hosting high-resolution climate data on AWS.