AWS Public Sector Blog

Category: Internet of Things

Breaking down language barriers: Multi-lingual “walkie talkie” conference

AWS Builders Fair: Machine learning, robotics, and IoT demos for public sector innovation

At the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Sector Summit in Washington, DC, AWS employees shared and demonstrated our newest homegrown AWS innovations in the AWS Builders Fair. These demos featured real-world use cases for government, education, and nonprofits. Using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), natural language processing, and robotics, the demos show how technology can help address issues from recycling to translation to safe transportation. Check out the top six Builders Fair demos, now on our YouTube channel.

Hack the house: Social housing hackathon

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Disruptive Innovators Network (DIN) hosted the first competitive social housing hackathon this past May in London. Four UK housing associations – including Great Places, Places for People and Metropolitan Thames Valley – were teamed with members of the AWS Partner Network (APN), and had 36 hours to analyse one of four housing problems and hack a solution.

Grandma Emergency Button: A simple emergency alert solution with AWS IoT Button

My grandma is 88-years old with reduced mobility. She lives alone, without a caretaker, in a small village. If she falls, then she is in danger. If something goes wrong when she’s in bed, she might need assistance. With an AWS IoT button, she can call for help in a simple way and potentially save her life. Her village provides free Wi-Fi coverage, so I built an emergency alert system using AWS. When she clicks the AWS IoT button, a series of events will take place to get her the assistance she needs. This can help her in difficult situations. It’s a solution that others can create as well. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to get started.

StormSense: Automated Flood Alerts Using Integrated Real-Time IoT Sensors

Coastal communities in the Southern United States are frequently impacted by flooding from storm surge, rain, and tides. To help monitor and enhance flood emergency preparedness, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) at the College of William & Mary has been providing tidal forecasts since 2012 for a dozen locations in the lower Chesapeake Bay through its VIMS TideWatch Network. To expand and enhance these capabilities along Virginia’s seaside Eastern Shore, VIMS developed StormSense. The StormSense project works closely with coastal local governments leveraging a network of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled water level sensors, VIMS’s hydrodynamic flood modeling and forecasting capabilities, and the VIMS TideWatch Network to improve flood resilience in the region.

UCLA Helps Caregivers Predict and Prevent Asthma Attacks in Children

The UCLA School of Medicine’s BREATHE (Biomedical REAl-Time Health Evaluation) project for pediatric asthma wanted to know if real-time data collection could pinpoint ways to predict and prevent asthma attacks in children. To explore this, the School of Medicine Research Computing (RC) Team designed an Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment that uses 24/7 data collection, machine-learning algorithms, and heavy computation that their on-premises cluster could not handle.

A Case for the Cloud in LATAM: When Urban Cleaning and Waste Collection Meet IoT

Recife, the capital of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, is distinguished by its many rivers, bridges, islets, and peninsulas. The municipality of Recife, with an estimated population of 1.62 million, is at the center of a metropolitan region formed by 13 municipalities and around 94 neighborhoods. The cost to maintain such a large metropolis is great, requiring a complex public-cleaning operation with thousands of vehicles and employees, which was consuming nearly 10% of the city’s budget. Before implementing a new technology solution, supervising contractors and controlling the quality of street-cleaning services throughout the city was challenging.

Ask Not What Your Things Can Do For You, Ask What Your Things Can Do For Your Country

At FedTalks late last year, one of the most significant thought leadership events in the federal market, Kyle Roche, General Manager of IoT at AWS spoke to the audience about the Internet of Things (IoT). The Internet of Things (IoT) is the ever-expanding network of physical “things” that can connect to the Internet along with […]