Category: Nonprofit

At re:Invent 2020, Teresa Carlson, vice president and leader of AWS public sector and industry business units, shared stories of how cloud technology has proven critical for organizations to move fast and respond to a new reality shaped by COVID-19. Teresa also welcomed customers UK Biobank, Capella Space, and Wefarm to share their own experiences with solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges using the cloud. Here are 10 key takeaways that show what’s next for the public sector.

Finding a cure for Type 1 Diabetes, fostering citizenship through public media, discovering our legacies through handwriting transcription, protecting the biodiversity of our planet, strengthening the arts and culture sector, championing pro bono legal advocacy for nonprofits and NGOs across the globe, and so much more. This year’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) Imagine Grant recipients are developing solutions for sector-wide challenges and serving as force multipliers for good in their fields. Learn the 2020-2021 AWS Imagine Grant winners and runners-up.

The COVID-19 pandemic pressed organizations to virtualize events that would have previously been held in person, like town halls, school board meetings, public health announcements, and more. While larger organizations may have existing media departments, smaller organizations have had to find ways to utilize social media and other consumer-grade resources to stream these events online. This post walks through how to use AWS Elemental MediaLive to stream to Facebook Live and YouTube Live using an AWS CloudFormation stack to stand up resources automatically.

Did you know that the unemployment rate for the formerly incarcerated is five times higher than the general population? The implications of this stat are significant—affecting not only an individual’s livelihood—but also their family and future. Research shows that post-release unemployment is the most significant predictor of eventual recidivism. That’s why programs like Columbia University’s Justice Through Code are so important. Justice Through Code is a free, semester-long program, developed in partnership with the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School and the Center for Justice at Columbia University, providing formerly incarcerated individuals with technical and interpersonal skills training, mentorship, and job placement support.

Now more than ever, nonprofits have to optimize their costs and stretch their funds to maximize dollars invested in their mission. Often, nonprofits evaluate efficiency based on their operating expenses. For many, this means turning to the cloud to eliminate the upfront costs of buying servers and building data centers. With the cloud, nonprofits can better understand their bills, uncover foundational strategies for optimizing costs, set up budget alerts, and track costs and usage so they only spend on resources that they need.

Saildrone builds and operates a fleet of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) designed to collect high-resolution oceanographic and atmospheric data in remote oceans. Known as saildrones, each vehicle can stay at sea for up to 12 months, transmitting real-time data via satellite. The data collected is used to inform climate models and extreme weather prediction, maritime domain awareness, maps and charts, and sustainable management of resources. Using clean, renewable wind and solar power, saildrones provide access to the world’s oceans at a fraction of the cost of traditional ship-based methods, while drastically reducing the carbon footprint of global ocean observation.

AWS re:Invent is back for 2020, and for the first time it’s all virtual and free. AWS re:Invent has become the world’s premier cloud learning event, and this year, we’ll feature sessions focused on how public sector organizations are using the cloud to improve the lives of constituents, patients, customers, and more. The event, kicking off on November 30 and lasting three weeks through December 18, will feature keynotes, leadership sessions, lightning talks, and core sessions tailored for the public sector. To help you make the most of re:Invent 2020, we created the AWS re:Invent Public Sector Virtual Attendee Guide, and the latest episode of The Brief.

The COVID-19 pandemic is driving a parallel “infodemic”: the rapid spread of competing and often harmful narratives about the virus. Social media plays a central role in this infodemic, serving as a forum for the spread and evolution of theories and beliefs with origins in broadcast, print, online news, blogs, and other digital arenas. As the COVID-19 infodemic grew, Novetta used AWS to create Rapid Narrative Analysis (RNA), a solution that achieves accuracy by using human expertise at critical stages of analysis while using machine learning (ML) models to rapidly diagnose the severity of the spread of key narratives at a speed needed to take effective action.

At the AWS Nonprofit Hackathon for Good, 484 participants built solutions to help relieve the burden on developers in the government who are facing increasing demands on their systems during COVID-19. Hackathon participants were tasked with improving the workflows of the frontline developers who maintain mission-critical COBOL applications. The winning solution created an integrated developer environment (IDE) extension for COBOL syntax highlighting, and is now available in the VS Code Marketplace.

Thank you to all active and retired military members for your service. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we are honored to work together with our nation’s Veterans—from helping transitioning Veterans begin their pathway in the cloud to hiring military spouses to supporting military families. In celebration of this year’s Veterans Day, check out some of our new resources and additional programs dedicated to serving this community.