Author: AWS Public Sector Blog Team

The European Commission, with three of its Directorates-General (DG) (DG SANTE, DG DIGIT, and DG CONNECT) in collaboration with the European Blood Alliance (EBA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), created the European Union (EU) COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma (CCP) Platform. This database is based on the concept of passive immunization (an approach promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) Blood Regulators Network), which tests the potential of plasma collected from convalescent persons to treat or prevent viruses and diseases such as COVID-19.

Voting is now open for the 2020 Amazon Alexa Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) EdTech Skills Challenge. The competition challenged EMEA-based EdTechs to use voice technology to transform education. The six finalists designed Alexa skills to positively impact challenges in education such as improving teaching practices, learning throughout life, continuing professional development, and simplifying administration and assessment processes. Public voting is open until July 25, 2020.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that seven higher education institutions in India will adopt cloud computing curricula from its AWS Educate initiative to help develop the next generation of cloud professionals. The cloud computing content will be offered as part of undergraduate degree and postgraduate diploma programs starting in September 2020.

In June 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered next-generation tolling, how researchers can use the cloud right now, the AWS Public Sector Summit Online, and more. For more blog highlights from this month, you can also check out The Brief.

Excellent Long-Established (ELECT) University Consortium of Taiwan and Amazon Web Services (AWS), through AWS Educate, launched a new cloud computing degree program to prepare students for cloud-enabled jobs. The new four-year program will help to prepare the next generation of cloud professionals with specific skills needed for in-demand entry-level cloud careers in Taiwan.

The U.S. Census Bureau has made history by inviting people to participate in its decennial count online for the first time, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). The decennial census is an official count of every person living in the United States and five U.S. territories, and it takes place once every ten years. To help bring the Census online, the Census Bureau moved its 2020census.gov website to AWS GovCloud (US).

This morning, vice president of AWS worldwide public sector Teresa Carlson kicked off the AWS Public Sector Summit Online. Teresa reflected on the challenging times during these past few months, shared key trends and lessons learned and spoke about AWS’s commitment to helping people around the world continue to deliver on their missions. In her keynote address, Teresa highlighted AWS customers’ impressive global efforts and how AWS is helping support those customers’ missions. She also shared the latest news and announcements, resources, and more. Here’s what you missed.

Capella Space, a provider of on-demand Earth observation data via synthetic aperture radar (SAR), is going all-in on AWS. Capella runs its entire IT infrastructure on AWS to automate and scale its operations. AWS Ground Station makes it simple and cost effective for Capella to command and control its constellation and receive its satellite data directly into AWS using a fully managed network of antenna systems located around the world.

Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of the 2020 AWS Imagine Grant. The AWS Imagine Grant is a public grant opportunity open to registered 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the United States who are using technology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

Students from two secondary schools on opposite sides of the world used AWS DeepRacer to learn about machine learning (ML). Using AWS DeepRacer, students from a school in Vancouver, Canada and Instanbul, Turkey learned how to design, train, and deploy a model car using ML. These students competed on virtual racetracks against each other—all within the AWS Management Console.