Author: AWS Public Sector Blog Team

In February 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered stories on the value of Earth observation data, the Smithsonian Open Access Initiative, and more. Watch The Brief, hosted by Sarah Worley from We Power Tech, to learn more, and scroll down for links to these stories.

For the first-ever Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Sector Summit in Mexico City, more than 1,400 people from government, education, and nonprofits registered for the event to discuss digital transformation in Latin America through investment in innovation, infrastructure, and talent. With content in both Spanish and English, AWS leaders and customers shared their news and success stories with the group. What’d you miss?

AWS Educate is now a Project Lead the Way (PLTW) transformative partner. As a transformative partner, AWS Educate and PLTW will provide access to cloud computing educational content for K12 students across the United States, including those in low-technology schools. The collaboration means more K12 students can now access AWS Educate cloud computing curriculum through PLTW’s network of more than 12,200 elementary, middle, and high schools.

Starting today, the AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program is now available to college students around the world. Now students can also apply to participate in the program to receive exclusive benefits and opportunities from Amazon Web Services (AWS). The AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program recognizes individuals for their innovation and contributions that prepare students for careers in the modern technology workforce.

The cloud can help governments meet evolving citizen demands by enabling agility, cost savings, elasticity, and global reach. In 2008, Shared Services Canada, a federal department tasked with providing IT services to Canadian government, announced a streamlined procurement process to help support government agencies’ adoption of cloud services as part of the Government of Canada’s Cloud Adoption Strategy. To help Canadian government entities and their employees build innovative and citizen-centric services for their digital citizenry in the cloud, AWS created AWS DigiGov.

Health and human services (HHS) agencies are in the midst of dramatic change, with ever-growing transaction volumes and increasing demand for new services and visibility into data. Looking for new ways to manage constituent demands, the agencies are turning to the cloud to run mission-critical applications that administer healthcare and social benefits programs for millions of beneficiaries, resulting improved system agility, security, and costs.

How can the cloud help modernize your organization? Members of the AWS Partner Network (APN), customers, and industry experts shared best practices on cloud migration, cloud adoption, and organizational transformation in a recent episode of Government Matters Industry Insider.

From readying the warfighter to how the cloud can improve your commute, check out what you missed in January 2020 on the AWS Public Sector Blog. And check out the new monthly video, “The Brief” covering the top stories from the month, too.

Educational institutions are turning to cloud-based solutions to enable anywhere, anytime access from any device. By using secure desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) solutions to provide consistent applications on every virtualized desktop, institutions can reduce variable costs, remove capital expenditures, and achieve mission objectives. Check out five DaaS trends in education.

AWS has been named a leader in worldwide applications platforms for smart cities according to the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide IoT Applications Platforms for Smart Cities 2019–2020 Vendor Assessment. The report assessed the market landscape on Internet of Things (IoT) applications platforms for enabling smart cities.