Category: Education

In August 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered cloud workforce development, partner programs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and minority-owned businesses (MOBs), and more.

As screen time dependence has increased, education technology companies (EdTechs) are looking for new ways to engage students and create a more natural interaction with their products. One way to do so is using voice technology to help students, teachers, and administrators stay informed, be productive, and create more meaningful learning opportunities. To help, the AWS EdStart and Alexa in Education teams are launching the AWS EdStart Voice Builder course and badge. The AWS EdStart Member exclusive offering can help EdTechs build voice-first experiences that create fun and engaging learning experiences, reach new users, and save time by streamlining access to their products with Amazon Alexa.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) believes that technology is a powerful tool for driving results and innovation on campus. Their chief information officer, Mark Henderson, developed a task force—called the Data and Technology Innovation Lab—to identify department challenges and task individuals to build innovative solutions using technology. One area where UIUC identified an opportunity was sports analytics using machine learning (ML). Learn more about how UIUC was inspired by what they were seeing in professional sports, using data to shift their approach to coaching football.

Artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are helping solve some of the biggest short- and long-term challenges within the public sector. But how can you quickly identify new AI-powered opportunities and use cases to solve unique and specific challenges within your organization? AWS AI and ML Week, taking place from September 14-18, includes seven curated webinars from introductory to expert level. Whether you’re new to AI or an experienced machine learning developer, attend our webinars and dive into some of the most common AI use cases for the public sector from this year.

In July and August on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Fix This podcast, we heard from customers on their solutions for the classroom, in diagnostic research, for working from home, and in the great outdoors.

This year, AWS is hosting the first IMAGINE: The New World of Education Webinar Series. In these webinars, we will feature conversations that provide best practices, guidance, and advice as millions of students and educators worldwide continue to adjust to remote teaching, learning, and working. You’ll hear from education industry leaders as well as subject matter experts on how the cloud has helped bridge the divide between campus or the classroom and remote learning and instruction.

Ecree, an AWS EdStart Member, was founded by educators who believed the way we teach students to write is broken. The volume of work a teacher is being asked to do means students don’t always get the necessary attention and feedback required to develop their writing skills. Ecree’s founding team set out to support teachers and students by creating the world’s first rules-based tool that assesses student writing in the same way a highly trained professor does, on-demand. The solution uses cloud technologies including machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and voice technology to help improve student writing.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies including machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) can transform the way government agencies operate and enable them to provide improved citizen services. AWS Partner Network Partners have been working with AWS to accelerate solutions development using AI and related technologies for our public sector customers. To further assist partners in the acceleration of AI and ML, AWS is launching a new partner initiative: the AI and ML Rapid Adoption Assistance Initiative.

Pearson delivers anywhere, anytime digital course material and learning opportunities for students globally using AWS. As a global company, Pearson turned to the cloud to deliver content globally, build agile, accessible solutions, and to power its digital transformation. With Revel and Pearson eText, Pearson provides flexible, digital learning solutions for students and instructors, including digitized textbooks with interactive, multimedia content, and assessment features. Building on AWS has helped Pearson to iterate quickly, innovate on behalf of students and educators, scale on demand, and reach learners globally.

AWS Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) focus on solving real-life societal challenges facing the public sector. These public-private partnerships between a public sector organization—like a university or local city—and AWS can help unlock innovation, faster. Through the CIC challenges, organizations and students work to solve societal problems through digital solutions and Amazon’s innovation processes while providing students a platform to learn. These solutions and results are published open source, so others can benefit from this innovative work. This past quarter, CICs worked on address Alzheimer’s, citizen services, and coronaviruses.