Category: government

Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies collect an endless amount of data that, however abundant, often fails to paint the whole picture. According to NextGov, 74 million Medicaid records are now hosted in the AWS Cloud.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is porting in five years or more of records from 50 states—totaling 72 terabytes of data—to the cloud. In the past, this would have created a “log jam,” and likely impossible for the agency’s internal data centers. California alone produces some 900 billion records per month.

By applying advanced analytics and converging previously disparate datasets, CMS will be able to gain an understanding through the data to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse, and deliver other insights that have never before been realized even with years of existing data.

During the AWS Public Sector Summit, Jessica Kahn, Director, Data Systems Group, CMS, discussed how CMS was able to accomplish their robust data migration and derive measurable benefits.

CMS’s Medicaid program is using AWS to help answer vital questions such as: How many pregnant women had access to prenatal care? Where are people going to get mental health care? How many people are getting opioid treatment?”

The migration is a sizable step in CMS’s overall goal to build a more data-driven culture with the ultimate aim to make informed decisions based on analytics and deliver benefits to the citizen.

Watch the video of her keynote here.

In addition to Medicaid, CMS runs parts of Healthcare.gov on AWS. CMS turned to Amazon Web Services to launch three new features for the website, including an identity management system, a feature for comparing insurance plans, and a tool to determine eligibility for specific plans based on a consumer’s income and other variables. By using AWS, CMS has been able to deliver a stable and highly scalable set of features capable of handling hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users during peak insurance signup periods.

Learn more about how HHS agencies at the state and local government level are leveraging the AWS Cloud for initiatives ranging from the optimization of everyday administrative tasks to delivering a more personalized digital experience for their citizens.

Within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), commanders have more resources and capabilities to effect positive change and innovate for the future. To increase innovation across the DoD, AWS securely enables defense and national security missions with secure, scalable, and cost-efficient solutions.

Cloud can empower the Defense Department to create groundbreaking new tools to enable its mission. One of these tools is Amazon Rekognition.

Amazon Rekognition, an AWS Artificial Intelligence service, allows software developers to quickly and easily build applications that analyze images and recognize faces, objects, and scenes. Amazon Rekognition uses deep learning technologies to automatically identify objects and scenes and provides a confidence score that lets developers tag images so that application users can search for specific images using key words. Amazon Rekognition can locate faces within images and detect attributes, such as whether or not the face is smiling or the eyes are open. Amazon Rekognition also supports advanced facial analysis functionalities such as face comparison and facial search. Using Amazon Rekognition in AWS GovCloud (US), developers can build an application that measures the likelihood that faces in two images are of the same person, in near real-time.

Watch this demo to learn how to use AWS APIs and services like the Internet of Things, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and AWS Lambda, along with Amazon Alexa skills, to bring Amazon Rekognition to the edge.

In this demo, Mike Colson creates an AWS Rekognition collection and uses an AWS Lambda function to determine if the image matches the collection watch list. Then an analyst will be notified with an IoT visual alert and the alert can be cleared through an Amazon Echo. Watch the video here to learn more about Amazon Rekognition for defense.

Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES)-R series satellite is available on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Access it here at no cost.

NOAA operates a constellation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites to provide continuous weather imagery and monitoring of meteorological and space environment data for the protection of life and property across the United States. GOES satellites provide critical atmospheric, oceanic, climatic, and space weather products supporting weather forecasting and warnings, climatologic analysis and prediction, ecosystems management, safe and efficient transportation, and other national priorities.

GOES satellites continually view the continental United States, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, Central and South America, and Southern Canada. To fully cover Alaska, Hawaii, the entire continental United States and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (for tropical storms), NOAA operates two GOES satellites simultaneously: GOES-East and GOES-West. The satellites provide advanced imaging with increased spatial resolution, 16 spectral channels, and up to 1 minute scan frequency for more accurate forecasts and timely warnings.

The real-time feed and full historical archive of original resolution Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) radiance data (Level 1b) and full resolution Cloud and Moisture Imager (CMI) products (Level 2) are freely available on Amazon S3 for anyone to use.

The availability of GOES-R Series data on AWS is the result of the NOAA Big Data Project (BDP) to explore the potential benefits of storing copies of key observations and model outputs in the cloud to allow computing directly on the data without requiring further distribution. This approach could help form new lines of business and economic growth while making NOAA’s data more easily accessible to the public.

