Category: Announcements

Addressing climate change requires innovation across the world, across industries, and across startups and multi-national corporations. From distributed energy to storage solutions to efficiency and optimization software—clean technology investment and innovation is surging. With this surge in demand comes a rapid proliferation of startups working to solve today’s biggest energy challenges. To help foster this innovation, AWS is launching the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator.

Nonprofits have found themselves thrust into a digital-first landscape, with an increasing demand for virtual or remote services for beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, and staff. During the COVID-19 pandemic, nonprofit organizations put forth tremendous effort to fill gaps unmet by the government and private sectors for our communities. Nonprofits have shown agility in their pivot to online events, remote service delivery, sharing of data and research, and more. To help nonprofits access the best-in-class tools provided by AWS, today we are launching the 2021 AWS Imagine Grant program. Guidelines and instructions on how to apply for this year’s cycle are available today.

Data is at the heart of showing citizens how public services are working, and it enables the public sector to improve policy and operational delivery. Citizens expect accessible and useful services. The public sector aims to demonstrate success through data. To build trust in this relationship and promote accountability, public sector organizations need to communicate the data-driven performance of the services they provide. To help address these challenges, AWS is releasing Performance Dashboard on AWS. Performance Dashboard on AWS is a new open source solution to help you measure and share what’s important in one place and at minimal cost, and you can have the solution up and running in a matter of minutes.

Today, Amazon announced that it is now hosting petabytes of data from the largest and most updated climate simulation dataset in the world. Through two cloud grants from the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) to the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF), Amazon is enabling climate researchers worldwide to access and analyze the dataset used for the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR6) on the AWS Cloud. The report—scheduled to be published in May 2022—provides policymakers worldwide with the latest assessment of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. The climate simulation dataset, also known as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) data archive, traditionally hosted and distributed through the ESGF servers, aggregates the climate models created across approximately 30 working groups and 1,000 researchers working on IPCC-AR6.

Nonprofits and education institutions of all sizes rely on large amounts of data to serve their stakeholders, programs, and governance. For many organizations, the first step in a technology transformation begins with centralizing data that is siloed across a variety of mission critical systems. In support of these goals, Salesforce.org and Amazon Web Service (AWS) are working together to help nonprofits and education institutions derive actionable insights from their data.

AWS Training and Certification is now offering a new foundational training course on AWS GovCloud (US) as part of their no-cost training webinar series. Introduction to Governance and Compliance in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions is a training workshop for those looking for a solution to host sensitive data and regulated workloads, or IT professionals just looking to learn more about AWS GovCloud (US). This new live training webinar dives into the basics of how AWS and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions address these stringent security, compliance, and governance requirements.

The AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program makes high-value, cloud-optimized datasets publicly available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). We work with data providers to democratize access to data by making it available for analysis on AWS; develop new cloud-native techniques, formats, and tools that lower the cost of working with data; and encourage the development of communities that benefit from access to shared datasets. Our full list of publicly available datasets are on the Registry of Open Data on AWS. This quarter, we released 28 new datasets including data on SARS-CoV-2 viral genomes, storm surge forecasts, and US census data. Check out some highlights.

According to the IFC, small business ownership in South Africa reflects patterns of racial and gender-based inequality in the broader South African society, and as the size of businesses grows, the rates of black and female ownership decline. At AWS, we believe that building diverse teams allows us to innovate better for our customers. To work toward this, in 2019, AWS South Africa launched the AWS Equity Equivalent Investment Program (AWS EEIP), as part of its Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) program. The AWS EEIP is a Partner development and acceleration program for 100% black owned small IT businesses in South Africa. Applications for the 2021 intake are now open.

As the global aerospace and satellite industry enters a new age, leveraging the power of startups will drive innovation and improve accessibility to space data. AWS understands the importance of creating and nurturing startup communities, and today, we are proud to announce the launch of the AWS Space Accelerator. The AWS Space Accelerator is a four-week business support program that is open to space startups seeking to use AWS to help solve the biggest challenges in the space industry. Applications are open today and proposals are due by April 21, 2021.

The AWS Public Sector Summit Online is happening April 15-16, 2021. Registration is open and no cost. Teresa Carlson, vice president of AWS worldwide public sector and industries, will host the keynote featuring inspiring leaders who are delivering on their missions with AWS. Now, more than ever, organizations have to be agile, intuitive, and innovative. In the keynote address, Teresa will take a look at breakthroughs happening across the public sector globally and discuss how public sector organizations like yours can continue to push boundaries.