Category: State or Local Government

Since 2003, the US federal government has made approximately $1.7 trillion in improper payments, with an estimated $206 billion made in FY 2020 alone. Improper payments are now anticipated to increase proportionally to new levels of federal spending. How can agencies fight improper payments at this scale? And what tools can agencies use to address fraud, erroneous data submission and other causes of this problem? Agencies can use AWS to solve the multi-sided issues of payment integrity.

As governments around the world digitize services, individuals are required not only to prove their identities, but to do so on digital channels. This is a challenge not only for people without legal ID, but also for individuals with ID documents that are hard to use digitally. Cloud-based digital ID systems can be a solution to this challenge. Plus, digital ID creates a robust scope of benefits — and cloud-based approaches to implementing these systems provide the speed, scale, and security needed for digital ID to succeed.

The second annual AWS DeepRacer Army-Navy Competition brings teams together to train a robotic vehicle to discover whose car can autonomously navigate a track with the fastest time, using artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. The competition is for anyone affiliated with the Army or Navy, no matter their experience with AI, machine learning, or robotics. Novices can get started with machine learning quickly with hands-on tutorials. The second annual competition will happen on December 11 2021, prior to the Army-Navy football game. Registration is now open.

Whether you are a local employer, a dean at a higher education institution, or a government entity, finding and training your workforce is top of mind. As we continue to find solutions to skill, reskill, or upskill our workforce, the answer will not be found by working in silos but rather through public-private collaboration. Recently, a number of education and government leaders from across the country participated in a panel to discuss the challenges facing local state leaders and education institutions around workforce. Five key suggestions emerged as ways to improve the workforce of tomorrow.

Governments across the world are looking to procure cloud technologies to meet the needs of their citizens. Addressing the difference between traditional technology purchasing and the procurement of cloud is critical to maximizing an organization’s ability to buy and use cloud technology. To ready their departments and agencies to purchase cloud services and get support to make this move, organizations can take these six procurement readiness steps.

Earlier this year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) ran the Australian Census, the agency’s most significant workload, on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The Census is the most comprehensive snapshot of the country, and includes around 10 million households and over 25 million people. With the COVID-19 pandemic causing lockdowns across the country, ABS needed a digital option for the Census that was accessible and reliable for millions of people. They turned to the cloud.

This week at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit Washington, DC, we announced the findings of a 10-year economic study about AWS’s presence in Virginia. The report shows the impact that can happen when government and industry work together to create growth opportunities for communities. One component of this that is worth re-highlighting is the positive impact that Amazon solar investments are having and will have on the local economy in Virginia.

This week, AWS rolled out our 10-year economic impact study, highlighting how successful the partnership between Virginia and AWS has been for both. Since 2011, AWS has invested $35 billion into the state through our infrastructure investments. As both a Virginian and an Amazonian, I’m most proud of the civic programs and workforce development we’ve created with Virginia to enhance the lives of citizens with our presence. Terry Dickerson, a practice manager at AWS and U.S. Army veteran, is an illustration of the success we’ve realized with Amazon’s Veteran Technical Apprenticeship. Terry shares his story of how our partnership with the higher education system in Virginia has opened the door to his career.

Education, government, and nonprofit organizations seek to deliver quality services to support their missions in increasingly dynamic and complex environments, all while facing common challenges, such as shortage of systems to collect and analyze data in real-time. To support public sector organizations on their missions and with the growth of Internet of Things (IoT), Amazon Web Service (AWS) is launching the AWS IoT Rapid Adoption Assistance Initiative for AWS Partners.

National Voter Registration Day is a nonpartisan civic holiday in the US creating broad awareness of voter registration opportunities and celebrating democracy. The goal of National Voter Registration Day is to register one million new voters by 2022. To reach this goal, state and local governments and nonprofit civic organizations use digital platforms powered by AWS to modernize and simplify voter registration.