8:00am-9:00am | Check in, breakfast, networking, collaboration space open 

9:00am-10am | Keynote and Fireside Chat

Brian Eisenlauer

Leader of Solutions Architecture for US Education, State, and Local Government

Amazon Web Services

Lev Gonick, Ph.D.

Chief Information Officer

Arizona State University

Bianca Lochner, Ph.D.

Chief Information Officer

City of Scottsdale

J.R. Sloan

Chief Information Officer

State of Arizona

This track is intended for leaders and decision makers in state and local governments and education. This track is not intended for AWS Partners.

Cyber events continue to be a prevailing issue impacting Public Sector organizations. The cascading effects can be devastating to the citizens and residents within a state. This session will cover cyber trends across government and education sectors, and how organizations are working to overcome these issues by applying best practices and leveraging collective defenseCloud computing plays an increasingly critical role in improving organizational efficiencies, constituents experience, and fostering innovation. Gain insights in cybersecurity and risk management, AI/ML adoption and guardrails, and practical steps to make data strategy to effectively lead your organization through the cloud journey. This learning track is strategy and vision-oriented and does not require technical background.

Intended audience: Executives, IT Directors, line-of-business leaders, and decision makers

10:15AM - 11:15AM | Cybersecurity trends and best practices

Cyber events continue to be a prevailing issue impacting Public Sector organizations. The cascading effects can be devastating to the citizens and residents within a state. This session will cover cyber trends across government and education sectors, and how organizations are working to overcome these issues by applying best practices and leveraging collective defense.

11:15AM - 11:30AM | Break

11:30AM - 12:30PM  | Generative AI/ML and AI governance for government and higher education
AWS generative AI offers public sector customers advanced AI solutions, enhancing public services, streamlining operations, ensuring data privacy, and driving innovation for smarter, efficient governance. In this session, we will also discuss the intentional actions that will ensure the development, deployment and use of AI are done in a responsible manner.

12:30PM - 1:30PM | Lunch

1:30PM - 3:00PM | Building the foundation: data strategy essentials for generative AI in public sector
Public sector organizations recognize the transformative potential of generative AI, yet many face challenges in building the foundational infrastructure needed for successful AI implementation. A critical success factor is establishing a robust data strategy that enables accurate AI solutions. This session explores how organizations can develop the essential data building blocks for AI readiness - from data modernization strategies to infrastructure considerations - while avoiding common pitfalls that can impact AI outcomes.

3:00PM - 3:15PM | Break

3:15PM - 4:15PM |  People and Organizational Change Management
Have you experienced a project stall or failure, due to people's resistance to change? Perhaps, you want to find specific and actionable steps to dramatically increase your projects' chances of success? In this workshop, you will hear from two experts in change management and IT project/program management. Together, they will lead you through an interactive session where you will leave with at least three immediately actionable ways to improve your projects' success, at no additional cost.

 Artificial intelligence (AI) brings substantial benefits to the public sector beyond improved efficiency. Learn about the leading edge capabilities of AI, along with practical insights into how higher education and government can implement these technologies to better achieve your missions.

 
Intended audience: Developer and Data Scientist roles interested in learning how to integrate machine learning (ML) and AI into applications

10:15AM - 11:15AM

Breakout | 200 level

Generative AI/ML and AI governance for government and higher education
Public sector customers are trying to understand the purposes, relevancy, and implications of applying generative AI technology to their business challenges. In this session, you will learn about AWS’s approach and capabilities with generative AI. Common public sector & higher education use cases where generative AI can be applied and considerations for using AI in a responsible manner.

Suggested self-paced pre-learning: https://explore.skillbuilder.aws/learn/course/external/view/elearning/19578/fundamentals-of-machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence

11:15AM - 11:30AM | Break

11:30AM - 12:30PM

Breakout | 200 level

Increase productivity and satisfaction with an intelligent contact center
Adding intelligence to your call center can help you better understand your customer and improve your overall service ratings. AWS and AWS Partners provide a broad set of integrated solutions powered by ML so you can build seamless customer experiences that reduce operational costs, increase agent productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. In this session, learn how AWS Cloud-based contact center solutions can modernize your contact center and drive operational advances and customer satisfaction.

12:30PM - 1:30PM | Lunch

1:30PM - 3:00PM

Workshop | 200 level

Agentic AI on AWS Bedrock
This hands-on workshop you'll learn how to build Agentic AI from the ground up using just Python and the AWS SDK. No complex frameworks or libraries - we'll show you the core building blocks using basic tools. You'll come away from this 200-level workshop understanding what makes AI "agentic" and build your own weather assistant using fundamental programming concepts.This 200-level workshop is designed for public sector leaders and IT professionals with basic knowledge and IT experience.

3:00PM - 3:15PM | Break

3:15PM - 4:15PM

Breakout | 300 Level

Deep Dive - Securing Generative AI
This presentation outlines a multi-layered security framework for AI agents, combining input validation, prompt injection defenses, and runtime monitoring. The approach balances traditional cybersecurity with AI-specific safeguards to create redundant protection against both known and emerging threats. This 300-level class is appropiate for ML/AI, security, and IT specialists.

