Amazon Web Services Introduces Global City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge

Amazon Web Services Introduces Global City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge

New contest to recognize the most innovative local governments and technology partners using the AWS Cloud to reduce costs, solve tough challenges, and offer new services to citizens

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 25, 2014-- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced the City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge, a new global program to recognize local governments and application developers that are innovating for the benefit of citizens using the AWS Cloud. From May to June 2014, AWS and a panel of worldwide experts from organizations driving local government innovation will select seven grand prize winners from among two award categories: Best Practices and Partners in Innovation. Today, AWS is opening the call for entries for both the Best Practices Award and Partners in Innovation Award. Three AWS local government projects will be awarded the Best Practices Award, recognizing local governments who have already adopted cloud technology, each receiving $50,000 in AWS credits. Four application developers will be awarded the Partners in Innovation Award for individuals or companies engaged in creating applications that solve local government challenges, each receiving $25,000 in AWS credits. To learn more about the City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge, visit http://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/cityonacloud/.

Entries for both awards must be received no later than May 12, 2014 and will be judged based on one or more criteria that include the impact of the solution, likelihood of long-term success, implementation of AWS services, and the potential to help other local governments solve similar challenges. AWS will announce the finalists by the end of May 2014, and the winners of the Best Practices Award and Partners in Innovation Award will be announced on June 25, 2014 at the AWS Government, Education, and Nonprofits Symposium in Washington, DC.

The AWS Cloud is enabling government innovation at all levels. From the United States to Singapore, Europe to Brazil, and Japan to Australia, municipal governments and their technology partners are putting their ideas to work for citizens, said Teresa Carlson, Vice President Worldwide Public Sector, AWS. We're looking forward to recognizing pioneering municipalities and partners, as well as seeing the next wave of ideas and innovations that will further transform what is possible for local and regional governments through low-cost, highly scalable, agile cloud computing services.

It is an exciting time in government as we are in the very beginning stages of transformation - the cloud is accelerating innovation at every level of government around the world, said Chris Coleman, Mayor of St. Paul and President, National League of Cities. Whether it is offering better service to residents through web sites, mobile applications and access to data, or driving new levels of operational efficiency, the City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge makes it possible to dream big.

All City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge entries must use the cloud computing solutions offered by AWS. Entries will be reviewed and considered by a panel of AWS representatives and international experts, including:

Pete Reynolds, Executive Director of Innovation and the Cities Lab, Future Cities Catapult

Scott Case, Founding CEO Startup America; Co-Founder and CEO, Main Street Genome

Mayor Christopher Coleman, Mayor St. Paul, MN and President of National League of Cities

Joe Dignan, Founder, Kintechi Ltd and Former Chief Analyst EMEA Public Sector, Ovum

Ed DeSeve, Former Special Advisor to the President for Recovery Implementation

Elliot Gerson, Executive Vice President, the Aspen Institute

Dr. Gerald Gordon, President and CEO, Fairfax County (Virginia) Economic Development Authority

Bill McCluggage, former Chief Information Officer of the Irish Government

Dr. Glenn Ricart, Founder and CTO of US Ignite and member of Internet Hall of Fame

Sonal Shah, Former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the first White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation

Bob Sofman, Co-Executive Director, Code for America

Dr. Mark Thompson, Strategy Director, Methods Group, and Senior Lecturer in Information Systems, Cambridge Judge Business School, UK

For a complete description of prizes and applicable territories, read the contest official rules at http://aws.amazon.com/stateandlocal/cityonacloud/rules/.

About Amazon Web Services

Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services, Inc. began exposing key infrastructure services to businesses in the form of web services -- now widely known as cloud computing. The ultimate benefit of cloud computing, and AWS, is the ability to leverage a new business model and turn capital infrastructure expenses into variable costs. Businesses no longer need to plan and procure servers and other IT resources weeks or months in advance. Using AWS, businesses can take advantage of Amazons expertise and economies of scale to access resources when their business needs them, delivering results faster and at a lower cost. Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of enterprise, government and startup customers businesses in 190 countries around the world. Amazon Web Services offers over 30 different services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). AWS Cloud services are available to customers from data center locations in the U.S., Brazil, Europe, Japan, Singapore, Australia and China.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the Worl

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