Author: AWS Public Sector Blog Team

February passed us by in a flurry. Here are five blog posts you won’t want to miss from the month prior.

We announced the expansion of Amazon Translate in the AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region, Amazon’s isolated cloud region built for sensitive data and regulated workloads. This service allows our government customers and organizations in government-regulated industries to connect with constituents and customers in different languages.

AWS Educate launched the AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program, a two-tiered offering to recognize leading educators around the world who use cloud and distributed computing in their classrooms. “Cloud and distributed computing” has been the #1 LinkedIn skill for the past four years in a row, and these leading educators are preparing students for careers in the modern technology workforce.

If we expect teachers to teach, we have to give them the resources to be effective. From school supplies and planning time to professional development and connectivity, when a teacher needs the functionality to better serve students, the answer should be yes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications sound cool but what’s real and what’s hype? How do you start to put your arms around this and help your organization solve specific challenges? If you’re curious to see what AI and ML can do for specific missions, join us for AWS Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Week from March 25 – 29, 2019.

Enlighten IT Consulting, an AWS Managed Service Partner, is the prime integrator for the Department of Defense (DoD) Big Data Platform (BDP). BDP is a fully accredited government-owned platform used for storing, querying, and analyzing cyber data that runs at petabyte scale in AWS GovCloud (US). The BDP has been adopted by multiple defense and federal civilian agencies as the primary security information event management solution (SIEM) due to its ability to support petabyte-scale data ingest, processing, storage, and visualization without the burden of licensing cost or lock-in.

Educators are increasingly adopting data analytics to understand and address gaps in education. This includes educators in higher education seeking to personalize student-learning experiences and improve learning outcomes, as well as policymakers looking to understand and scale effective teaching methods, increase efficiency and teaching capacity, among other concerns. AWS’s “Four Steps to Success” offers a high-level guide for leaders seeking to adopt new tools to make better use of the data they are collecting.

In many organisations, IT security and data governance processes can be complex since data is stored across multiple environments and applications. Data privacy, including data classification, is now a core component of security requirements. Organisations need an easier and more pragmatic approach in administering their data assets to mitigate operational risk.

AWS has developed a new FAQ page to help answer questions our customers may have on the CLOUD Act, and AWS’s responsibility to protect customer data.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) hosted a hackathon on January 22nd and February 5th. The hackathon provided AWS technologists and APN Partners with a collaborative opportunity to contribute to the greater good, innovating to solve some of the challenges the charity currently faces with its operations and objectives. Like many charities, the BHF is entirely reliant on the public’s generosity to fund its lifesaving research and receives no government funding. With around seven million people in the UK living with heart and circulatory diseases, all participants have made a valuable investment to the cause.