AWS Public Sector Blog

Tag: AWS Cloud Innovation Center

Zero Waste Zero Hunger: Using data and AI to reduce food waste in South Korea

The Busan Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) teamed up with the World Food Programme (WFP), the Busan IT Promotion Agency, and technology startup Nuvilab to use cloud technology to address food waste in South Korea. Using Amazon’s “Working Backwards” approach with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data lake solutions on AWS, the team developed Zero Waste Zero Hunger (ZWZH), a program that uses artificial intelligence AI to provide data about food consumption.

Working backwards from Vision Zero to improve road safety

Amazon’s Working Backwards process puts the customer at the center of discussions about designing a solution based on their needs. The City of Bellevue, Washington recently benefited from this practice through a workshop facilitated by the Arizona State University (ASU) Smart City Cloud Innovation Center (CIC), powered by AWS. The CIC workshop provided clarity on Bellevue’s local road safety needs and how to best align its projects with national investment priorities.

How students help modernize rocket launches at the Western Range with the AWS Cloud

Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB), also known as the Western Launch and Test Range, is one of only two U.S. Space Force launch ranges. A safe rocket launch relies on the ability of Western Range meteorologists to gather and analyze weather data in real-time. The Western Range team wanted to switch to an agile, cloud-based solution that would streamline data analysis and keep operators safe—which prompted them to call on students and AWS Cloud experts at the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) Digital Transformation Hub (DxHub), powered by AWS, to help VSFB prototype a solution.

Preventing the next pandemic: How researchers analyze millions of genomic datasets with AWS

How do we avoid the next global pandemic? For researchers collaborating with the University of British Columbia Cloud Innovation Center (UBC CIC), the answer to that question lies in a massive library of genetic sequencing data. But there is a problem: the data library is so massive that traditional computing can’t comprehensively analyze or process it. So the UBC CIC team collaborated with computational virologists to create Serratus, an open-science viral discovery platform to transform the field of genomics—built on the massive computational power of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud.

UC Davis Health and AWS announce first Cloud Innovation Center at an academic medical center

The UC Davis Health Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) will focus on digital health equity and will use Amazon’s Working Backwards principles and methodologies to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities. The CIC will allow clinicians or clinical care providers, patients, and developers to exchange ideas, as well as prototype and validate open-source solutions focused on making digital health more equitable and accessible worldwide. Among the 13 AWS CICs globally, this will be the first CIC based at an academic medical center.

female student sitting at laptop at home with headphones listening to lecture

Improving virtual education, economic research, and environmental data: The latest from AWS CICs

Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) aim to empower public sector organizations to quickly create and test new ideas using Amazon’s innovation methodology. In the second half of 2020, all those who participate in the CIC program, from students and researchers to the technology teams from AWS, worked on wide-ranging societal problems. Their focus was on improving education with virtual computer labs, working on climate change initiatives, improving economic and healthcare research, and supporting at-risk high school students. What were they up to at the end of 2020?

lightbulb innovation

Building a culture of innovation to better serve citizens

Public sector organizations—from state and local governments, to nonprofits, federal, and defense agencies—often ask us, “How does Amazon innovate?” Our approach centers on four pillars that help us innovate on behalf of our customers: culture, mechanisms, architecture, and organization.

NITI Aayog a policy think tank of the government of India, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of a Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) during a virtual launch event.

NITI Aayog and AWS establish Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Center in India

The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), a policy think tank of the government of India, and AWS announced the launch of a Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Center (CIC). A CIC is a public-private partnership that focus on addressing societal challenges through digital innovation. The CIC program, created by AWS, provides an opportunity for nonprofits, education institutions, and government agencies to collaborate with other public sector organizations on their most pressing challenges, innovate and test new ideas, and access the technology expertise of AWS. The NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC is the first AWS CIC in India.

low angle of tree tops

Promoting biodiversity conservation with open data and the cloud

Working with a network of 100 biodiversity information centers and 1,000 conservation scientists, NatureServe identifies and understands the most important places to prevent species extinction and ecosystem loss. They provide land use decision-makers in federal and state agencies, industry, academics, and nonprofits with information to meet both regulatory and biodiversity conservation needs. NatureServe and its network collect and maintain data on the conservation status and location of threatened and endangered species, developed over decades of field data collection. But these data have been underutilized in environmental review decision-making processes due to challenges surrounding awareness, access, and reliable or seamless integration with other systems. To address these challenges, they developed an online spatially explicit tool on AWS.