Category: Announcements

Research exploring how humans work with machines to solve problems in fields ranging from space to sustainability has established the potential to create far-reaching change in children’s education. The test-bed project is part of a wider program set up by Oxford University with support from AWS. Researchers have been as surprised by how quickly they have reached results as they are pleased with the outcomes. One of the test-beds, the Oxford X-Reality Hub Ed Tech project, set out to investigate how virtual reality (VR) could transform the classroom experience and close the gap between disadvantaged groups of pupils who statistically do less well than their peers.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in India is establishing a Quantum Computing Applications Lab, in collaboration with AWS, to accelerate quantum computing-led research and development and enable new scientific discoveries. This is MeitY’s first initiative in the country to provide scientific, academic, and developer communities with access to a quantum computing development environment in the cloud. This is also the first quantum computing applications lab on AWS Cloud to support a government’s science and technology mission at a country level.

Removing the barriers to rehousing, especially for those chronically homeless, is a critical part of a community’s efforts to combat homelessness. This month, the City of Baltimore is launching My Digital Data Locker, an innovative cloud-based platform that gives people who are experiencing homelessness a secure place to manage digital copies of vital documents. This service reduces one of the key barriers to housing for people experiencing homelessness: vital document storage and access. The solution uses the cloud.

To allow more visibility into and management of AWS resources and expenses and minimize the cloud skills training required to operate these resources, AWS Partner RONIN created the RONIN research computing platform. RONIN gives researchers the ability to create exactly the computers or storage that they need in minutes. With access to the flexibility and scalability of the cloud, researchers are able to store and process larger datasets, collaborate globally, and adapt to changing technologies and research methods instantly.

This week, AWS released the report, “Unlocking APAC’s Digital Potential: Changing Digital Skill Needs and Policy Approaches.” Prepared by strategy and economics consulting firm AlphaBeta and commissioned by AWS, the report analyzes the digital skills applied by workers in their jobs today and the digital skills required by workforces over the next five years. The report focuses on six Asia Pacific countries: Singapore, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.

Diversity matters. Governments, countries, cities, agencies, and more recognize the value that diversity brings. According to McKinsey, companies with ethnic or cultural diversity are 33% more likely to outperform on profitability. With this in mind, I am thrilled to announce the global launch of the Think Big for Small Business Program. With the global launch of this program, I wanted to share the three things I like most about it.

AWS is helping NASA JPL reach an inaugural and innovative milestone in deep space exploration. On Thursday, February 18, NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover landed on Mars, after its 7-month, 300-million-mile journey from Earth. This is the first planetary NASA mission, with mission-critical communication and transfer of telemetry data in the cloud. During Perseverance’s mission on Mars, the science and engineering data will be processed and hosted in AWS, enabling the Mars 2020 mission to benefit from the scalability, agility, and reliability of the cloud.

We are excited to announce the winners of the 2020 AWS City on a Cloud competition. Since 2014, we’ve rewarded those who have positively impacted our communities in the City on a Cloud competition. This year, the competition expanded to include finalists from over 14 countries across the globe in search of how organizations are adapting to these unprecedented times and helping cities become more resilient. From building telehealth solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, to improving farmers’ quality of life, to increasing computer science education, the winning cities and organizations went above and beyond to innovate for and with their constituents using the cloud. Check out the winners.

AWS announced that six institutes of higher learning in Singapore—including all five national polytechnics and a private education institution—will bring AWS Cloud courses and learning resources into their diploma programs. By collaborating with AWS education programs, these institutions are developing the next generation of cloud professionals. The courses, which include the fundamentals of cloud computing, application development, and cloud security, are available now as part of the institutions’ diploma and short course programs.

Today, AWS announced the launch of AWS GovTechStart, a new program intended to help early-stage commercial government technology (GovTech) startups build solutions on AWS for state and local governments across the United States. AWS GovTechStart is a virtual GovTech accelerator, modeled after AWS EdStart, that offers eligible companies support including access to equity-free AWS Promotional Credit, technical training and support, a community of GovTech experts, and more.