AWS Public Sector Blog

Category: Education

Opportunity@Work and AWS Educate Accelerate Career Opportunities for a Diverse Talent Pool

Opportunity@Work, a nonprofit social enterprise, is aiming to empower individuals and enable more Americans to work, learn, and their full potential. Opportunity@Work has launched TechHire.Careers, a new kind of recruiting platform built specifically to help employers fill entry-level tech positions with talented individuals from diverse backgrounds with the help of AWS Educate.

A Visit to Latin America: Collaboration with the Cloud

During my recent visit to Latin America, I was enchanted by the beauty, grace, and passion of tango dance during a show at the Buenos Aires Faena Hotel. The dancers reflect the Argentine people – honoring their history, tradition, and culture, but are not afraid to innovate, take chances, and lead. I was also amazed with the beauty of the Andes, delivering strength, power, a quiet peace and gentle inspiration. It is with this backdrop that I met with AWS customers in Latin America to discuss the power of cloud computing.

Announcing the 2018 City on a Cloud Finalists

This year’s City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge saw a variety of applications from countries around the globe. Nominations included cities, counties, universities, and, for the first time, a diversity category (We Power Tech) using the cloud to improve the lives of their constituents. Learn more about the finalists and their projects, including emergency response and disaster preparedness, collaborative learning, securing elections, and more.

The Alexa Badge for AWS Educate is Now Available

An Amazon Alexa badge with 10-15 hours of dedicated Alexa skills training is now available through AWS Educate. Alexa is Amazon’s voice service and the brain behind tens of millions of devices like Echo Show and Echo Spot. Alexa provides capabilities, known as “skills,” that enable developers to create a more personalized experience for their products and build natural voice experiences that offer consumers a more intuitive way to interact with the technology they use every day.

Announcing our 2018 keynotes for the AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C.

We are excited to announce the lineup of keynote speakers joining us on the main stage for the ninth annual AWS Public Sector Summit June 20-21st at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. These visionaries will share strategies and tactics for shaping culture, building new skillsets, saving costs, and achieving missions.

James Cook University personalizes its digital transformation

In 2003, the Singapore campus opened with around 300 students, two support staff, and basic IT infrastructure. Fast forward to 2018, and the university now serves more than 3,000 students. With the growth of the university, they realized that what worked for them in the past would not take them where they needed to be in the future. To remain competitive and keep up with the needs of students, faculty, and staff, JCU looked to transform the university’s IT to leverage emerging educational technology. They turned to the AWS Cloud for accessibility, agility, global reach, reliability, and cost savings as they personalized their own digital transformation.

Response, Recovery, & Rebuild: Sonoma County’s Emergency Response Plan

While the fires spread in Sonoma County in October 2017, the focus was on fighting the flames that burned more than 110,000 acres and on helping the citizens displaced from their homes get access to emergency response resources. In addition to shelter, food, and water, time was another important resource. Citizens have high expectations for government services, whether at the state or municipal level, especially in the aftermath of a disaster. Immediately following the Sonoma County fires, the staffing resources in place could not handle the demands required to provide services and educate the public on what resources were available. To scale to meet the demands of citizens, QLess, an innovator in customer-interaction management (CIM) technology, worked around the clock to deploy its Amazon Web Services (AWS)-hosted solution for Sonoma County in a single weekend.

Melbourne Business School Experiences 99.89% Uptime with Amazon WorkSpaces

Melbourne Business School (MBS) is the graduate business school of the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. The Masters of Business Analytics course is ranked #5 in the world, and provides students with skills and knowledge to become data scientists who can transform the way decisions are made in business. MBS is leveraging Amazon WorkSpaces to deliver consistent performance of course content.