April 2018 Top Blog Roundup

Listen now on SoundCloud: AWS Public Sector Podcast – episode 4: April Roundup | Addressing the tech skills gap, geospatial intel, & more [11:31]

The public sector blog continues to cover critical news and information impacting our public sector customers. Check out our top posts from April, according to our readers.

1. Prepare for a Computer Science Career with AWS Educate and the Amazon Future Engineer Pathway

As part of Amazon’s $50M commitment to Computer Science (CS) Education, students now have access to Advanced Placement (AP) CS course offerings, scholarships, and early college internships through the Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) Pathway. With cloud computing ranked as the #1 LinkedIn skill for two years in a row and with millions of employment opportunities currently available in the cloud, the AFE Pathway provides students an opportunity to learn in-demand skills at a young age, setting the stage for a future cloud-enabled workforce. Read more.

2. Announcing the Inaugural Earth on AWS Fellowships and Internships Program

We are excited to announce the first year of the Earth on AWS Fellowships and Internships program, a new initiative that works with customers to fund interns and fellows to conduct research using geospatial data in the cloud. Azavea, Development Seed, Element84, Sinergise, and SkyWatch are collaborating with us on this effort. Read more.

3. How DigitalGlobe Uses Amazon SageMaker to Manage Machine Learning at Scale

A guest post by Jay Littlepage, VP of Infrastructure and Operations, Maxar Technologies and VP of IT, DigitalGlobe

If you have ever searched for directions, called an Uber, or looked up a trailhead, you have used DigitalGlobe’s imagery or information derived from it. DigitalGlobe went all-in on AWS to meet the growing demand for commercial geo-intelligence, migrating its entire 18-year imagery archive to the cloud. The company used AWS Snowmobile to move 100 petabytes of data to the cloud, allowing it to move away from large file-transfer protocols and delivery workflows. Read more.

4. Announcing Registry of Open Data on AWS

We are excited to announce the launch of the Registry of Open Data on AWS (RODA). With RODA, you can find and share data staged publicly for analysis on AWS. Search for datasets by keyword and tags for common types of data, such as genomic, satellite imagery, and transportation, on a simple web interface. Every dataset listed in RODA includes basic information about the data, how to access it on AWS, its license, a link to documentation, and contact information for questions. Many listings also include links to tutorials or applications that make use of the data. Read more.

5. Faster Genome Search via AWS X-Ray

There are many arguments for building a serverless architecture. Chief among them, users only pay for the computing power they use. Organizations can begin by identifying and eliminating the bottlenecks in their workflows. For example, CSIRO Bioinformatics in Sydney, Australia, used AWS X-Ray to systematically evaluate their serverless architecture and, by doing so, improved their runtime by 80%. Read more.

Stay plugged in for next month’s blog roundup and upcoming episodes of the AWS Public Sector Podcast.