In celebration of Veterans Day

Thank you to all active and retired military members for your service. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we are honored to work together with our nation’s Veterans—from helping transitioning Veterans begin their pathway in the cloud to hiring military spouses to supporting military families. In celebration of this year’s Veterans Day, check out some of our new resources and additional programs dedicated to serving this community.

Providing training in the cloud

Preparing Veterans for cloud careers

AWS Educate supports US Veterans, transitioning military personnel, and their spouses with access to resources to accelerate cloud learning. As part of Amazon’s pledge to offer US Veterans, transitioning Veterans, and military spouses training for high-demand cloud computing jobs, AWS is providing no-cost membership to AWS Educate, which includes access to:

An AWS Educate Starter Account with $50 AWS Promotional Credit to build in the cloud—no credit card required
AWS Educate’s Cloud Career Pathways and Badges, featuring 10-50 hours of self-paced learning content, assessments, and projects aligned to your chosen career path
The AWS Educate Job Board with jobs and internships from Amazon and partners around the world

In addition to the above, AWS Educate also rolled out a new offer of a 50 percent discount on instructor-led AWS training through AWS Training and Certification to learn in-demand skills needed for top cloud jobs. Now through the end of the year, Veterans will receive an additional 25 percent off this offer. Join AWS Educate as a Veteran member to get started today.

Want to learn more? Take a listen to our latest Fix This podcast spotlighting AWS Educate for Veterans featuring Caleb Jarrett, a U.S. Air Force Veteran who now works at AWS supporting the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

Supporting the military community

Connecting military, Veterans, caregivers, and families to the support they have earned

Our 2019 Imagine Grant winner Code of Support Foundation is helping the military and Veteran community access resources faster and more reliably through their newly expanded cloud-based database, PATRIOTlink®. The database matches service members, Veterans, and their families with the thousands of programs available for mental health, education, employment, financial, housing, and legal services.

Enabling faster intervention of military community suicides

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that approximately 17 military Veterans die by suicide each day. That rate is 50 percent higher than that of non-Veteran adults. Together, Harvard University’s Nock Lab, AWS, and RallyPoint (a social media platform designed for the broader US military community) have been working together to tackle this challenge. Now, the Amazon Machine Learning Solutions Lab and RallyPoint built a machine learning (ML) model that can quickly analyze public posts on the RallyPoint platform and help determine whether there is an indication of self-harm.

Working closely with the VA, RallyPoint connects nearly two million service members, Veterans, and their families, providing them with a platform to discuss military and Veteran life, share information, ask questions, and exchange stories. RallyPoint also made it a priority to use its platform to enable members to find and select helpful resources, including critical mental health and suicide prevention information. Learn more.

Showing our thanks

Gifting Amazon Echo Shows for the Elizabeth Dole Foundation

AWS recently donated 230 Amazon Echo Shows to the Elizabeth Dole Foundation (EDF). The Elizabeth Dole Foundation is the preeminent organization empowering, supporting, and honoring our nation’s 5.5 million military caregivers: the spouses, parents, family members, and friends who care for America’s wounded, ill, or injured veterans. Each of the 230 Veteran caregivers who are EDF Fellows will receive a device. These Fellows are active military and Veteran caregivers from across the US who are carefully selected each year to represent the Foundation in a formal capacity. These men and women have different backgrounds but share similar stories of struggle and resilience. They come from every state, as well as Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, and care for spouses, children, partners, siblings, and friends from different eras of war.

Veterans Affairs nurses cheer basket project

For nursing stations in VA hospitals around the United States, particularly the 10 hospitals that have endured the most COVID-19 cases, AWS put together “cheer baskets” with goodies, including a combination of items such as lip balms, headbands for N95 masks, lotion, lanyards, stress balls, coffee, and tea to show our thanks.

To access more resources and to learn more about Amazon’s commitment to our Veterans and their families, read about our AWS Military Apprenticeship program, check out our Q&A with a AWS employee and Veteran Marla Bradbury, and visit our previous year’s blog posts below:

AWS Public Sector Blog