Author: AWS Public Sector Blog Team

Last week at AWS re:Invent, students from a local Las Vegas high school and students who traveled in from the United Kingdom (UK) participated in an AWS Field Trip to get inspired and excited to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers through a day of fun, hands-on engagements with technology.

Education Dive announced George Mason University (GMU), Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), and AWS Educate earned the Higher Ed “Partnership of the Year” award for collaborating to launch a two and four-year cloud degree pathway. Education Dive, a digital publication for the education industry, gives out the annual Dive Awards to the industry’s top innovators for their efforts to shape the future of education.

In July, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a new contest in collaboration with SXSW EDU designed to find the best application of voice technology in education. Our challenge to the EdTech world? Tell us how you would use Alexa to transform education. From tutoring help and language learning programs to teaching guides and career planning tools – we’ve been amazed by the creativity and potential impact of the ideas EdTechs sent us.

This week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced two new AWS Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) in Bahrain at the University of Bahrain (UoB) and at Bahrain Polytechnic (BP). Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, made the announcement at the annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. Both CICs will be supported by Tamkeen, a public authority in Bahrain focused on workforce development.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Australia announced the launch of its Cyber Ready Cloud Innovation Centre (CIC). The CIC will focus on cloud-based cyber security solutions, enabling students to tackle cyber issues in the real world through innovative cloud computing approaches and emerging technology.

At the re:Invent 2019 Nonprofit Hackathon for Good, more than 150 re:Invent attendees put their minds together to develop solutions for real-world challenges from four nonprofits: Best Friends Animal Society, SkyTruth, Urban Institute, and Vibrant Emotional Health. The winning team pitched a solution on how to build personalized safety plans for people calling Vibrant Emotional Health’s Lifeline, a national suicide prevention help line.

From a new podcast to challenge winners, read on for the government, education, and nonprofit highlights from the annual Amazon Web Services (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector Breakfast at re:Invent.

Finding cures for childhood cancer. Stopping illegal fuel dumping in our oceans. Sharing knowledge and culture. Giving unbanked populations a financial voice. Guiding women facing life-threatening breast cancer diagnoses. Helping veterans access the support they’ve earned. This year’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) Imagine Grant Program winners are tackling big challenges using technology.

The winners of the annual AWS City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge were announced today at re:Invent 2019. The annual competition recognizes applicants going above and beyond to innovate for and with their constituents, using the cloud to improve lives. Congratulations to the 18 winners!

FINRA CAT, LLC, a subsidiary of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), announced today it has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its cloud provider for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). The CAT will allow regulators to improve securities market surveillance by creating an extensive audit trail of order information for all U.S. equity securities and listed options across U.S. markets and trading venues. Leveraging AWS’s storage, compute, database, analytics, and security services, CAT ingests more than 100 billion market events per day, pulling together data from 22 stock exchanges and 1,500 broker dealer firms, enabling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Self-Regulatory Organizations (SROs) to analyze CAT data.