Customer Stories / Education / Brazil

2024
Sesc Digital Logo

Democratizing Access to Cultural Assets Using AWS Marketplace with Sesc

Learn how Sesc, a Brazilian nonprofit, launched an ambitious cultural project using AWS Marketplace.

10 million

 streams achieved in under 1 year

45-day

deadline met

200

press mentions globally

Overview

The Social Service of Commerce (Sesc) of São Paulo, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer, sought to democratize access to Brazilian cultural assets by developing a high-quality audio streaming solution. To complete the project within an accelerated timeline, Sesc used AWS Marketplace—where users can find, buy, deploy, and govern third-party software, data, and services that run on AWS and manage them from a centralized location—to verify and maintain security and compliance best practices while navigating complex procurement processes. Using AWS, Sesc abided by stringent regulations and made iconic concert recordings freely available to listeners all around the world while sticking to an ambitious 45-day timeline.

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Opportunity | Using AWS Professional Services to Launch the Relicário Project for Sesc

Founded in 1946, Sesc is a nonprofit institution that provides social assistance, as well as education, health, culture, and recreation programs, to over 7 million people throughout Brazil. Sesc’s cultural programs and projects bring together entertainment, reflection, and participation from the perspective of building knowledge, values, and ways of being, doing, and living. Serving more than 2,000 municipalities, most of the attractions reach places that are not usually part of the traditional cultural circuit. Sesc’s mission is to democratize access to quality artistic performances, museums, and libraries. The company has contributed a variety of services that encourage workers in the Commerce, Goods, Services, and Tourism segments to fully exercise their citizenship.

Sesc began using AWS in 2016 to migrate digital workloads to the cloud. “The selection of AWS as our cloud service provider was predicated on three fundamental pillars: technical capability, project economy, and reliability,” says Fernando Tuacek, manager of Sesc Digital.

To overcome initial migration challenges, Sesc opted for support from AWS Professional Services, which supplements cloud teams with specialized skills and experience to achieve results.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made it virtually impossible for Sesc to hold in-person cultural events. In response, Sesc decided to accelerate its migration and that of Sesc Digital, a distribution solution that provides global audiences access to a broad collection of audio, image, text, and video materials. Sesc wanted to make its rich collection of Brazilian heritage music available to a global audience, further supporting its mission to bring its community together.

To achieve this, in early 2023, Sesc began the Relicário Project. It gathered previously unreleased audio recordings by renowned national musicians at Sesc units in São Paulo and made them available worldwide with no sign-in required. One such recording was an iconic performance by João Gilberto, one of the pioneers of Bossa Nova, which is a type of soft samba music, from 1998. Sesc set an ambitious deadline to launch the project on the 25th anniversary of the performance. This meant that Sesc needed to build a universally accessible audio player, offer good audio quality, and provide security compliance for a multiplatform launch on Sesc Digital—all within 45 days. Sesc once again turned to AWS Professional Services for help with bringing important cultural performances to the public within a short timeframe.

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The experience using AWS has been overwhelmingly positive, and we anticipate that there is much more to come."

Fernando Tuacek
Manager of Sesc Digital, Sesc

Solution | Reaching 10 Million Views from 15 Countries in 8 Months

Though Sesc is not a government agency, it does follow public sector procurement practices. Assuring compliance and security for the Relicário Project was therefore crucial because Sesc wanted to follow the streaming industry standards for media protections through the digital rights management standard. Sesc used AWS Marketplace to discover a digital rights management service that guaranteed media protection through an encryption and decryption mechanism using streaming industry standards.

The company also used AWS Marketplace Vendor Insights to simplify its risk assessment. This provides third-party application security, data privacy and residency, and access control in a unified dashboard to help accelerate the procurement process. “Purchasing the digital rights management service through AWS Marketplace helped us meet procurement requirements with confidence,” says Tuacek. “If we had to build something from scratch, we certainly wouldn’t have met the project deadline.”

By using the AWS Marketplace, Sesc not only met mandatory security requirements but also experienced accelerated and simplified processes for contracting and managing external services. This approach bypassed the traditional and time-consuming bidding and contracting procedures typically associated with organizations of this nature. “Contracting the media encryption service via AWS Marketplace was a crucial step in simplifying the integration with our solution. Everything was within the AWS environment, and it allowed us to avoid going through our bidding process,” says Tuacek. “Without this streamlined approach, we would not have met the tight deadline required to launch our solution.”

In 10 days, Sesc designed its audio streaming solution and developed a proof of concept. In the remaining 35 days, it built the full, modern solution. As a nonprofit looking to optimize costs, Sesc opted to use serverless AWS services and infrastructure for the Relicário Project. “Having a fully serverless solution has greatly optimized our operation,” says Carlos Rocha, coordinator of Sesc Digital. “We don’t have to manage servers or patches or complete other time-consuming management tasks.”

Sesc chose AWS Elemental MediaConvert, a file-based video transcoding service with broadcast-grade features, to put all its media for the project into the right formats. With fundamental guidance and expertise from AWS specialists, the Relicário Project launched in April 2023 with excellent audio quality—performing as well as, or better than, other streaming solutions.

Even without massive advertising, the Relicário Project achieved more than 10 million streams from more than 15 countries by the end of 2023. It also generated more than 200 mentions in the press globally.

In addition, the São Paulo Association of Art Critics awarded the Relicário Project the 2023 APCA Award in the Special Project category. This award is one of the most prestigious Brazilian cultural accolades, and it shows that Sesc is making significant contributions to Brazilian arts and culture.

Sesc Digital Architecture Diagram

Outcome | Expanding and Enhancing the Relicário Project AWS Services Used

Moving forward, Sesc will add additional artists to its media streaming service, improve product usability, and develop a mobile app for the solution.

The company also plans to enhance its cloud operation with ongoing support from AWS Professional Services. Specifically, it will use services and solutions from AWS Marketplace to create new digital products, including a video streaming service. In addition, Sesc is exploring the use of artificial intelligence to optimize its operation and provide a more personalized experience for its customers.

“Using AWS helped us extend further into the digital realm,” says Tuacek. “The experience using AWS Marketplace has been overwhelmingly positive, and we anticipate that there is much more to come.”

About Social Service of Commerce (Sesc)

Founded in 1946, Sesc is a Brazilian nonprofit dedicated to providing social assistance as well as education, health, culture, and recreation programs to people throughout Brazil.

AWS Services Used

AWS Professional Services

The AWS Professional Services organization is a global team of experts that can help you realize your desired business outcomes when using the AWS Cloud.

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AWS Marketplace

Find third-party software, data, and services that run on AWS and manage from a centralized location. AWS Marketplace includes thousands of software listings and simplifies software licensing and procurement with flexible pricing options and multiple deployment methods.

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AWS Elemental MediaConvert

AWS Elemental MediaConvert is a file-based video transcoding service with broadcast-grade features. Create live stream content for broadcast and multi-screen delivery at scale.

Learn more »

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