Category: Public Sector

Unravelling the relationship between COVID-19 and air pollution is vital for protecting public health. For example, preliminary works suggest that those living in environments with polluted air are significantly more likely to be adversely affected by COVID-19. At the same time, air pollution is already known to cause an estimated one out of every eight deaths globally. The decrease in human activities due to COVID-19 lockdowns across the world has people wondering how air pollution levels are being impacted—and what valuable public health and policy lessons we can learn.

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),

Last year, we launched the AWS Public Safety and Disaster Response Competency for Consulting Partners, recognizing top APN Advanced and Premier Consulting Partners with proven public sector success and deep technical proficiency. Building on these efforts, today we’re excited to pre-announce the launch of the AWS Public Safety and Disaster Response  Technology Competency. Coming later this year, the expansion will include the addition of Independent Software Vendor (ISV) solutions that deliver APN Partner technology in the areas of emergency management operations, justice and public safety applications, infrastructure resilience and recovery, 911 and emergency communications, and public safety and disaster response data and analytics.

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 easy 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.

To address the cloud computing skills gap, global learning company Pearson is collaborating with AWS Educate to develop the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) Higher National qualifications at levels 4 and 5 in cloud computing. The BTEC Higher Nationals are internationally recognized higher education qualifications and are delivered at colleges and universities at more than 60 countries around the world. These are the first BTEC High Nationals available in cloud computing.

Hospitalization can be an isolating and stressful experience. This is especially true now, as the pandemic has led hospitals to impose even stricter visitation and distancing procedures. To help make kids’ stays a bit brighter, AWS is teaming up with GameChanger Charity to donate GameChanger’s patient engagement platform, Playwell, for one year to select hospitals across the U.S. We are starting with Seattle Children’s Hospital—a hospital that Taylor spent considerable time in during his battle with cancer—and will announce additional hospitals in the coming weeks and months. With this donation, we hope to bring entertainment and joy to anywhere from 75 to 200 kids per day per hospital.

The First Street Foundation is dedicated to communicating the flood and inundation risks posed by a changing environment, with an emphasis on allowing Americans to discover and understand those risks. By building awareness, our hope is that every individual is empowered to take steps to reduce their risk exposure to flooding, as well as that of their communities—today and in the future. First Street created a nationwide assessment of flood risk for the CONUS and DC, and is now sharing that assessment through Flood Factor™.

The fifth and final episode of the Mission Critical Cloud Fix This podcast is now live. We spoke with three healthcare customers—University of California San Diego Health (USCD), Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), and MedStar Health—to learn more about how the cloud helps power modern healthcare. You can stream all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, Overcast, iHeartRadio, and via RSS.