Author: AWS Public Sector Blog Team

Amazon Polly, a Text-to-Speech service, is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Region, Amazon’s isolated cloud region built for sensitive data and regulated workloads. Powered by advanced deep learning technologies, Amazon Polly is a service that turns text into lifelike speech. With dozens of natural sounding male and female voices across a wide variety […]

NJEdge has built a state-wide fiber optic research and education network that is available to all NJEdge member schools. In collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), member institutions can now leverage existing NJEdge connections, or create new ones, and use AWS Direct Connect at a significantly reduced expense to connect to private AWS resources. NJEdge, a Research and Education Network (REN), is dedicated to creating a better world by providing statewide advanced networking, access to optimal technology solutions and services, and insight and expertise in information technologies.

The recent Winter Innovation Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, showcased a breakthrough Sundance documentary, Dying in Vein. Its filmmaker, Jenny Mackenzie, joined a panel of public health and technology leaders, including Dr. Bill Hazel, former Secretary of Health and Human Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Alex Chan, CEO of the Clinton Foundation Health Initiative, to discuss opiate and heroin addiction, which, as the film highlights, claims an average of 90 lives in the U.S. daily. A prevailing theme that emerged cast the opioid epidemic as an issue of public health – rather than one of criminal justice – and pressed the role of technology in mitigating its risks.

When the team at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wanted help addressing the nation’s opioid epidemic, they decided to do something simple – invite in the country’s brightest minds and give them API-enabled, up-to-date data.

Twitter has hundreds of millions of active users each month and supports multiple languages on their platform. These users engage with nonprofits, need citizen services, and learn at schools, universities, and other educational institutions. As a consequence, public sector organizations look to social media not only to communicate with the public, but also to gain insights about the citizens, volunteers, and students they serve. Wouldn’t it be great to know if people had positive or negative opinions about your city, school, nonprofit, or organization? What are they talking about and how many other people share that view?

For soldiers in remote or “disconnected” environments, video content must be delivered securely and it must be tailored based on roles, missions, and other factors. Previously, troops stationed around the world would struggle with distribution and network connectivity challenges that prevented them from accessing military command videos, training videos, entertainment, or even the ability to call home. With the launch of AWS Media Services, government and military agencies can bring connectivity to the edge.

Every year since 1964, the month of February has been designated as American Heart Month—and for good reason. The heart pumps approximately 2,000 gallons of blood and beats around 115,000 times every day. This Valentine’s Day, the heart is on our minds more than ever. To encourage people to take steps toward a healthy heart and prevent heart disease, the American Heart Association (AHA) is dedicated to breaking down siloes in cardiovascular research and making datasets available to more scientists than ever. Their Precision Medicine Platform, powered by AWS, does exactly that.

A guest post by Chris Shenton, CTO, V!Studios The NASA Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Office at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) needed to be able to search and make decisions based upon a huge volume of spacesuit safety and test documentation, many of which were only available as scans of paper reports. Timeliness was critical, especially […]

When the United States Air Force was looking to automate IT risk management and security compliance of NIPRNet and SIPRNet environments across the enterprise, their search led them to Xacta 360, the risk management and compliance solution from AWS Partner Network (APN) partner Telos Corporation. Xacta 360 is helping the Air Force accelerate authorizations to operate (ATO) – leading to faster AWS cloud adoption – and to continuously monitor systems and workloads for security compliance.

Federation for Internet Alerts (FIA), the nonprofit whose mission is to get crucial alerts in front of the right people at the right time and place, recently received multiple Creative Media Awards for its life-saving technology. It’s also the second consecutive year that FIA has won the Shorty Social Good Award for Technology. And this is just the start.