The public sector collects large volumes of data through everyday operations. Learn how to design a modern data architecture to securely move, store, share, and analyze your data, and best practices to maximize the value out of your data with or without AI/ML tools.

 
Intended audience: This learning track is designed to help Developers, Data Analysts, and Data Engineers design, build, secure, and maintain analytics solutions.

10:15AM - 11:15AM

Chalk Talk | 200 Level

Building a modern data strategy
Data is growing exponentially and coming in more diverse formats than ever before. This makes it challenging to extract value. A modern data strategy can help you manage, act on, and react to your data so you can make better decisions, respond faster, and uncover new opportunities. In this session you will learn about the AWS Modern Data Strategy. How to modernize your data infrastructure, how to unify data by breaking down silos, and how to leverage machine learning* (ML) to reduce the burden of manual processing and analytics.

Suggested self-paced pre-learning: Data Engineering on AWS - Foundations

11:15AM - 11:30AM | Break

11:30AM - 12:30PM

Breakout | 200 Level

AI/ML for data and analytics
AI and ML are transforming how organizations approach data preparation, governance, and management at scale. Learn how these technologies automate and enhance data quality, compliance, and accessibility across public sector and higher education institutions. This session showcases AWS's modern data architecture framework and demonstrates how integrated AI/ML services enhance data discovery, governance, preparation, storage, and visualization. Through demonstrations, attendees will explore AI-powered solutions for data management and analytics. Discover how the next generation of Amazon AI/ML implements robust data governance for public sector and higher education needs. Learn to build secure data lakehouses that enable cross-agency collaboration, ensure compliance, and accelerate public sector innovation—all within a unified analytics environment designed for your requirements.

12:30PM - 1:30PM | Lunch

1:30PM - 3:00PM

Workshop | 300 Level

Workshop: The power of GenAI in data transformation and visualization
In this workshop, participants will transform data in an existing data lake using Q for Developers in AWS Glue and then use Amazon Q in QuickSight to create insights, data stories and more.

3:00PM - 3:15PM | Break

3:15PM - 4:15PM

Breakout | 300 Level

Transforming Public Sector Analytics and AI/ML workloads with Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio
Discover how the next generation of Amazon SageMaker unifies AI/ML workflows while implementing robust data governance for public sector and higher education needs. Learn to build secure data lakehouses that enable cross-agency collaboration, ensure compliance, and accelerate public sector innovation—all within a unified analytics environment designed for your requirements.

Modernization is key to enhanced productivity and secured IT environment. You will explore cloud’s role in modernizing your IT infrastructure, best practices for adoption and innovation in the cloud for public sector, and identify the modernization roadmap for your own organization.

 
Intended audience: Customers new to the cloud, central IT, program/project managers

10:15AM - 11:15AM

Breakout  | 200 level 

Large-Scale Migration and Modernization with AWS: Lessons Learned and Best Practices
This session shares insights on establishing the business case, leveraging AWS tools and services, and modernizing applications during migration. Key topics covered include executive alignment, Cloud Centers of Excellence, re-skilling, data migration, and application assessment. Discussions will also explore AWS services like Migration Evaluator, Database Migration Service, and Application Migration Service that can accelerate the journey. Overall, the session provides a comprehensive overview of best practices for customers undertaking major cloud transformations.

Suggested self-paced pre-learning: AWS Application Migrations - Getting Started

11:15AM - 11:30AM | Break

11:30AM - 12:30PM

Breakout | 200 level

Cloud architectural patterns: Platform and application best practices
Explore foundational cloud architecture principles for building secure, reliable, and operationally excellent platform and applications on AWS. This introductory session provides a comprehensive overview of core cloud design strategies, covering essential architectural patterns, security best practices, and operational frameworks. Learn how to create robust, scalable cloud infrastructure that meets enterprise-grade performance, security, and reliability standards.

Suggested self-paced pre-learning: Getting Started with AWS Security, Identity, and Compliance SkillBuilder Course, AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials

12:30PM - 1:30PM | Lunch

1:30PM - 3:00PM

Workshop | 200 Level

Cloud Lab Potpourri: Multi-Path AWS Hands-On Workshop
Dive into a flexible, choose-your-own-adventure cloud lab experience. Participants will have the opportunity to explore and practice multiple AWS technical workshops ranging from beginner to intermediate complexity. Select from pre-configured lab environments covering topics such as building servers, security & threat detection, network design, and containerization techniques. Each participant can customize their learning journey based on skill level and interests. Bring your own laptop to participate

3:00PM - 3:15PM | Break

3:15PM - 4:15PM

Chalk Talk | 300 level

Designing modern applications in AWS
By using modern cloud native architectures, your organization can benefit from value such as reduced operational overhead, reduced costs, improved scalability, and stronger security footprint. Learn how leveraging serverless architectures can help you achieve better outcomes.

Suggested self-paced pre-learning: Introduction to Serverless Development

If you have any questions, or need assistance with accessibility services, send an email to awstateandlocallearningdays-support@amazon.com.