Category: Announcements

The leading vocational and professional education provider in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) Information Technology Discipline, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), through its AWS Educate initiative, announced the launch of a new cloud computing diploma to prepare students for entry-level cloud technology jobs. Starting in September 2020, the two-year program will be available to IVE students and will support approximately 100 cloud computing students annually.

States are transforming their workforce and addressing immediate unemployment and re-skilling challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. One state—Utah—announced a plan to train and certify 5,000 students for cloud careers by June 2022. Yesterday, Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert announced the statewide initiative, enable training at Utah technical schools, community colleges, universities, and select K-12 career and technical education schools with access to AWS education and training programs.

According to the World Bank, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for about 90 percent of all companies. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), more than half of our partners serving the public sector are fast-growing SMEs and minority-owned businesses (MOBs). To support this important partner community, we’re launching a pilot of the Think Big for Small Business Program in August 2020.

As government agencies and public sector organizations modernize their IT and migrate to the AWS Cloud, the ability to gain a full, clear view of the security of their environments is a primary challenge they experience. This lack of visibility leads to blind spots and gaps in their security posture, leaving opportunity for security issues to arise. As a result, AWS developed a new open source Self-Service Security Assessment (with ransomware analysis modules) tool that provides customers with a point-in-time assessment to quickly gain valuable insights into the security posture of their AWS account.

Earlier today, NASA launched its Mars 2020 rover—Perseverance. Operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), the Perseverance rover will explore Mars for past signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for return by a future mission. The images taken from the Mars 2020 rover will be available on NASA JPL’s public website, and will be shared with people around the world. All images returned from the mission will be hosted on the AWS Cloud.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) Public Sector Partners leaned into innovation and customer obsession to deliver amazing results, especially in the time of COVID-19. In light of these significant contributions, we are excited to announce the winners of the 2020 AWS Public Sector Partners Awards. Read more about our winners.

AWS, together with EdTechReview, announced a voice technology in education contest at the EdTechReview 2020 conference. The competition, open to EdTechs in India, aims to build skills that address education challenges and positively impact students, faculty, administrators, and other educational stakeholders using Amazon Alexa in education. We received over 100 applications and selected five as finalists to compete for the title of “Best Amazon Alexa EdTech Skill 2020, India.”

Voting is now open for the 2020 Amazon Alexa Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) EdTech Skills Challenge. The competition challenged EMEA-based EdTechs to use voice technology to transform education. The six finalists designed Alexa skills to positively impact challenges in education such as improving teaching practices, learning throughout life, continuing professional development, and simplifying administration and assessment processes. Public voting is open until July 25, 2020.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that seven higher education institutions in India will adopt cloud computing curricula from its AWS Educate initiative to help develop the next generation of cloud professionals. The cloud computing content will be offered as part of undergraduate degree and postgraduate diploma programs starting in September 2020.

In June 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered next-generation tolling, how researchers can use the cloud right now, the AWS Public Sector Summit Online, and more. For more blog highlights from this month, you can also check out The Brief.