Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced the launch of a Cloud Innovation Centre (CIC) at The University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver.  Part of an ongoing relationship between AWS and UBC, the CIC will provide students, staff, and faculty access to cloud technology to advance projects, along with training on how to employ Amazon’s innovation processes. The CIC is the first of its kind in Canada.

The CIC will focus on issues of health and wellbeing and is officially called the UBC Community Health and Wellbeing CIC, powered by AWS. It will support student teams tackling real-world issues and challenges, where application of novel and emerging technology or computing approaches are essential. The CIC will change the way UBC teams use cloud technology, drive innovation, and improve agility and cost. Located on the university’s Vancouver campus and slated to officially open in early 2020, teams working on projects will also have in-person support from a Vancouver-based AWS team of cloud computing and data experts.

“The UBC Community Health and Wellbeing CIC will give student teams, supported by staff and faculty, the opportunity to use leading cloud technology from AWS to unlock results for challenge projects faster and generate new insights for our community,” said Simon Bates, Associate Provost, Teaching and Learning at UBC. “The team-based, hands-on approach –coupled with industry expertise — will significantly advance our efforts to support authentic, digital learning experiences for students as well as opportunities for our teams to work with the world’s leading cloud services from AWS.”

“We’re seeing cloud adoption across every segment in Canada, from nonprofits to education and all levels of government,” said Teresa Carlson, Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector at AWS. “The CIC at UBC further accelerates the digital transformation of the Canadian public sector by providing teams access to next-generation cloud technology from AWS that can be used to solve real-world challenges. Our expertise and experience with machine learning, high-performance computing, and data analytics will directly help the UBC community in delivering innovative projects.”

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Using Amazon’s innovation methodology, dedicated UBC and AWS CIC staff will work with students, staff, and faculty, as well as community, government or not-for-profit organizations to define challenges. The team will engage with subject matter experts, identify potential solutions to the challenges, and to build Proof of Concepts (PoCs).  All of the innovation challenge outputs, including the PoCs, will be published as open source for other community members to access and use.

“For the remainder of the year, we will be working with the UBC community, as well as partners in healthcare, nonprofit organizations and government to queue up a selection of challenges to begin working on. During this time, we will also be securing the location for the CIC on campus, hiring, and fleshing out the operations model supported by colleagues in IT and Teaching and Learning,” said Bates.

“UBC is a world-recognized leader in research and learning, and this new cloud innovation center will undoubtedly unlock new ways to solve problems that will make a difference to people and businesses,” said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology for British Columbia. “Cloud computing skills are essential to the workforce, and students at UBC will soon be able to get hands-on training and experience to help support B.C.’s growing tech sector.”

“Our government’s recent announcement of Canada’s Digital Charter recognized the importance of partnerships between industry and academia to address digital and data transformation and ensure that Canada continues to be competitive on the global stage,” said Navdeep Bains, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. “Giving our researchers access to the best tools and methodologies will spur innovation, leading to the creation of better outcomes for Canadian communities. Developing and applying methods to use the wealth of data now available to advance society through research and learning is needed now, more than ever.”

This CIC in Canada joins seven other cloud computing research initiatives funded by AWS worldwide, including California Polytechnic University Digital Transformation Hub, Arizona State University Smart City CIC, MunichUniversity of Applied Sciences (MUAS) Digital Transformation Lab, CODE University of Applied Sciences Better Future Lab, Sciences Po Public Innovation Lab, Busan City CIC, and the recently launched Swinburne Data for Social Good CIC.

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SOURCE Amazon Web Services (AWS)