Author: AWS Public Sector Blog Team

As government agencies and public sector organizations modernize their IT and migrate to the AWS Cloud, the ability to gain a full, clear view of the security of their environments is a primary challenge they experience. This lack of visibility leads to blind spots and gaps in their security posture, leaving opportunity for security issues to arise. As a result, AWS developed a new open source Self-Service Security Assessment (with ransomware analysis modules) tool that provides customers with a point-in-time assessment to quickly gain valuable insights into the security posture of their AWS account.

Earlier today, NASA launched its Mars 2020 rover—Perseverance. Operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), the Perseverance rover will explore Mars for past signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for return by a future mission. The images taken from the Mars 2020 rover will be available on NASA JPL’s public website, and will be shared with people around the world. All images returned from the mission will be hosted on the AWS Cloud.

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.

Portland State University (PSU) is using machine learning (ML) to help students find the most effective pathways to graduation. By tracking the course history of successful graduates and presenting recommendations to current students, PSU can provide guardrails and best practices for a focused journey towards degree completion.

Moving all-in to the cloud is a big achievement for technology teams. For some customers, the migration is fast, and for others with behemoth systems and complex applications is staggered over years. D2L, a learning technology company, based in Canada took just over three years to shut down its last colocation facility in late 2019. This completed their all-in migration to the AWS Cloud. D2L leaders celebrated their success migration by sharing advice for other companies considering the move to the cloud.

Campaign contributions have grown exponentially in the United States. In 1980, there were around 500,000 contributions made; in 2020 alone, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) expects 500 million contributions. Meanwhile, the evolution of technology has changed the way Americans contribute to political campaigns, making it easier to make many small contributions. To meet unprecedented demand for data transparency, the FEC turned to the cloud.

Over the past decade, cloud technology has been the driver of digital transformation, allowing organizations to operate with greater efficiency—and more importantly, innovate at speed. But as institutions of every size and type have discovered, keeping up with the pace of technological change can be difficult. The key hurdle? Skills.

AWS, together with EdTechReview, announced a voice technology in education contest at the EdTechReview 2020 conference. The competition, open to EdTechs in India, aims to build skills that address education challenges and positively impact students, faculty, administrators, and other educational stakeholders using Amazon Alexa in education. We received over 100 applications and selected five as finalists to compete for the title of “Best Amazon Alexa EdTech Skill 2020, India.”

The European Commission, with three of its Directorates-General (DG) (DG SANTE, DG DIGIT, and DG CONNECT) in collaboration with the European Blood Alliance (EBA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), created the European Union (EU) COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma (CCP) Platform. This database is based on the concept of passive immunization (an approach promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) Blood Regulators Network), which tests the potential of plasma collected from convalescent persons to treat or prevent viruses and diseases such as COVID-19.

Voting is now open for the 2020 Amazon Alexa Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) EdTech Skills Challenge. The competition challenged EMEA-based EdTechs to use voice technology to transform education. The six finalists designed Alexa skills to positively impact challenges in education such as improving teaching practices, learning throughout life, continuing professional development, and simplifying administration and assessment processes. Public voting is open until July 25, 2020.