AWS Public Sector Blog

Category: Higher education

Photo by Erika Gronek, ASU

Students across Arizona participate in a statewide robotics hackathon

In collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NVIDIA, Arizona State University (ASU) hosted its first-ever robotics hackathon. At the Arizona Robo Hackathon, 64 undergraduate and graduate students across seven institutions came together to compete in an Arizona statewide competition hosted on AWS. By the end of the hackathon, students successfully applied their knowledge of computer science, engineering, and programming skills in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) application development.

students on laptops birds eye view

New initiative with Ellucian and AWS designed to speed and simplify higher education’s transformation to the cloud

Ellucian announced the launch of a new initiative in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) designed to both streamline and accelerate digital transformation and cloud adoption for higher education. The initiative – the Cloud Acceleration program – is available for a limited time to all Ellucian Banner and Ellucian Colleague on-premises customers considering moving to the cloud during 2020.

University in California exterior photo

AWS and CITE showcase commitment to student data privacy through the California AB 1584 Compliance Addendum

This month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and California IT in Education (CITE, formerly CETPA) announced the new California AB 1584 Compliance Addendum, a contract addendum available to AWS customers in California that are required to affirm compliance with California Assembly Bill 1584 (AB 1584) in California Education Code Section 49073.1.

Students learning robotics

Teaching machine learning through robot application development on AWS

Machine learning (ML) isn’t just for the technology industry. Today, machine learning influences research and consumer products and is leading to breakthroughs across industries like healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and retail. In the field of reinforcement learning, machine learning meets the real world when applied to robotics. Knowing this, how can we ensure students are skilled and prepared to leverage the power of this technology?

Fresno State Bulldog Bot Team with their Bulldog Bot

Fresno State builds an autonomous Bulldog Bot with AWS RoboMaker

During Homecoming 2019, the California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) Hub of Digital Transformation showcased the Bulldog Bot – a robotic take on the school mascot – built with Amazon Web Services (AWS) RoboMaker and AWS artificial intelligence (AI) services. The interactive Bulldog Bot engaged fans across campus by telling jokes, playing karaoke, and answering Fresno State homecoming trivia questions.

microscope in lab closeup

Structural biologists learning cryo-electron microscopy can access educational resources powered by AWS

Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) — the technology that won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry — lets scientists peer into the molecular “machines” at work in our cells in ways that were previously impossible. Using advanced microscopes, cryo-EM captures images of proteins flash-frozen in vitreous ice, revealing their 3D structure in near-native states. Even as access to this technology improves, many researchers are still limited by computing bottlenecks. The cryo-EM field needs to provide more hands-on training in how to process such large datasets. Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows us to provide training, broadening the impact of this important structural biology technology.

Alexa Chatbot for education

Just in time for back to school: Updates from Alexa on campus

Colleges and universities around the world are creating new Amazon Alexa skills to enhance the student experience on campus. From quiz skills built by professors that help students study to multi-lingual skills that give students access to learning content in their native language, Alexa is helping universities create new and exciting learning environments. Read what five schools from around the world are doing with Alexa skills this school year.

Data Lifecycle and Analytics in the AWS Cloud

Building a multi-channel Q&A chatbot at Saint Louis University using the open source QnABot

Students have questions. Their schools have the answers. A multi-modal chatbot delivers the missing link, providing a way for students to ask questions and get access to institutions’ answers. Saint Louis University used the open source QnABot, which can simplify bot deployment and administration for non-technical user.

Languages

Oxford University Press makes high-quality language data available using AWS

Oxford University Press (OUP) is a department of the University of Oxford and the largest university press in the world. In 2015, OUP launched the Oxford Global Languages (OGL) initiative aiming to build lexical resources for 100 of the world’s languages and make them freely available online. OUP knew that on-premises solutions wouldn’t provide the scalability and flexibility required for developing an MVP and expanding it in case of success. OUP chose Amazon Web Services (AWS) because it matched the requirements around scalability and flexibility, provided managed services for storing and accessing data securely, and offered options for deployment and automation.