Category: Government

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Institute today released a briefing paper that illustrates how cities are using technology to enhance access to services and quality of life for their residents. As cities become home to the majority of the world’s population, leaders must ensure that urban infrastructure and services can accommodate growth, and that no one is left behind. Increasingly, they are turning to cloud technology for solutions to the challenges they are facing – from problems like traffic, parking, and waste management to public health crises and natural disasters.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is a worldwide organization for law enforcement leadership to communicate new ideas, share experiences, disseminate information, and build relationships with other law enforcement entities. This year’s conference included sessions on trends in the law enforcement environment, new ideas, technology, and real-world applications. Here are some of the topics that AWS and our network of partners and solutions providers are working on to improve with law enforcement.

The United States Diplomacy Center and World Resources Institute hosted ImpactHack, a data visualization hackathon in Washington, D.C. Sixteen teams competed to demonstrate diplomacy’s impact, from state economies to global issues, using their coding and design skills. Amazon Web Services (AWS) sponsored the event, donating the time of several solutions architects, technology, credits, and expertise in managing the hackathon. Over the course of over a single Saturday, these teams developed their submissions. Projects from the hackathon will be used to develop Diplomacy Center exhibit prototypes. Congrats to the three winners!

Today, VP of Public Policy, Brian Huseman, attended the White House signing ceremony for the SUPPORT for Patients & Communities Act, which seeks to help those impacted by the opioid crisis. Amazon was one of 21 companies in attendance who are working in different ways to solve for the crisis.

Over the years, many organizations’ on-premises IT infrastructure has been compromised. Often times, organizations are left defending infrastructure, data, and people without understanding who is attacking them and why. But the sliver lining is that attackers often use the same tactics to try to initially compromise their targets. Knowing the ways that attackers try to get a foothold in your environment can help you defend it better.

Happy Birthday! It has been 10 years of our customers running Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server on AWS. Our government customers are some of the largest users of Windows. As public sector customers are looking to modernize their infrastructure, they have been turning to AWS. They trust their Windows workloads on AWS because of our experience, reliability, security, and performance.

The second annual AWS Public Sector Summit in Singapore took place on Tuesday, October 2, at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Center in Singapore. More than 1,100 attendees showed up from across the public sector. The event kicked off with the keynote presentation and was followed by 17 sessions that were offered across two tracks. And, for the first time, there was also a student track.

Transportation and traffic management are hot topics when city planners and administrations think about ways to make a city smarter and more livable. Recent statistics tell us that drivers in the U.S. spend an average of 42 hours per year in traffic in cities and lose $1,400 on gas, while idling. In Europe, cities like London and Paris show an average of 74 and 69 hours spent idling per year respectively. Researchers in England found adding an additional 20 minutes of commuting per day has the same negative effect on job satisfaction as receiving a 19% pay cut. These statistics and an increasing desire to be more environment friendly are reasons why city leaders are looking to tackle this problem.

Recife, the capital of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, is distinguished by its many rivers, bridges, islets, and peninsulas. The municipality of Recife, with an estimated population of 1.62 million, is at the center of a metropolitan region formed by 13 municipalities and around 94 neighborhoods. The cost to maintain such a large metropolis is great, requiring a complex public-cleaning operation with thousands of vehicles and employees, which was consuming nearly 10% of the city’s budget. Before implementing a new technology solution, supervising contractors and controlling the quality of street-cleaning services throughout the city was challenging.

From viewing election results to monitoring stock transactions, government, education, and nonprofits are adopting serverless for increased agility and lower costs. Election night presents a challenge for city and county administrators across America. Voters, party workers, journalists, and constituents converge to a precinct’s website to view election results.