Tag: Amazon Comprehend

Earlier this year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) ran the Australian Census, the agency’s most significant workload, on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The Census is the most comprehensive snapshot of the country, and includes around 10 million households and over 25 million people. With the COVID-19 pandemic causing lockdowns across the country, ABS needed a digital option for the Census that was accessible and reliable for millions of people. They turned to the cloud.

Public sector organizations want to innovate the way they engage their communities to make information easier to access, improve user experience, expand their reach by supporting multiple communication channels, and improve efficiency and scalability through intelligent automation. Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots can be used to transform the customer experience, enhance engagement, improve services, and help scale more simply.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions that operated on in-person model shifted many of their traditionally in-person operations and activities—including grading, assessments and testing, and admissions—to a virtual format, where many had never been before. Educational technology (EdTech) companies around the world used the cloud to help quickly create and scale to meet the needs of these academic institutions while maintaining a consistent and smooth student experience.

In 2021, one in six Australians—almost four million people—have hearing loss, ranging from mild to profound. The statistic is part of the larger global picture reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) that approximately 466 million people live with hearing loss; of these, 34 million are children. In addition, 1.1 billion young people are at risk of hearing loss due to exposure to noise in recreational settings and through personal audio devices. AWS offers services that will help organizations build end-to-end solutions with accessibility in mind and improve day-to-day activities such as social interactions, clinical consultations, live media, and public service announcements.

The maturing of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought ready-made services that organizations can use, not only to automate data entry work but also to apply intelligence into the business process. Using modern AI capabilities on AWS, organizations can transform approaches to document management. This allows public sector organizations to save time (enabling faster throughput especially during higher volume paperwork times), so they can help get constituents their services faster, and focus on the most valuable work of the high-touch or high-need cases. Document automation helps reduce human entry error and provide backup services in case of natural disaster.

Over the past few months, one of the biggest challenges for organizations and employees alike has been the sudden transition to remote work. But we have learned that remote work works when the right technology and leadership come together. Check out some impactful stories that demonstrate how governments have gone above and beyond using the cloud to quickly adapt to this new environment and shift away from the status quo.

Streetlives, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, uses technology to host a community-built web app for people who are homeless, communities considered vulnerable, and social service providers in New York City (NYC). Streetlives is a community-built mobile website that enables people who are homeless or in poverty to easily find, rate, and recommend social services across New York City. Adam Bard, Founder of Streetlives, explains how AWS Promotional Credits helps the organization deliver up-to-date, validated social service information to the communities of New York City.