AWS Builders Fair: Machine learning, robotics, and IoT demos for public sector innovation

At the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Sector Summit in Washington, DC, AWS employees shared and demonstrated our newest homegrown AWS innovations in the AWS Builders Fair. These demos featured real-world use cases for government, education, and nonprofits. Using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), natural language processing, and robotics, the demos show how technology can help address issues from recycling to translation to safe transportation.

The top six Builders Fair demos are now on our YouTube channel. Check them out below:

Automating recycling: Smart recycle arm

The “Smart Recycle Arm” recognizes items that are recyclable and pushes them to the correct bin. Using AWS DeepLens, the world’s first deep learning enabled video camera for developers, the recycling arm can differentiate between recyclable and non-recyclable items, where a robotic arm pushes the items into the correct bin.

Breaking down language barriers: Multi-lingual “walkie talkie” conference

More and more international students follow online courses with a live teacher delivering the content and answering questions over video or audio conference. Communication can be a potential barrier if students and teachers do not speak the same language when delivering lectures. This demo breaks down this barrier by helping students communicate in their preferred language. The demo allows users to hear audio answers and ask questions verbally, while receiving audio answers back in their preferred language of choice from speakers of a different language. The solution uses Amazon Transcribe to change speech to text, Amazon Translate to translate the text into a different language, and Amazon Polly to read the text back to the user in a human voice.

Making cycling safer: Smartcycle

In 2017, there were 783 bicyclists killed in crashes with motor vehicles in the United States. Imagine if we could use technology to make cycling safer and more enjoyable? The Smartcycle warns cyclists about hazards in real-time through audio/visual cues by linking digital cameras and sensors with AWS machine learning and AWS IoT services. Smartcycle also captures ride performance data from bike-mounted sensors for insights.

Building robots: RekogRobot – Computer vision and speech robot

This demonstration highlights how to build a robot that moves around, identifies objects around it using computer vision, and reports what it sees using speech. Users can command the robot to perform actions using their voice and text via the Amazon Lex chatbot. The robot performs actions using AWS Lambda functions and artificial intelligence services like Amazon Rekognition and Amazon Polly.

Learning in your language: Multi-language conversation “chat” bot

The multi-language conversation serverless chatbot allows people to chat with each other using text even if they don’t speak the same language. The solution is entirely serverless and allows rapid translation and quick audible feedback. As more students follow online courses with a live teacher delivering the content, asking questions and receiving answers to questions over chat in one’s own language can facilitate learning for students who speak English as a second language.

Remediating violations in real time: Real-time automated remediation of compliance violations

This demonstration shows real-time and scheduled automated remediation of security incidents and compliance violations using AWS-native features such as Amazon CloudWatch Events, configuration rules, AWS Lambda, and Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS). The demonstration meets the requirements of a highly compliant environment and remediates gaps before risking a major exposure. Some of the automated remediation includes Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) violations, S3 bucket policy enforcement, user access violations, and encryption violations.

Interested in seeing more demos?  Visit the AWS Builders Fair at Re:invent 2019.