About the Data

• Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Category: Earth Science, Sensor Data, Natural Resource, Meteorological
• Format: netCDF v4
• License: There are no restrictions on the use of this data.
• Storage Service: Amazon S3
• Location: s3://noaa-goes16 in us-east-1 region
• Update Frequency: New data is added as soon as it’s available

If you have a research project that could take advantage of GOES data on AWS, you can apply for Earth on AWS Cloud Credits for Research.

About the image: This composite color full-disk visible image is from 1:07 p.m. EDT on January 15, 2017 and was created using several of the 16 spectral channels available on the GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument. The image shows North and South America and the surrounding oceans. GOES-16 observes Earth from an equatorial view approximately 22,300 miles high, creating full disk images like these, extending from the coast of West Africa, to Guam, and everything in between.

AWS is dedicated to building programs and services suitable for use by the justice and public safety community. Whether in law enforcement, emergency management, corrections or courts, AWS has the capability and resources to address this community’s unique IT needs.

To meet the security and compliance requirements of Canadian police agencies, AWS aligns with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) Information and Technology Sub-Committee’s offsite data storing and processing best practices, including:

• Vendor requirements, including 24×7 managed tier 1 and tier 2 support, proven incident response processes, and data encryption.
• Information security requirements, including backup and recovery, encryption of data in transit and at rest, and continuous monitoring and logging of events.
• Data centre security requirements, including physical security and two-factor authentication.
• Personnel security requirements, including security and background checks.
• Access control requirements, including password rules.

Nothing is more important to us than protecting your data and your privacy. That is why we work closely with customers to offer both a secure cloud computing environment and innovative security services that satisfy the security and compliance needs of some of the most risk-sensitive organizations.

For our Canadian law enforcement customers and partners, the AWS Canada (Central) Region allows them to securely run public safety workloads and store their data in Canada.

This whitepaper provides the information Canadian police agencies can use to help determine how AWS services support their requirements and how to integrate AWS into the existing control framework that supports their IT environment.

Learn more about AWS in Canada here: https://aws.amazon.com/canada/

Stockage de données hors site et meilleures pratiques de traitement de données

AWS s’est engagé à bâtir des programmes et offrir des services qui conviennent aux besoins des diverses organisations judiciaires et de sécurité publique. Que ce soit pour le respect des lois, pour la gestion de crises ou pour l’usage des services correctionnels et des tribunaux, AWS possède les capacités et les ressources pour répondre aux besoins en matière de technologies de l’information de cette communauté unique.

Afin de satisfaire aux exigences de sécurité et de conformité des agences policières canadiennes, AWS s’adapte aux meilleures pratiques de stockage de données hors site et de traitement de données telles que stipulées par le sous-comité d’Information et des technologies de l’Association canadienne des chefs de police (ACCP), incluant:

• Obligations du fournisseur, notamment le soutien24x7 pour la gestion des services de 1re et de2e ligne, les processus de réponse aux incidents éprouvés et le cryptage de données.
• Conditions de sécurité de l’information, incluant lasauvegarde et la récupération, le cryptage de données en transit et au repos et la surveillance et enregistrement continus d’événements.
• Conditions de sécurité des centres de données, incluant la sécurité physique et l’authentification à deux facteurs.
• Conditions de sécurité du personnel, incluant la vérification des antécédents et le contrôle de sécurité.
• Conditions de sécurité d’accès, incluant les règles de mots de passe.

Pour nous, rien n’est plus important que la protection de vos données et de votre confidentialité. Pour cette raison, nous travaillons en étroite collaboration avec nos clients de manière à fournir un environnement infonuagique sécuritaire tout comme des services de sécurité innovants pour satisfaire les besoins de sécurité et de conformité des organisations, dont certaines sont hautement sensibles au risque.

Pour les autorités policières clientes et partenaires, la région AWS Canada (Centre) leur permettra d’exécuter des charges de travail de sécurité publique et de stocker leurs données au Canada en toute sécurité.

