Category: State or Local Government

From readying the warfighter to how the cloud can improve your commute, check out what you missed in January 2020 on the AWS Public Sector Blog. And check out the new monthly video, “The Brief” covering the top stories from the month, too.

AWS has been named a leader in worldwide applications platforms for smart cities according to the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide IoT Applications Platforms for Smart Cities 2019–2020 Vendor Assessment. The report assessed the market landscape on Internet of Things (IoT) applications platforms for enabling smart cities.

Our cities are becoming smarter and faster every day, and as the modern city evolves so does its transportation offerings. By migrating transportation services to the cloud, cities can evolve to meet constituents’ transportation needs. To meet a modern-day travelers’ expectations, the cloud drives innovation by providing real-time analytics and predictive modeling that can make transportation easier and faster.

The ubiquity of always-on, high performance infrastructure is fueling the rapid pace of innovation. Now more than ever, government and private companies can take advantage of affordable and scalable systems to test new ideas, evolve more quickly to meet the needs of their citizens and customers, and operate more securely. And yet, many institutions have not started on their digital journey because they lack a workforce with the advanced skills they need to drive transformational change.

Cloud security at AWS is the highest priority. AWS customers benefit from a data center and network architecture built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations. We listen closely to our customers to offer both a secure cloud computing environment and innovative security services that satisfy the security and compliance needs of the most risk-sensitive organizations.

AWS hosted first responders from fire chiefs to law enforcement to identify solutions to address gaps in communication technology and ensure emergency information is dispersed consistently and quickly. The Tech to Protect Challenge, a hackathon hosted by Redflash Group, connected public safety agencies and first responders with technologists and coders that help them work backwards to solve common challenges. The program helps emergency responders save lives through improved communications and awareness by advancing and expanding technology access.

The technological revolution allows cities to deliver citizen services more effectively. But sticking with the status quo and not modernizing IT systems can expose cities to cybercrimes including ransomware. A number of U.S. cities have been the targets of recent high-profile ransomware attacks such as Atlanta and Baltimore, with recovery costs running to hundreds of millions of dollars. At the 2019 CityLab Summit in Washington, D.C., the AWS Institute convened a roundtable with mayors, CIOs, and cybersecurity leaders from across the United States to share their experiences and lessons learned.

From a new podcast to challenge winners, read on for the government, education, and nonprofit highlights from the annual Amazon Web Services (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector Breakfast at re:Invent.

Parsons Corporation, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) Advanced Consulting Partner, announced 10 semi-finalists in the first Parsons Smart Cities Challenge. The competition, titled Transforming Intersections, will award the winning city with a year of support and services to help increase mobility around cities and reduce the amount of time citizens spend at red lights.

The sixth annual City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge opened new categories to highlight innovative customers that are driving actionable change for the benefit of constituents. The competition includes categories for constituent services, solving persistent problems, sustainability and equity, powered by AWS, dream big, and public datasets. The competition received more than 100 nominee use cases that highlighted how AWS customers are using the cloud to innovate and improve the lives of constituents.