Category: Alexa

At The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (Guide Dogs), we provide a variety of services and support to anyone affected by sight loss, their friends, and their family. Our mission is to give them access to information and support to make a positive impact on their well-being, self-confidence, self-esteem and ability to function with loss of sight. Voice assistants powered by AWS allow our organization to support our communities and enrich their quality of life.

Public transit can efficiently connect people and places, often saving riders time and money while reducing traffic congestion. To help make taking public transit more simple, Amazon Alexa launched a transit capability where customers can conveniently ask Alexa for directions with transit or status updates for transit lines from over 450 public transportation agencies. Now rolled out across the US, the feature makes it simpler than ever for customers to use Alexa to optimize their daily commute or to explore a new neighborhood by bus or train.

Across Canada, hospitals, care providers, academic health sciences centers, and more are using accessible, scalable technology to support their staff and provide faster, better access to citizens in need of care. With Amazon Alexa, patients only need their voice to answer a few questions and get started towards healing.

While several public sector organizations launched new digital services during the pandemic, many still struggle with providing a high quality and equitable customer experience. To reduce the risk of a digital service not being received, or only being used by a limited portion of the intended population, government leaders should ask three customer experience questions before deploying new services — and consider how the cloud can help shape the answers.

Public sector organizations want to innovate the way they engage their communities to make information easier to access, improve user experience, expand their reach by supporting multiple communication channels, and improve efficiency and scalability through intelligent automation. Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots can be used to transform the customer experience, enhance engagement, improve services, and help scale more simply.

Information technology and cloud services can be enablers for modernization of these business processes and tax systems, and improved constituent experience. For public administrators, these tools can also shorten the window between the enactment of a new law and its timely and successful implementation. Here’s how governments are addressing some major challenges using the AWS Cloud.

Families and students now learn with Alexa in their homes, and EdTech companies are using Alexa to help bridge the gap in engaging and accessible at-home learning. Two EdTech startups, NuMoola and Ecree, announced Alexa skills to help facilitate student learning using voice.

Alzheimer’s, a progressive brain disease that gradually deteriorates memories and thinking skills, is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, according to nonprofit UsAgainstAlzheimer’s (UsA2). To help address the immense need for brain health information and insights, UsA2 recently launched BrainGuide working with AWS and Biogen. BrainGuide is a first-of-its-kind platform that empowers people with knowledge and resources to take the best next steps in managing their own or a loved one’s brain health.

As education has shifted to remote delivery, traditional mechanisms for engaging students and creating practical learning opportunities have had to adapt too. One mechanism—the hackathon—is increasingly taking place virtually. Typically, hackathons are in-person technology events where teams or individuals create solutions to a specific problem or challenge in a short timeframe, often 24 hours or a weekend. Hackathons are also social learning events where peers can connect, learn from each other, seek support from technical experts, and produce a cool (even if imperfect) solution. Cloud technology tools and resources can help virtual hackathons be as successful as traditional hackathons.

As screen time dependence has increased, education technology companies (EdTechs) are looking for new ways to engage students and create a more natural interaction with their products. One way to do so is using voice technology to help students, teachers, and administrators stay informed, be productive, and create more meaningful learning opportunities. To help, the AWS EdStart and Alexa in Education teams are launching the AWS EdStart Voice Builder course and badge. The AWS EdStart Member exclusive offering can help EdTechs build voice-first experiences that create fun and engaging learning experiences, reach new users, and save time by streamlining access to their products with Amazon Alexa.