Ce livre blanc fournit de l’information à l’usage des agences policières canadiennes pour aider à déterminer comment les services d’AWS peuvent répondre à leurs demandes et comment AWS peut être intégré dans la structure de contrôle existante qui soutient leur environnement technologique.

Apprenez-en plus sur AWS au Canada ici: https://aws.amazon.com/fr/canada/

From introductory material to in-depth architectures, the AWS Public Sector Summit featured sessions relevant to healthcare and life science researchers.

The full set of session videos are located here, along with slides to match, but in this post, we will recap healthcare and life sciences sessions with a focus on our customers, such as the American Heart Association, the NIH National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Marrow Donor Program, and how they use the AWS Cloud to unlock the value of data and share insights.

Harmonize, Search, Analyze, and Share Scientific Datasets on AWS

Cardiovascular researchers face a challenge: how to make multi-generational clinical research studies more broadly accessible for discovery and analysis than they are today. Many datasets have been created by different people at different times and don’t conform to a common standard. With varying naming conventions, units of measurement, and categories, datasets can have data quality issues.

To support dataset harmonization, search, analysis, and sharing of results and insights, the American Heart Association created the AHA Precision Medicine Platform using a combination of managed and serverless services such as Jupyter Notebooks and Apache Spark on Amazon EMR, Amazon Elasticsearch, Amazon S3, Amazon Athena, and Amazon Quicksight. AHA and AWS have worked together to implement these techniques to bring together researchers and practitioners from around the globe to access, analyze, and share volumes of cardiovascular and stroke data. They are working to accelerate research and generate evidence around the care of patients at risk of cardiovascular disease – the number one killer in the United States and a leading global health threat.

Watch the Harmonize, Search, Analyze, and Share Scientific Datasets on AWS video with Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, representing the American Heart Association (AHA), to learn more about datasets on AWS and this video on how AHA leveraged Amazon Alexa and Lex chat bots as part of a new initiative to engage communities and individuals to promote better heart health by easy voice-enabled tracking of activities and diet.

Next-Generation Medical Analysis

The NIH National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases is working to make microbial genetics data available to microbiome researchers. They developed Nephele, a platform that allows researchers to perform large-scale analysis of data. Nephele uses standard infrastructure services, such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3, but also integrates serverless technologies like AWS Lambda for a cost-effective control-plane and resource provisioning.

Similarly, Dr. Caleb Kennedy from the National Marrow Donor Program defined a system for collecting vital information across a diverse set of participating clinics using standard data formats. They are looking to transform transplantation healthcare by integrating even more data into the system.

Watch the Next-Generation Medical Analysis video here to learn about how technology is enabling disruptive innovation in biomedical research and care.

IoT and AI Services in Healthcare

To help support the healthcare industry, AWS has Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) services enabling transformative new capabilities in healthcare. Learn more about IoT and AI Services in Healthcare and how these services can be applied in different scenarios. For instance, one AWS-savvy father is using Amazon Polly, Lex, and IoT buttons to create a verbal assistant for his autistic son.

Watch more of our sessions from the AWS Public Sector Summit here and learn more about genomics in the cloud at: https://aws.amazon.com/public-datasets/

World leaders at the United Nations agreed on a universal set of goals and indicators that would bring government, civil society, and the private sector together to end extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change by 2030.

Technology and cloud-based solutions will be a critical part of achieving the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs). AWS has teamed up with the Unreasonable Group and the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships to support the first cohort of startups participating in the Unreasonable Goals Sustainable Development Goals Accelerator program.

This program is focused on accelerating the achievement of the SDGs by bringing together 16 innovators from around the world who have developed highly scalable entrepreneurial solutions, each one positioned to solve one of the Global Goals.

With a commitment to making the world a better place, AWS experts spent three days on-site at the Aspen Institute’s Wye River resort with a team of corporate innovators, government influencers, and entrepreneurs. AWS advised and coached these business leaders on a range of topics including:

• How to leverage the AWS Cloud to drive better outcomes
• Strategies for selling to governments and nonprofits
• Options for distribution through the wider Amazon community

Participating businesses in the Accelerator will be enrolled in the AWS Activate program for startups, which includes $15,000 in AWS Promotional Credits as well as access to training.

