According to a recent news release, Elizabeth Reilley, executive director of AI acceleration - enterprise technology at Arizona State University, was deemed a champion this year for her work using large language models in higher education. AWS General Manager of Global Education Valerie Singer said Reilley’s work can help translate lessons for students who don’t speak English.
“It’s challenges like this that really help communities in a really profound way that we celebrate in our education champions,” Singer said.
Another 2024 winner, Robert Grossman of the University of Chicago, leads a team creating a platform called Gen3. The platform provides open-source software services to manage and share large, complex data sets in the cloud, according to its website. This can help accelerate the research process and ultimately increase scientific knowledge and improve quality of life, the website says.
AWS unveiled the inaugural class of education champions in 2022 at the IMAGINE conference to celebrate people who advocate for digital transformation through cloud computing. Winners have their work featured on the AWS Education Champions community website, participate in a group of educational technology leaders, and get support from AWS experts and access to marketing opportunities and special events.
All told, this year’s 12 winners in AWS’ “Education Champions” category include:
- Gwinnett County Public Schools, Ga.
- Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators
- Region 4 Education Service Center, Texas
- San Antonio Independent School District, Texas
- Dan Alig, University of Pennsylvania
- Sarah Christen, Cornell University, N.Y.
- Robert Grossman, University of Chicago
- Julian Mino, University of St. Thomas, Minn.
- Shruthi Sreenivasa Murthy, Saint Louis University, Mo.
- Elizabeth Reilley, Arizona State University
- David Schober, Northwestern University, Ill.
- Jon Shaw, Vanderbilt University, Tenn.
Past winners have used tech creatively to support data from 73,000 students, even in power outages, house more than 150 TB of library storage, gather data from thousands of streams across a university campus to better understand and serve the student body, and even to pioneer one of the first cloud-based clinical genomics pipelines — a set of tools that breaks down human genome sequences often used in genetic disease research.
The distinction is part of the overall AWS Champions program, which recognizes local and state governments in addition to education. This year, AWS added categories for ed tech and gov tech. While the Education Champions are primarily individual educators or educational institutions, the EdTech Champions this year are all companies.
Among five companies highlighted by AWS in the EdTech Champions category, Gaggle is a software company that uses analytics to detect and flag troubling content in students’ school accounts and school-issued devices. Last year, Gaggle added a hotline to connect students with trained Gaggle support counselors through phone, text or web chat. According to Gaggle’s website, 95 percent of district partners believe the company identified students who no one knew were depressed.
Vocareum, another winner, offers virtual learning labs in machine learning, data science, AI, cybersecurity and other fields requiring strong digital skills. Instructors can incorporate Vocareum into their institution’s learning management system and use it for auto-grading, learning analytics, in-platform messaging and other functions.
The other three winners, Pluralsight, Udemy Inc. and Ellucian, help educators accelerate tech skills, gain insights on their student population and increase engagement.
All 10 winners in the EdTech and GovTech categories include:
- Acentra Health
- CentralSquare Technologies
- Ellucian
- Gaggle
- Mark 43
- Pluralsight
- Rekor Systems
- Tyler Technologies
- Udemy Inc.
- Vocareum