AWS Educate Now Available to Students Ages 14 and Up

We are pleased to announce the expansion of AWS Educate to students ages 14 and older globally*, bringing access to the cloud and its many applications to high school and secondary school students around the world.

AWS Educate delivers personalized pathways for students, including content, knowledge checks, and the opportunity to earn AWS Educate Badges (or micro-credentials) that showcase their accomplishments. Each pathway guides the learner through a specific cloud journey. The specialized introductory content and hands-on activities are designed to get young students comfortable with the basics of cloud computing and introduce them to tools such as AWS’s AI services including Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, and Amazon Rekognition. New members also receive $30 to $50 in AWS Promotional Credits upon enrollment to explore the AWS Cloud.

Introducing AWS Educate’s New Cloud Literacy Badge

Beginning students will be presented with a series of “missions” designed to introduce them to foundational computer science and cloud computing topics. Upon successful completion, the students will earn their first AWS Educate Badge in Cloud Literacy. For students wishing to pursue more advanced learning, they will also have access to the existing AWS Educate features, such as in-depth Cloud Pathways, access to the AWS console, and more. Once they reach the age of 18, they will also gain access to the AWS Educate Job Board, which features jobs and internships from leading cloud companies around the world.

Request Access Today

There are two ways that 14-17 year-old students can access the AWS Educate console:

• Students can request membership here with their .edu email address or with an email address provided by an AWS Educate member institution. Learn more.
• Teachers who are members of AWS Educate can help students sign up, even if they do not have a .edu email address or an email address provided by an AWS Educate member school. Teachers can request a special promo link for their classes in the “Tools and Credits” section of the AWS Educate Educator Portal. Teachers who are not members can register here or learn more.

New Collaborations with Leading K-12 Nonprofits

AWS Educate is teaming up with the following globally recognized nonprofits that are also developing ways for young students to learn about cloud computing:

Code.org: As part of Amazon’s recently announced $10M grant to Code.org, we are supporting Code.org along with their annual Hour of Code by providing the infrastructure that scales to serve tens of millions of students. In addition to announcements that we will share in 2018, AWS Educate is excited to launch the first Hour of Code Amazon activity that embeds AWS skills, giving youth a hands-on introduction to the cloud.

FIRST: AWS Educate is working with the leader in global after-school robotics education and competition. In the coming months, we will offer AWS Educate access to FIRST team members and enable them to explore cloud-learning pathways. Additionally, we will help accelerate volunteerism to support local FIRST programs and competitions.

Project Lead The Way (PLTW): Expanding on recently announced efforts to support the Kentucky Cloud Career Pathways initiative, AWS Educate and PLTW are working together to infuse cloud-based curriculum into their AP Computer Science Principals course, collaborate on the development of a new cybersecurity course, and develop a series of career videos featuring Amazon employees over the 2017-2018 school year.

Scratch: The Scratch visual programming language and community provides hundreds of millions of youth around the world with their entry into coding. AWS supports the infrastructure for Scratch, and in 2018, Scratch will release a suite of AWS Artificial Intelligence (AI) extensions for children to use in their projects. With these new extensions, children will be able to design and build their own projects that leverage AI in new ways.

Bring AWS Educate’s cloud content, training, collaboration tools, and AWS technology at no cost to your students today!

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*AWS Educate is available globally to students who are 14 years old and older with the exceptions of China, Switzerland, and all countries in the European Union (16 and older required), and in Algeria, Lebanon, and Portugal (18 years old or older).