A growing number of military customers are adopting AWS’s utility-based cloud services to process, store, and transmit all types of unclassified Department of Defense (DoD) data. AWS enables DoD and its contractors to leverage the secure AWS environment to meet critical mission needs in supporting the security and welfare of our country.

Strengthening our commitment to the DoD, AWS services allow customers to fully comply with the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) regulations governing the safeguarding of DoD data, including data in the cloud. This includes the DFARS provision governing “Covered Defense Information” under DFARS 252.204.7012 (“Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting”) as well as “Government data” under DFARS 252.239.7010 (“Cloud Computing Services”).

As an AWS customer deploying an application on the AWS infrastructure, you fully inherit the security controls pertaining to our physical, environmental, and media protection controls, and no longer need to provide a detailed description as to how you comply with these control families. The remaining DoD Risk Management Framework (RMF) controls are shared between AWS and its customers, as each organization retains responsibility for implementation of these controls within their portion of the shared IT security model.

AWS customers also inherit all the benefits of our experience, including the best practices of our security policies, architecture, and operational processes proven to meet the strict standards and compliance requirements of third-party assurance frameworks.

In supporting DFARS requirements, we work with customers and their assessors to assist in the planning, deploying, certifying, and accrediting of customer DoD workloads running on AWS. Mission owners have the tools, like AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch, to help improve their own compliance oversight with the services and features made available by AWS.

With AWS, you can also leverage security investments you have already made by working with technology partners you know and trust, using highly vetted solutions from our Marketplace and Partner Network.

Learn practical guidance on how DoD and defense contracting organizations can meet DFARS requirements using AWS GovCloud (US) in this video here. And visit our AWS Cloud Compliance page to learn more.

The best predictor of future safety is a thorough understanding of the past. Traverse, a protective services case discovery platform from the AWS Public Sector Partner Program member Northwoods, uncovers dark data and uses it to present a comprehensive case story.

It allows child and adult protective services agencies to leverage the power of big data and the information they already have to make well informed, more confident decisions. The tool helps to analyze years of information and volumes of case records to build connections that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Northwoods launched Traverse earlier this year to be able to take advantage of this big data and provide protective services agencies insight into information and data they’ve never had before. Using natural language processing and text analytics tools, these empower workers to learn about key topics, people, and events in a case to make informed decisions about safety. Because it analyzes information that workers are already collecting, there is no additional work required.

Traverse is all-in on AWS, using services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).

In order to store and handle sensitive data, Traverse uses the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) algorithm to encrypt all data at rest and utilizes TLS 1.2 to secure all data in transit. Cloud resources are provisioned in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network, giving customers a logically isolated section in the cloud.

From foster care to CPS investigations to transportation, Traverse is used by protective services agencies to help caseworkers and social workers quickly understand major topics that impact their cases, such as domestic violence or substance abuse. Because Traverse also surfaces people connected to the case, workers are better able to identify placement options or positive supports for vulnerable children or adults. Traverse not only gives workers the information they need to make the best decisions possible to protect safety, it improves productivity because finding critical information is possible in minutes, versus hours or even days, depending on the complexity of the case.

 “Often times we have to go back and look at history before we make a decision. The ability to navigate through a case using the search function is really important because if there’s information to find, Traverse narrows it down without having to read everything. That’s a huge timesaver and a huge benefit to the agency because we’re able to use our time very effectively,” said Jacob Meetze, Investigation and Assessment Social Worker, Beaufort County Department of Social Services, NC. Read more user stories here.

Watch this On Demand Webinar from the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) and Northwoods to learn how Fairfield County Child and Adult Protective Services is embracing “dark data” to make informed, confident safety decisions.

In addition to Traverse, Northwoods also offers document management solutions (DMS) for human services agencies that are used in 12 states and one territory, serving over 36 million people. For agencies that are cloud-based, information that previously would be thousands of pages long in a large printed case file is now stored electronically in AWS. Caseworkers and social workers can easily store and retrieve documents, complete forms, and capture more accurate and timely case notes and narratives to improve service delivery, compliance, and audit-readiness. Field-based social workers use a mobile app in disconnected mode and can also capture high-resolution, color images of clients and living conditions.

Learn more about how Health and Human services (HHS) agencies at the state and local government level are leveraging the AWS Cloud for initiatives ranging from the optimization of everyday administrative tasks to delivering a more personalized digital experience for their citizens.

