Top highlights from the 2023 IMAGINE: Education, State, and Local Leaders conference

From July 11-12, 2023, the IMAGINE: Education, State, and Local Leaders conference from Amazon Web Services (AWS) gathered public sector leaders from around the world in Sacramento, CA to reimagine the future of state and local government and education.

At the keynote address, led by Kim Majerus, vice president of global education and US state and local government at AWS, attendees heard stories of education and state and local organizations using cloud technology to provide meaningful services for their communities. Three guest speakers joined the stage to share how they’re using AWS to protect education services against the rising threat of cyber attacks, advance cutting-edge research, promote innovative citizen services, and more.

Read on to learn some of the highlights from the AWS Imagine conference keynote:

Innovating with artificial intelligence for state and local government, and education leaders

Amazon and AWS have been working on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for over 20 years. Today, more than 100,000 customers from all industries and of all sizes are using ML on AWS to transform their organizations.

State and local government organizations are using these technologies to design better policies, make data-informed decisions, strengthen communication and engagement, and improve the speed and quality of public services. Education organizations are using AI to personalize student journeys, facilitate remote learning, automate repetitive administrative tasks, and empower student success.

Kim Majerus at the IMAGINE conference.

For example, Kentucky’s Transportation Cabinet turned to Amazon Connect, an AI-powered customer service management tool, to improve the citizen and staff experience. Self-service chatbots resolved many citizen concerns — with no call necessary – and those who needed to call had shorter call times. Agent training time was cut in half, and agent turnover was reduced by nearly two-thirds.

The Higley Unified School District, one of Arizona’s fastest-growing districts, worked with the Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) at Arizona State University to develop a prototype tool—powered by machine learning on AWS—to predict future enrollment using real-time data. The CIC’s prototype resulted in nearly 90% accuracy with a deviation of less than 2%. The prototype cut Higley’s data acquisition costs by more than 95% while providing more comprehensive and complete enrollment insights for district decision-makers.

To support initiatives like these and more, AWS is investing $100 million in a new Generative AI Innovation Center, which will connect AWS AI and ML experts with customers around the globe to help them envision, design, and ultimately launch new generative AI products and services.

Protecting education institutions from ransomware: Special guest Soheil Katal

According to Sophos, 79% of higher education institutions and 80% of primary and secondary education institutions surveyed report being hit by ransomware attacks last year. Ransomware attacks targeted the global education sector more than any other industry in 2022.

Soheil Katal, chief information officer of Los Angeles Unified, at the IMAGINE conference.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (Los Angeles Unified), the second largest public school district in the United States, experienced a major ransomware attack just as classes were about to start last year. Soheil Katal, chief information officer of Los Angeles Unified, took to the keynote stage to illustrate the high cost of ransomware events to educational systems, and shared how education institutions can consider a strategic and holistic approach to cybersecurity. “Protect yourself against cybersecurity threats today,” Soheil advised the audience. Soheil shared Los Angeles Unified’s lessons from their experience, including how they consider governance and processes, technology and systems, and building the people and resources they need to maintain their approach.

Reimagining higher education research with cloud computing at scale: Fireside chat with Dr. Ramin Yahaypour

Research is an innovation practice – with researchers needing access to tools that enable rapid experimentation. Dr. Ramin Yahaypour, managing director of Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung (GWDG), a joint compute and IT competence center for the Max Planck Society, joined Kim for a fireside chat on the keynote stage to discuss how the cloud supports access to these tools. The Max Planck Society, based in Germany, is a world-renowned research institution dedicated to cutting-edge research at 86 institutions. Using AWS, GWDG is building the tools and environments that Max Planck researchers need to accelerate experimentation.

Kim Majerus with Dr. Ramin Yahaypour, managing director of GWDG, at the IMAGINE conference.

With AWS, GWDG built a Landing Zone to provide a unified, secure environment in the cloud that can serve the needs of its 86 institutions. Now, GWDG is building a Trusted Research Environment (TRE) on top of this Landing Zone – with two research use cases already onboarding. The TRE helps the Max Planck Society support the Open Clouds for Research Environments (OCRE) framework, while securing and processing sensitive data and meeting regulatory requirements.

One of the key benefits of their work in the cloud is the opportunity for international collaboration: a key driver of high-impact research. The TRE on AWS will help researchers across institutions and around the world access and share datasets to accelerate discoveries.

Future-proofing the public sector: Luminary speaker Cathilea Robinett

Established in 1984, e.Republic is one of the nation’s leading data, media, and events companies dedicated exclusively to state and local government and education. e.Republic works with public sector leaders across the US to showcase IT solutions, best practices, and foster a technology-enabled public sector. Working at the intersection of innovative technology research and public sector needs, Cathilea Robinett, the chief executive officer (CEO) of e.Republic, shared with IMAGINE attendees how leaders can anticipate and navigate the future.

Cathilea Robinett, CEO of e.Republic, at the IMAGINE conference.

“What if the public sector was edgeless?” asked Cathilea. What if someone who wanted to build a shed could find one in their local hardware store, already compliant for their subdivision? What if they could purchase a shed and a permit at the same time? What if their delivery driver was automatically informed of their setback requirements before they arrived? This is one example of edgeless potential.

Cathilea shared five key steps that leaders can take to build a foundation to support an experiential public sector: 1) Think exponentially; 2) Build the right foundation in the cloud; 3) Promote diverse thinking; 4) Keep it simple; and 5) Be adaptable.

The future is about the public-sector-as-an-experience. Leaders can reimagine their foundation to build a future that innovates with disruptive technologies without being hindered by them.

Announcing the 2023 cohort of Education Champions

Last year, AWS launched the AWS Education Champions community at IMAGINE. This year, Kim Majerus announced the second cohort of AWS Education Champions – now including innovative leaders from all over the world. The 2023 AWS Education Champions are pioneers that demonstrate meaningful digital transformation at their education institution, like improving student outcomes, building institutional resiliency, and accelerating research that can lead to life-changing discoveries – all using the AWS Cloud. Meet this year’s Education Champions.

Launching new State and Local Champions Community

New this year, AWS announced the inaugural State and Local Government (SLG) Champions. The SLG Champions program celebrates public sector agencies whose work empowers innovation and transformation in education and government using the AWS Cloud. Their work demonstrates the power of the AWS Cloud to improve efficiency, transparency, and outcomes. AWS SLG Champions are ambassadors for technology use in the public sector, actively sharing their experiences, solutions, and best practices. Learn more about the inaugural State and Local Champions.

Learn more about AWS for state and local government and education

Learn how state and local governments and education institutions are using AWS to imagine a better world.

Read related stories on the AWS Public Sector Blog:

• Making financial aid simple for students and staff: How Highline College collaborated with AWS on a financial aid tracking tool
• How Xavier University of Louisiana’s migration to AWS is creating a “technology renaissance”
• Announcing the Landing Zone Accelerator for Education to support customers in education and research
• AWS announces inaugural State and Local Government Champions
• AWS celebrates 2023 cohort of Education Champions

Subscribe to the AWS Public Sector Blog newsletter to get the latest in AWS tools, solutions, and innovations from the public sector delivered to your inbox, or contact us.

Please take a few minutes to share insights regarding your experience with the AWS Public Sector Blog in this survey, and we’ll use feedback from the survey to create more content aligned with the preferences of our readers.