Category: State or Local Government

AWS Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) focus on solving real-life societal challenges facing the public sector. These public-private partnerships between a public sector organization—like a university or local city—and AWS can help unlock innovation, faster. Through the CIC challenges, organizations and students work to solve societal problems through digital solutions and Amazon’s innovation processes while providing students a platform to learn. These solutions and results are published open source, so others can benefit from this innovative work. This past quarter, CICs worked on address Alzheimer’s, citizen services, and coronaviruses.

The COVID-19 pandemic magnified the health and financial strain in communities across the country. Before the pandemic hit, Wildfire, a state association for Community Action Agencies, was working with Prefix, an AWS Partner Network Technology Partner, to develop a cloud-based solution for utility and rental assistance. When the City of Phoenix requested they support the distribution of $20 million CARES Act funds, they shifted their resources and existing infrastructure and, in a matter of weeks, stood up a repeatable public-facing solution.

Reporting on Amazon WorkSpaces, a managed, secure desktop as a service (DaaS) solution, allows you to capture information about your Amazon WorkSpaces deployment and the relationships to Active Directory users. It helps capture important details that can help with chargeback, general utilization of Amazon WorkSpaces, and confirming consistency of what is deployed in your environment.

When considering a move to the cloud, many organizations struggle with a common problem: the migration bubble. This bubble is formed when organizations are covering expenses for their current on-premises infrastructure while incurring new costs for a cloud migration. But what if you could use that legacy hardware to your advantage? These cost-savings strategies can help free up budget resources and accelerate your journey to the cloud.

State governments are currently experiencing a spike in the number of applications for social benefit programs. These programs serve millions of people every year to support healthcare and to help keep them out of poverty. To address the surge, agencies are looking at cloud-based services including artificial intelligence (AI), conversational bots, and call centers to improve the customer experience as well as workforce productivity, provide more visibility for agency leadership into program performance, and help reduce fraud, waste, and abuse.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that public sector organizations need modern infrastructure, capabilities and controls to overcome the disruption caused by global health outbreaks. Organizations that embraced cloud services proved more responsive. They were able to continue operating remotely and serving their customers and citizens, demonstrating agility, scalability, and speed. In How Governments Can Build Resilience in a New Normal: Emerging Practices from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, a new policy paper from the AWS Institute, we outline how organizations can use the cloud to recover from the disruption that the virus brought, as well as become more resilient for future challenges.

Toll operators are recognizing that facility and data resiliency are the key to navigating the current environment while preparing for any future disaster scenario or challenge. For departments of transportation and toll operators, this means operating traffic networks and tollways safely and efficiently and supporting essential services and workers—no matter the traffic volume.

The AWS Public Sector Summit Online 2020 is happening June 30 and registration is still open and at no-cost. Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, will host the event keynote, reflecting on the impressive global efforts of our customers and partners over the past few months and sharing the latest news and announcements. Three customers—from Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, Navy ERP, and OTN—will join her on our virtual stage to tell their stories focused on fast migration, business resiliency, scalability, and innovation.

In May 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered stories on the AWS Public Sector Summit Online 2020, chatbots and call centers, and open source solutions. Check out some of the top stories from the blog below. For more blog highlights from this month, you can also check out The Brief, hosted this month by Mike Colson.

The third episode of the Mission Critical Cloud Fix This podcast mini-series by Teresa Carlson, vice president of the worldwide public sector at Amazon Web Services (AWS), is now live. We dove into how the cloud helps state and local government customers deliver critical services to citizens. Interviews featured in the podcast include the state of West Virginia (WV), Smartronix, and Los Angeles County Internal Services Department (LA County ISD). You can stream all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, Overcast, iHeartRadio, and via RSS.