Category: Public Sector

Managing water crises is one of the Sustainable Development Goals and the decline in the available quality and quantity of fresh water is ranked as one of the top ten most serious societal risks by the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Risks report. Using satellite imagery available through the AWS Open Data Program and the AWS Cloud, BlueDot Observatory is establishing a global monitoring system for all at-risk water bodies. This monitoring reveals a sad truth – the total loss of water bodies is in the not too distant future.

We invited Anze Zupanc, a data scientist who manages the BlueDot Observatory at Sinergise, to share how the AWS Open Data Program and the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative support this work.

The British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) started the mobility revolution in B.C. over 100 years ago when a small group of British Columbians, passionate about cars and mobility, joined together to form an auto club. A century later, BCAA continues to help new generations get to where they need to go, and Evo is one way BCAA meets their changing mobility needs. Evo Car Share is Vancouver’s free-floating car sharing service offering a full fleet of 1,500 four-door, hybrid vehicles.

Cities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to do point-in-time traffic studies. Those studies assist cities in planning traffic signal timings and detours during street-closures. The City of Louisville, Kentucky, was paying every year for traffic studies and analysis and was getting static reports back. Instead, Louisville decided to use real-time congestion data freely available to governments through the Waze CCP (Connected Citizens Program). Combined with other information like built environment data and collision reports, Louisville could bring this together in the cloud for advanced analytics.

2018 saw many natural disasters devastating areas of the United States. To enable disaster response organizations’ access to cloud services at the edge, even in the harshest conditions, we announced the launch of the AWS Disaster Response Program (AWS DRP). he AWS DRP team focuses on building strategic relationships with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGO), nonprofit organizations (NPO), and educational institutions focusing on disaster response. Additionally, the AWS DRP is developing a capability to deploy technical AWS staff during disasters and directly aid disaster-responding organizations in leveraging AWS technology called the AWS Disaster Response Action Team (AWS DRT).

As part of our commitment to making science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and careers accessible to students, we host AWS Field Trips to engage young students with cloud technology. Three years ago, the AWS Field Trip program started at AWS re:Invent to inspire and engage middle school students to pursue STEM education and careers by exposing them to fun, hands-on engagements with technology. Since then, the program has scaled to Madrid, Spain, and Ottawa, Canada, reaching middle school students globally. This year, AWS Field Trips are expanding to several 2019 AWS Summits globally, reaching more students and providing a pathway for continued learning through AWS Educate.

MIT is replacing the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel (WBWT) with a new, state-of-the-art facility. And they’re relying on AWS to do it. Post-refresh, the WBWT, first commissioned in 1938, will be the largest and most advanced wind tunnel to reside in a U.S. academic setting. But first, it helps to understand why the re-design is happening in the first place.

Recalling back to when he was a teacher, Andy Wolfenbarger, Supervisor of Student Information Systems at the Department of Information Technology Services at Prince William County Public Schools, was pulling triple duty – coaching football and tennis on top of teaching his four high school classes. With grades due, Andy had a small block of time after school to get them in. But unbeknownst to him, the switch in the network closet next to him needed to be upgraded. In the middle of inputting his grades, the system went dark.

At AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, Compassion International participated in the Nonprofit Hackathon for Social Good. People don’t usually connect the dots between cutting-edge technology and nonprofits, but this is where it’s needed most. Hackers were challenged to bridge the communication gap between those in need and empathetic people who want to help. No matter your origin or the language you speak, you can connect and meet the needs of a child in poverty.

Governments face stiff competition with the private sector when it comes to recruiting civil servants with digital skills. As they look to innovate and make their services more citizen-centric, government leaders can benefit from bold strategies to recruit diverse, digitally savvy talent. Dr. Wendy Cukier, Director of the Diversity Institute at Ryerson University, explores the challenges facing the Canadian public service and recommendations to develop the federal workforce, in a new paper produced in collaboration with Public Policy Forum and the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Institute. While the paper focuses on Canada, the strategies offered are relevant to leaders around the world.

Early in your career it is important to find individuals that you respect and admire to act as mentors. I still have mentors, and I still ask questions. You need to remember that the onus is on you to use your mentor’s time. You need to be prescriptive when it comes to asking for their help. Come to them with specific questions and give them perspective on where you need guidance. Approaching a mentor with a clear understanding of where you need guidance is key to respecting their time and getting the most of yours.