Author: AWS Public Sector Blog Team

In April, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region. AWS has a long history in South Africa and numerous public sector organizations in the region are already spearheading technological innovations in the cloud. From healthcare to education, these four public sector organizations are leading innovation in the public sector in the Region.

Even in uncertain times, election officials and political stakeholders are committed to serving a dynamic electorate in a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way. Cloud-based technologies from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the AWS Partner Network (APN) can help elections administrators, campaigns, and civic engagement organizations with access to information, security and scalability, and absentee voting workflow solutions.

In January 2020 at the BETT show in London, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a new contest designed to find some of the best applications of voice technology in education. Our challenge to the EdTechs in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)? Tell us how you would use Alexa to transform education. Check out the six edtech finalists.

For the first-ever Amazon Alexa EdTech Skills Challenge, Amazon Web Services (AWS) teamed up with SXSW EDU to challenge U.S.-based EdTechs on how they would use Alexa to transform education. Out of six finalists, AWS recognized two winners: judges’ choice SayKid, the recipient of $50,000 in AWS Promotional Credit, and people’s choice VOGO Voice, the recipient of $25,000 in AWS Promotional Credit. The other four finalists will receive $10,000 in AWS Promotional Credit.

In September 2020, CEU University will launch the Cloud Computing Program in collaboration with AWS Educate at three Spanish universities: Universidad CEU San Pablo (Madrid), Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera (Valencia), and Universidad Abat Oliba CEU (Barcelona). This is the first program of its kind in Spain. The news was announced during a virtual event on May 14.

One of the most difficult aspects in IT modernization in any industry—especially in highly regulated ones like government, financial services, and healthcare—can be getting data securely from on premises to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. In capital markets, moving fast while staying secure can determine an organization’s ability to modernize, optimize, and innovate with new technologies such as data lakes, big data analytics, and machine learning.

With most everyone off campus, parent and student communications are top of mind for school districts and universities. Amazon Alexa can help extend the classroom to home through integrations with commonly used education technology applications. Now Amazon Alexa can aggregate information across education skills into one response, creating a faster, streamlined, more convenient way to access information.

In April 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered stories on AWS launching machine learning enabled search capabilities for COVID-19 dataset, supporting healthcare with technology in response to COVID-19, and building a chatbot for your school in less than an hour. For more blog highlights from this month, you can also check out The Brief, hosted this month by Ray Rogers, the host of the Fix This podcast.

On Military Spouse Appreciation Day, we want to acknowledge the significant contributions, support, and sacrifices of military spouses worldwide. For military spouses, finding employment can be a challenge. To help prepare military spouses for roles in technology, Amazon offers no cost training for US military spouses, transitioning military, and veterans through its AWS Educate initiative.

Are you a U.S. government employee who is interested in learning about cloud computing? The AWS Training and Certification team is launching an another no-cost virtual series of foundational courses to help you better understand the AWS Cloud, relevant products, common solutions, and architectural best practices for the U.S. Government.