Tag: AWS Cloud Innovation Center

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?

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.

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.

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.

AWS Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) focus on solving real-life societal challenges facing the public sector. These public-private partnerships between a public sector organization—like a university or local city—and AWS can help unlock innovation, faster. Through the CIC challenges, organizations and students work to solve societal problems through digital solutions and Amazon’s innovation processes while providing students a platform to learn. These solutions and results are published open source, so others can benefit from this innovative work. This past quarter, CICs worked on address Alzheimer’s, citizen services, and coronaviruses.

At CODE University of Applied Sciences, we aim to educate the digital pioneers of tomorrow. For us, that means teaching talented students from around the world modern digital product development using real-world technology and challenges. One of our initiatives to work toward this mission is the Better Future Lab (BFL) – the Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) at CODE. A CIC is a long term, public-private collaboration between a public sector organization and AWS.

This week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced two new AWS Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) in Bahrain at the University of Bahrain (UoB) and at Bahrain Polytechnic (BP). Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, made the announcement at the annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. Both CICs will be supported by Tamkeen, a public authority in Bahrain focused on workforce development.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Australia announced the launch of its Cyber Ready Cloud Innovation Centre (CIC). The CIC will focus on cloud-based cyber security solutions, enabling students to tackle cyber issues in the real world through innovative cloud computing approaches and emerging technology.

Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) opened the Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) at a July 18, 2019 launch event. The MUAS DTLab was created to accelerate public sector innovation in Germany, helping government, education, and nonprofits tackle some of the most pressing challenges in delivering a wide range of citizen services.

The Busan Metropolitan City and Amazon Web Services (AWS) signed a new agreement to address real-world public sector technology challenges at the Busan Cloud Innovation Center (CIC). Built off of a collaboration initiated in March 2016, this new agreement will span the next five years with a focus on smart city initiatives. These initiatives will tackle challenges such as traffic, public security, health and well-being, logistics, and the environment within Busan, South Korea.