In case you missed it: May 2020 top blog posts round up

In May 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered stories on the AWS Public Sector Summit Online 2020, chatbots and call centers, and open source solutions. Check out some of the top stories from the blog below.

For more blog highlights from this month, you can also check out The Brief, hosted this month by Mike Colson. Featured stories on this month’s The Brief include: Build the foundations of your cloud journey, Announcing Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) in AWS GovCloud (US), 5 things to consider when rapidly deploying a virtual computer lab space using Amazon AppStream 2.0, Helping schools stay connected to parents and students with Amazon Alexa, and Developers’ guide to the AWS Public Sector Summit Online 2020.

No-cost online AWS training pathway for researchers and research IT

To help researchers learn about cloud computing, AWS curated a list of no-cost, on-demand online courses tailored to researchers’ needs. With the cloud, scientists can quickly analyze massive data pipelines, store petabytes of data, and share their results with collaborators around the world. These online courses are available at any time to help users learn new cloud skills and services. Read this story. And learn how to get started with the cloud for research right now.

Announcing the AWS Public Sector Summit Online and a special Fix This podcast series

The first AWS Public Sector Summit Online will happen virtually on Tuesday, June 30, 2020. Registration is now open, and AWS is building an experience that you will be able to access right from your own home. Leading up to the Summit, we are releasing a new, five-part series of the Fix This podcast. Teresa Carlson is one of the guest hosts, speaking with government, education, and healthcare customers about how they are solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges with technology. Read this story. And check out other podcast episodes in the series include Mission Critical Cloud: State and local government and Mission Critical Cloud: Remote education.

Chatbots and call centers: Connecting with citizens during critical times

Public sector organizations are experiencing a high volume of requests for information ranging from health to finances to municipal services. At a time when in-person interaction is limited, citizens can call into contact centers to get the insights they need to make real-time decisions about their health and safety. Many organizations are turning to the cloud to quickly scale and deploy a contact center. But, understanding your cloud contact center at granular level can help better serve your constituents. Read this story.

Creating an outbound calling solution during a pandemic using Amazon Connect

City and state government leaders are on the front line fighting COVID-19. Government agencies need to reach their constituents at a moment’s notice to communicate everything from the location of disease hot spots, calls for volunteers, providing life-saving guidelines, and keeping the public informed about the current state of affairs. They need to be able to reach citizens virtually or through electronic methods, since meeting in person isn’t an option. In this blog, you learn how to create an Amazon Connect instance, set it up in over a dozen languages, and send messages to millions of people in a short period of time. Read this story. And check out more stories on Amazon Connect.

Open source in the fight against COVID-19

As we continue to work with public sector bodies around the world, AWS understands how valuable open source software and development communities are at this time. To accelerate the combined global response to COVID-19, we gathered examples of third-party open code, tools, and standards that reformers in the public sector can immediately use. We’ve included these in a new resource now available in Open Government Solutions. Read this story.

Check out what you missed on the blog in March and April, and stay updated on the latest AWS news for the public sector by reading the AWS Public Sector Blog.