A guest blog by Andrew McMahon, Dcode42

Digital transformation – changing processes and information into a digital form has been a popular trend. It is causing changes in industries from automotive to healthcare to government.

To be able to move forward in digital transformation and the DevOps space, organizations can hire people with more modern technology skill sets. And, in order to support this new civil servant, the appropriate tools and technologies should be in place.

Dcode42 incubates emerging technology companies, providing them with what they need to succeed in the federal market through our comprehensive accelerator programs. We recently announced our newest cohort that focuses on delivering the most promising developer tools and platforms to the government.

By bringing together Dcode42 and AWS, we offer a powerful launching pad for technology companies of all sizes to succeed quickly. Companies accepted into this three-month program receive concentrated guidance and support on crucial aspects of entering the federal market, including:

• Courses with renowned industry subject matter experts on the inner workings of government – from marketing and sales to compliance, procurement, pricing and more;
• Exclusive briefings with key government buyers and industry leaders;
• Access to industry specialists and mentors for expert guidance and networking connections;
• Exposure to an extensive partner network of large and small partners to increase revenue opportunities; and
• Hands on strategic planning and go-to-market support to maximize your resources.

Along with the programming that Dcode42 companies receive, this particular cohort will have the opportunity to work with AWS public sector teams to further speed their time to market. Companies leave the program with tactical plans, close integration with AWS teams, and, in many cases, immediate opportunities for revenue.

Join The Digital Transformation Movement

The Dcode42 program is for established companies with commercial traction. The program has two tracks for companies of different sizes: the startups track, for companies with $1-14M in revenue and/or funding; and the emerging growth track, for companies with $14-150M in revenue and/or funding. Our program is designed for two types of companies:

• Those with some traction in the federal market, but who are still developing a government practice. These companies may have a few contracts or a dedicated federal team with prior experience.
• Companies new to the federal government looking to succeed more quickly who are not sure the best approach to take.

The deadline to apply for the upcoming cohort is July 17th. Companies that wish to apply can visit www.dcode42.com/apply or find more information at www.dcode42.com/programs.

Prince George’s County created a summer internship for 20+ underserved high school and college students, focused on teaching the students how to develop apps using Amazon Alexa, Amazon Lex, Echo Dot, and Echo Show.

The program is being led by the Prince George’s County IT Department as part of the Tech Prince George’s initiative focused on the development of a career pipeline and interceptive strategies to improve student matriculation and eventual career success in technology fields. AWS is collaborating with Prince George’s County to help build a pipeline of technical talent and expose more students to emerging technologies from Amazon.

Starting this week, the 24 interns will work in teams of six to develop an application based on Amazon Alexa, Echo, Dot, and Show, utilizing AWS Lambda and other AWS cloud services. The applications will address challenges faced by some public school students, such as reading impairments. The teams will be led by six college students (all computer science majors) acting as mentors and advisors.

The teams will have five weeks to develop the program with the goal to roll the winning app out in schools within the county. This is a competition-based internship, with the winning application selected by a panel including the County Executive, County CAO, a School Board Member, an AWS representative, and others. The winning team will also have the opportunity to publish the skills on the Amazon Alexa site.

“This is the best part of my job working with the young adults and watching the light bulb come on and seeing the growth in them as well as confidence as professionals. The fact that we are using a concept that they can personally connect with is a winning strategy. When I shared with the teams that the device was the Amazon Alexa this year, they were so excited and that same day the brainstorming process was in motion. I can’t wait for everyone to see how amazing my students are and what creative ideas come from these future IT Professionals,” said Sandra Longs Hasty, Program Director, Prince George’s County.

AWS Educate, Amazon’s global initiative to provide students and educators with the resources needed to accelerate cloud-related learning endeavors, is offering developer account credits and online education accounts through mentors for the interns as part of the program.

Good luck to all of the interns!

Learn more about AWS Educate here and how we work to build skills, get engaged with the community, and inspire the next generation here.

The Prince George’s County internship program culminated with the four teams presenting their apps built on Amazon Alexa, Amazon Lex, Echo Dot, and Echo Show. The applications addressed challenges faced by some public school students, such as reading impairments and language barriers. Learn about the different challenges and solutions here.