Tag: state and local government

Chatbots and modern call centers provide governments with an efficient way to connect with citizens during critical times. Governments, health systems, and educational institutions are responsible for communicating and maintaining information portals regarding public safety, health and human services, emergency services, social services, and more. Now more than ever, communities are turning to their public sector organizations for up-to-date information. Read on to learn from organizations across industries and how they have scaled their services to meet increased demand.

State government labor and workforce development agencies are wrestling with an unprecedented surge in demand for services. In one week, 6.6 million Americans filed for initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims, nearly double the previous week. Many states are straining to meet this increase for demand in services. The cloud can help labor and agencies quickly scale and shift to meet constituent needs.

In March, the Fix This podcast focused on how the cloud is used to help improve voter engagement and elections processes and how machine learning helps to power sustainable trucking.

Every hour of every day, our nation’s first responders and 9-1-1 personnel rely on a patchwork of telecommunications and public safety applications to protect their residents and save lives. Whether it’s a 9-1-1 answering point, a computer aided dispatch (CAD) system, a records management (RMS) system, or a mobile communications network, emergency response systems must be available and operational at all times. The accepted availability standard for emergency response systems is 99.999% or “five nines” – or about five minutes and 15 seconds of downtime per year.

Health and human services (HHS) agencies are in the midst of dramatic change, with ever-growing transaction volumes and increasing demand for new services and visibility into data. Looking for new ways to manage constituent demands, the agencies are turning to the cloud to run mission-critical applications that administer healthcare and social benefits programs for millions of beneficiaries, resulting improved system agility, security, and costs.

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.

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.