AWS Public Sector Blog

Tag: public sector

Coastal Risk screengrab

Accelerating climate resilience through asset-level risk assessment insights

For climate change adaptation and resilience, it is important to assess the risks associated with the impacts of climate change and then understand and take action to mitigate those risks. Since 1980, the U.S. has experienced 258 weather and climate disasters where the overall damage costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. As floods become more frequent and costly and natural hazards and climate change impact physical building assets, business continuity, and asset values, big data and analytical technology can be used to create high-tech risk assessments and economic loss estimations.

From Kenya to space: Fix This podcast episode #07

Preserving artifacts, going to space, and ending homelessness: the Fix This podcast February round up

This month, the Fix This podcast focused on how technology is used to preserve ancient artifacts, develop the pipeline of scientists that fuel our trips to space, and end homelessness. Listen to episodes seven and eight, featuring interviews with Digital Divide Data (DDD), NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (NASA JPL), Community Solutions, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) expert on homelessness, Jessie Metcalf.

pFaces targets heterogenous hardware configurations (HWCs) combining compute nodes (CNs) of CPUs, GPUs and hardware accelerators (HWAs). A web-based interface helps developers design parallel algorithms and run them on targeted HWCs.

TUM researcher finds new approach to safety-critical systems using parallelized algorithms on AWS

Mahmoud Khaled, a PhD student at TUM and a research assistant at LMU, researches how to improve safety-critical systems that require large amounts of compute power. Using AWS, Khaled’s research project, pFaces, accelerates parallelized algorithms and controls computational complexity to speed the time to science. His project findings introduce a new way to design and deploy verified control software for safety-critical systems, such as autonomous vehicles.

bones of a triceratops from the Smithsonian Open Access Initiative

Smithsonian releases 2.8 million images through Smithsonian Open Access Initiative

The Smithsonian Institution announced the availability of more than 2.8 million two- and three-dimensional images and files through the Smithsonian Open Access Initiative. With this initiative, anyone with an internet connection has access to high-resolution media files, the accompanying metadata, and research from the Smithsonian Institution’s 19 museums, nine research centers, and zoo. This Smithsonian dataset is the largest museum collection released to date.

Dr. Vince Bertram, President and Chief Executive Officer of Project Lead the Way (PLTW) and Andrew Ko, Managing Director of Global Education and Workforce for AWS Worldwide Public Sector.

AWS Educate collaborates with Project Lead the Way to bring cloud education to K12

AWS Educate is now a Project Lead the Way (PLTW) transformative partner. As a transformative partner, AWS Educate and PLTW will provide access to cloud computing educational content for K12 students across the United States, including those in low-technology schools. The collaboration means more K12 students can now access AWS Educate cloud computing curriculum through PLTW’s network of more than 12,200 elementary, middle, and high schools.

AWS Educate Student Ambassador logoAWS Educate Student Ambassador logo

AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program expands to college students

Starting today, the AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program is now available to college students around the world. Now students can also apply to participate in the program to receive exclusive benefits and opportunities from Amazon Web Services (AWS). The AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program recognizes individuals for their innovation and contributions that prepare students for careers in the modern technology workforce.

Veterans STEM careers

Supporting veterans in STEM careers

Last week, the bipartisan Supporting Veterans in STEM Careers Act (S.153) was signed, which will assist veterans re-entering the workforce and encourage veterans to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). At AWS, we’ve developed a number of programs focused on engaging the military community, helping them gain AWS technical skills, and develop successful careers.

tractors plowing a field at sunrise

Mission: Technology-enabled, sustainable agriculture

I grew up in a farming community in Kentucky, and understand how critical agriculture is to the development of a thriving and robust economy. So what can technology do to make farming and agriculture more sustainable and climate-resilient? How can we make sure crops are high quality and high yield? How do we make sure that we get them to market when they are fresh? How can we improve the way farmers interact with each other? Our customers are helping to answer these questions.

Parliament Hill Ottawa Canada

Learning how to create citizen-specific services in the cloud with AWS DigiGov

The cloud can help governments meet evolving citizen demands by enabling agility, cost savings, elasticity, and global reach. In 2008, Shared Services Canada, a federal department tasked with providing IT services to Canadian government, announced a streamlined procurement process to help support government agencies’ adoption of cloud services as part of the Government of Canada’s Cloud Adoption Strategy. To help Canadian government entities and their employees build innovative and citizen-centric services for their digital citizenry in the cloud, AWS created AWS DigiGov.