AWS Public Sector Blog

Announcing the 2022-2023 AWS IMAGINE Grant winners

AWS Imagine Grant 2021

Every day, nonprofit organizations around the world are improving millions of lives and our planet’s health with their ingenuity, resourcefulness, and compassion. Our latest cohort of Amazon Web Services (AWS) IMAGINE Grant winners is no exception.

Today, we are announcing the organizations that will be awarded a holistic package of resources from AWS through our IMAGINE Grant. Winners receive not only unrestricted funding, but also access to training and expert technical guidance. This year’s winners came to us with big ideas: the desire to revolutionize child protection globally, advance research and treatment for pediatric AIDS, better understand and prevent veteran suicide, provide legal defense to those in need, help protect our world from pandemic-level threats, and more. Although they represent diverse mission areas, each organization is committed to innovating with the cloud, using data to fuel their missions, and scaling access to vital services through cloud-enabled, digital tools.

There are two awards for the AWS IMAGINE Grant. The 10 winners of the Go Further, Faster award include:

  • Save the Children is building an “Ask Save the Children” application, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and a data lake to allow any parent, teacher, or public official to query Save the Children’s 100 years of knowledge on keeping children safe in a crisis.
  • The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is leveraging a data warehouse and AI and ML to develop a multi-faceted view of their constituent data, which will enable the organization to expand and personalize its donor outreach.
  • International Society for Infectious Diseases is using AI and ML to modernize its global disease detection platform, ProMED, which will improve its ability to find and alert the world of pandemic-level threats.
  • Stop Soldier Suicide is using predictive modeling to uncover never-before-known insights from veterans who have died by suicide. These insights will be used to redefine signals of risks, advance methods of outreach and care, and ultimately prevent service member and veteran suicide.
  • CARE will leverage AI and ML to collect and process paper-to-digital data at a scale and level of detail never attempted before in fragile and limited resource settings. CARE aims to demonstrate that today’s most cutting-edge technologies can be used to increase access to vital services for some of the most climate vulnerable populations around the world.
  • Harmony Labs is using one-of-a-kind media behavior data in combination with AI and ML to create a Democratic Media Index which will measure the effects of media content on U.S. public values, norms, attitudes, and beliefs that shape democratic culture.
  • SIL International is curating multilingual text, audio, and video datasets representing over 2,000 living languages to better represent local languages in AI “foundation” models and natural language processing (NLP) systems.
  • Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation is using AL and ML to create predictive modeling for its HIV/AIDS data lake, which will advance patient retention, prevention, and treatment for pediatric AIDS.
  • Tech Matters is creating an open source, cloud-based call center platform leveraging database and serverless technology in order to improve service delivery for crisis response helplines globally, with additional efforts supporting child helplines in Europe addressing the needs of Ukrainian refugee children.
  • C4ADS is using natural language processing, analytics, and containerization to enhance its flagship data platform, Seamless Horizons. By increasing global data access and transparency, Seamless Horizons is helping to combat transnational illicit crime and protect our planet.

The 10 winners of the Momentum to Modernize award include:

  • Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is building a federated search interface for archival materials, through which a history of the center can be discovered through a public digital archive by patrons all over the world.
  • Reboot Rx is enhancing their ML algorithms and data infrastructure to identify promising generic drugs to repurpose for treating cancer, with the goal of accelerating the development of affordable treatments.
  • Navy Mutual Aid Association is modernizing and migrating their systems, processes, and infrastructure to innovate faster and provide better insurance services to its members.
  • The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is systematizing its approach to change management and data governance by unifying its 44 systems into a data lake and creating a 360-degree profile of its constituent groups.
  • FINCA International will make the impact of its global programs and investments available to the public through an interactive dashboard that uses data lakes and cloud-based infrastructure, investing in people so they can break the cycle of poverty in their lives.
  • International Myeloma Foundation is modernizing its omni-channel experience platform that connects patients with services in order to improve patient care.
  • Orange County United Way is enhancing a serverless application to accelerate the matching of housing voucher holders with available apartments, with the end goal of finding homes for more community members.
  • Per Scholas is migrating their learner-facing technology to the cloud in order to help more individuals traditionally underrepresented in the technology workforce prepare for high-growth careers.
  • Easterseals is improving the quantity and quality of its services by building an Education and Community Health Equity data dashboard, unifying its affiliates and service providers.
  • The Bronx Defenders is modernizing outdated IT infrastructure to meet modern security requirements and development workflows, which will ultimately enable them to focus on their mission of defending low-income residents in criminal, civil, family, and immigration courts, while using their proximity to these legal systems to radically transform them.

AWS believes that technology—when leveraged strategically—is a powerful force multiplier in solving social and environmental challenges. AWS continues to collaborate with nonprofit organizations around the world to identify and implement the right technology solutions for their mission areas, no matter where they are in their cloud journey.

Winners of the Go Further, Faster award receive up to $150,000 in unrestricted funding, up to $100,000 in AWS Promotional Credit, access to training, and engagement with AWS technical specialists. Winners of the Momentum to Modernize award receive up to $30,000 in unrestricted funding, up to $10,000 in AWS Promotional Credit, and project implementation support.

The application cycle for next year’s AWS IMAGINE Grant will open in the spring of 2023. Sign up to receive email alerts about the launch of the next cycle.

About the IMAGINE Grant

Since the launch of the IMAGINE Grant program in 2018, AWS has awarded over $6 million in unrestricted funding, AWS cloud computing credit, and AWS training support to 66 nonprofit organizations. Learn more about past recipients in our documentary series.

Learn more about how nonprofits use AWS to advance their missions around the world at the AWS for Nonprofits hub.

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