Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - Equity in smart cities and transport (DEI301)

Summary

• Craig Lawton, a Solutions Architect Manager, introduced the University of Melbourne's Smart Campus initiative, which aims to improve student experience and decision-making.
• The Smart Campus platform uses open data standards like NGSI, OGC, and Haystack to ensure interoperability, privacy, and security.
• AWS launched the Smart Cities competency to validate and promote solutions for smart cities.
• Place Intelligence, an AWS partner, provides location insights for city councils to justify investments.
• AWS Smart Territory Framework is an open-source solution for interoperability and future-proofing smart city platforms.
• Mai Nishitani discussed how AWS consulting partner ID11 helped a city with flood emergency support and efficient parking meter management using AWS services.
• The Daybreak app by Hello Sunday Morning, which helps people with alcohol issues, scaled up during COVID with AWS support.
• We Care Community Services in Singapore transitioned to a digital call center using Amazon Connect.
• GeoVio in India developed a healthcare app for remote monitoring of elderly and pregnant women using AWS services.
• The city of Sabai in Japan uses open data on AWS for citizen engagement and city maintenance.
• Jason McKay from the University of Melbourne detailed the Smart Campus initiative's journey, focusing on operations, estate planning, campus experience, and sustainability.
• Mark Morris, the product manager for Smart Campus, emphasized the importance of open, equitable, and inclusive access to knowledge and information.
• The Smart Campus uses AWS services for data ingestion, processing, storage, and visualization.
• Craig Hassedy highlighted a smart bus shelter solution by Sage Automation, which uses AWS IoT Core and Polly for real-time passenger information and accessibility.

Insights

• Open data standards are crucial for creating inclusive and accessible smart city solutions, allowing for innovation and collaboration.
• AWS's Smart Cities competency ensures that solutions meet high standards and can be easily found and deployed by customers.
• The use of AWS services like Lambda, Step Functions, EC2, Kinesis, S3, and Tableau can significantly improve emergency response times and operational efficiency in city management.
• The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation and highlighted the need for scalable and flexible cloud solutions to support increased demand for services.
• Remote monitoring and healthcare solutions are becoming increasingly important for serving rural populations and vulnerable groups, with AWS services enabling these innovations.
• The University of Melbourne's Smart Campus initiative is a comprehensive example of how AWS services can be used to create a data-driven, efficient, and sustainable campus environment.
• The Smart Campus initiative also serves as a living lab for students and researchers, demonstrating the educational value of real-world data and cloud infrastructure.
• The smart bus shelter solution showcases how AWS IoT and machine learning services can enhance public transport accessibility and passenger experience.
• The session highlighted the importance of considering the social impact of technology and the role of technologists in making cities more inclusive and accessible.