Amazon 'City on a Cloud' Innovation Challenge Winners Announced

A handful of local governments were recognized by Amazon Web Services (AWS) for their innovative use of cloud-based solutions and tools to address some of the problems facing the public sector.

The annual City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge gave a nod — and some serious cash credits — to five local governments across the country for their creative uses of AWS’s products Nov. 11.

Local governments in Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan and Washington all made the grade for their efforts in the Best Practices and Dream Big categories. A host of private companies were also recognized for their efforts in the Partners in Innovation category.

Of the 11 winners tapped by the Web services branch of Amazon, the Louisville Metro Data Initiatives, Kentucky; the city of Chicago; and Washington’s King County were awarded $50,000 in cash credits for their work.

TheLouisville Metro Data Initiative created a series of custom websites, hosted by AWS, designed to open government to Kentucky citizens through useful data and new online tools. The project was recognized in the Best Practice category.

King County, Wash., also was recognized for the replacement of its tape-powered emergency data backup system with a cloud-based system. Savings from the project are estimated to save the county $1 million in the first year and $200,000 in following years.

The city of Chicago was applauded in the Dream Big category for the creation of OpenGrid, an open source system to support the real-time monitoring and retrieval of historical data sources.

Thecity of Marquette, Mich. and Louisiana’s South Central Development and Planning Commission (SCPDC) took the second place prize of $25,000 in AWS credits in the Best Practices and Dream Big categories.

Marquette’s CemeteryHost application allows users to quickly locate gravesites in the city’s historic Park Cemetery, and the SCPDC created a cloud-based asset accountability solution for vehicle tracking and improved work order and inventory management.

Application developers DataCats, GrupoTX, Seamless Docs, PARKSMART, Quicket Solutions and Vizalytics Technologies, Inc., all received a $25,000 credit awards for their innovative efforts, and Malaysia-based Trouver was given an honorable mention.