Tag: education

In August 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered cloud workforce development, partner programs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and minority-owned businesses (MOBs), and more.

As screen time dependence has increased, education technology companies (EdTechs) are looking for new ways to engage students and create a more natural interaction with their products. One way to do so is using voice technology to help students, teachers, and administrators stay informed, be productive, and create more meaningful learning opportunities. To help, the AWS EdStart and Alexa in Education teams are launching the AWS EdStart Voice Builder course and badge. The AWS EdStart Member exclusive offering can help EdTechs build voice-first experiences that create fun and engaging learning experiences, reach new users, and save time by streamlining access to their products with Amazon Alexa.

In July and August on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Fix This podcast, we heard from customers on their solutions for the classroom, in diagnostic research, for working from home, and in the great outdoors.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies including machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) can transform the way government agencies operate and enable them to provide improved citizen services. AWS Partner Network Partners have been working with AWS to accelerate solutions development using AI and related technologies for our public sector customers. To further assist partners in the acceleration of AI and ML, AWS is launching a new partner initiative: the AI and ML Rapid Adoption Assistance Initiative.

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.

Research computing has come a long way from the mainframes of the 1960s. At the recent Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC) conference, I noted four emerging themes that underscore how the field continues to evolve.

For community organizations, government agencies, and educational institutions seeking to support a distributed workforce, citizenry, or student body with cloud capabilities, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has developed an online virtual booth to highlight remote work, learning, and call center use cases for the public sector. Learn how to connect your remote employees, constituents, or students on AWS by playing the AWS Cloud Champion: Virtual Workplace Interactive Challenge.

Starting today, Instructure will provide users of its Canvas Learning Platform with access to extensive cloud computing curriculum through AWS Educate to help prepare students for careers in cloud computing. With this addition, more than 700,000 higher education educators will have access to curriculum suitable for virtual, in-person, or blended classroom environments.

Novel challenges require novel solutions. To address the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector organizations are holding virtual hackathons to solve problems that arise from the virus and its effects on society. Hackathons #WirVsVirus in Germany, Hack the Crisis in Sweden, and #EUvsVirus brought together thousands of stakeholders to brainstorm and create innovative solutions using technology and cloud computing to address the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. Attendees at these virtual events worked to find solutions for problems like faster diagnosis of COVID-19 and connecting food with those in need. From technical mentorship to AWS Promotional Credit and providing access to technologies like AI, AWS supported these hackathons, their participants, and their solutions.

In July 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for education, best practices for moving your research workflows to the cloud, and more. For more blog highlights from this month, you can also check out The Brief.