AWS Public Sector Blog

From Tuesday, March 22 through Wednesday, March 23 in Washington, DC, the no-cost, in-person IMAGINE: Nonprofit conference will bring together leaders, technologists, and mission-driven innovators in the nonprofit sector to learn, connect, and inspire each other about the ways technology can support nonprofits in making a positive impact around the world.

Increased digitalization is transforming the payments landscape. Over 85 countries, representing over 90% of global GDP, are researching the possibility of launching a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). However, as central banks evaluate the pros and cons of CBDCs, they are considering different approaches and designs to address the variety of needs and situations of each country. To advance understanding in this space, AWS worked with the Oliver Wyman Forum on a whitepaper which outlines a framework that can help support policymakers in evaluating the interdependencies between policy and technology choices. In this blog post, we summarize key principles outlined in the framework.

Skillshare is the largest global online learning community for creativity. They offer thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more. Skillshare wanted their members to easily discover relevant content with a seamless discovery process of personalized recommendations. Skillshare decided to test Amazon Personalize from AWS to make these data-fueled recommendations for members with machine learning. This blog post describes their Amazon Personalize solution architecture, their AWS Step Functions process, and the results of their experiment.

The AWS Secure Environment Accelerator (ASEA) landing zone helps customers deploy and operate a secure multi-account, multi-Region AWS environment. Governments in Canada and others around the world currently use the ASEA, with over 30 deployments to date. Some of these same customers also use VMware Cloud on AWS to integrate on-premises vSphere environments, allowing them to move existing workloads to the cloud more quickly. Integrating your VMware workload with natively managed AWS services can help you reduce your operational overhead and optimize your total cost of ownership (TCO). In this blog post, we review the technical considerations related to integrating your ASEA landing zone with your VMware Cloud on the AWS environment.

AWS announced that the AWS Startup Ramp is now available in Japan to support entrepreneurs delivering modern products and services in government, civic technology, smart cities, healthcare, agriculture, and space technology, as well as disaster prevention and resilience. AWS Startup Ramp provides startup and their teams with training and support, networking, and AWS credits to address challenges in serving public sector customers and accelerate public sector innovation. Now, early-stage startup teams across the Asia-Pacific Region can apply to the first AWS Startup Ramp cohort before applications close April 7, 2022.

To better understand the challenges and opportunities in digital healthcare adoption, think tank ACCESS Health International and the AWS Institute conducted research across 12 countries in the Asia Pacific in order to understand government and industry perspectives on cloud adoption for public healthcare. The findings are presented in the “Overcoming Barriers to Cloud Adoption in Public Healthcare in the Asia-Pacific” report. Read on for a summary of the research’s key findings.

The Brazilian Space Agency and Amazon Web Services (AWS) signed a Statement of Strategic Intent and Cooperation. The initiative, on which the Brazilian Embassy in Washington also collaborated, is the first of its kind for AWS in Latin America, and will support innovation and the continued growth of the country’s space industry.

The extensive higher education landscape in India poses many challenges, like the rising complexity of administrative and academic activities, increase in student enrollment from a tech-savvy generation, data security issues, and more. The education technology (EdTech) company CollPoll is a full-stack web- and mobile-based campus automation, digital learning, and analytics platform designed to address these challenges with artificial intelligence powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). CollPoll uses the cloud to provide end-to-end automation of key academic and administrative processes to bring digital transformation solutions to educational institutions in India and around the world.

The United Kingdom (UK) government’s 2011 Skills for Life survey estimated that about 49% of UK adults had levels of numeracy—the ability to understand and use math in real-life situations—on par with primary school children. In response, National Numeracy, a nonprofit to help UK adults increase numeracy, was founded in 2012. Leveraging AWS, National Numeracy established a digital-first approach to engage UK communities with educational resources that help improve real-world math skills that can help them better manage their finances, find new job opportunities, assist their children in math, and more.

Governments are increasingly adopting digital ID systems to improve inclusion and accessibility to public services. Based on the experiences shared by governments and by AWS experts who have worked to implement digital ID around the world, six lessons emerge about how to create the right strategic mindset for digital ID creation and implementation.