AWS launched a pilot project this year, the AWS Educate Student Ambassador, and I was honored to be one of the Ambassadors. So it was a particular pleasure for me to write this part.
If you read the previous two parts, you know that the possibilities of Google and Microsoft considered in them are limited in geography. If you haven't read it, I recommend reading it.
AWS Educate is used in over 200 countries around the world (compared to a few dozen in Google for Education and just over 140 in Azure for students). Amazon does not offer any free educational support services, but they do have one unique offering, which I will discuss below. At the very end there will be a link to registration.
It is noteworthy that the AWS Educate program, apparently, is little known and underestimated in the post-Soviet space (at least judging by the geography of the Cloud Ambassador and Student Ambassador members). I hope this post allows you to somehow change the situation.
AWS Educate for Students
Students can register for an AWS Educate Starter account. Depending on whether your educational institution accepts the program, you will receive different amounts to your account:
- higher education students will receive $ 100 if their institution participates in the program, and $ 30 if not;
- high school students will receive $ 75 and $ 30 respectively.
The amount is provided for 12 months. The range of services is somewhat limited, but most are available. If after their expiration you are still a student or student of this educational institution, you can get the same amount. To register, you must indicate the e-mail provided by the educational institution.
The AWS Educate Starter Personal Account is different from the regular AWS console. Rather, it is a small portal for those looking to connect their careers with the technologies offered by AWS. There are training materials that are combined into career paths and badges. Each career path is from 25 to 45 hours of training materials and practical tasks on a specific topic.
Badges, in turn, are courses dedicated to one or more specific technologies provided by Amazon. The duration of such a course is 10-15 hours.
In addition to training materials, the account has built-in opportunities for starting a career - a job seeker's profile, where your started and completed courses will be automatically displayed, and a catalog of vacancies linked to a career path.
Since 2020, Amazon has launched AWS Educate Student Ambassador. Its goal is to select the most active students who would further promote AWS Educate in their educational institutions. In return, the selected participants will receive additional credit to their account, access to training and events from Amazon, private testing of products and a souvenir. Plus, the resume of the participants goes to the company's base, and the most active and useful participants may well be invited to work.
AWS Educate for Educators
Instructors can also get some money for AWS services. However, unlike students, instructors can not only create an AWS Educate Starter account, but also apply credit to a regular account. The amount is somewhat different:
- $ 200 for participating educational institutions and $ 75 for the rest if using a regular AWS account;
- $ 150 and $ 50, respectively, when using an AWS Educate Starter account.
To use a regular account, you need a credit card, but it also provides more options.
A very useful feature for teachers is the Classroom. It allows you to create a virtual environment for the practical training of your students for free. You can invite your students to the virtual classroom and they will receive a separate amount in their AWS Educate Starter account to complete your assignments. Within the classes, templates are provided that correspond to a specific field (big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and others).
As with students, teachers have various opportunities for learning and certification. I did not have the opportunity to see the account for teachers from the inside, but as far as I can see from the description, teachers have access to materials created by both AWS and other teachers, as well as exporting materials for further publication in LMS. Plus, discounts are available on some trainings and certifications.
Similar to the Student Ambassador program, there is an AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador created a year earlier for teachers . If you are an AWS power user or educator, be sure to try the offensive cycle. You will also get exclusive access to materials, discounts and goodies.
AWS Educate for educational institutions
As I mentioned earlier, one of the main benefits of registering an institution in the program is the higher amount of credits for students and teachers. Registration is free, the link will be given below.
There is another unique offer - the AWS Educate Cloud Degree program . Its goal is to help educational institutions bring their curriculum into line with market requirements. The phrase “forget everything you learned at the university”, I think, is familiar to many. Someone, perhaps even from personal experience. Amazon has partnered with employers to provide a set of guidelines to help students reach entry-level job market-ready professionals and help implement them.
DisclamerThe registration link contains a referral code. It does not give any advantage to either you or me, however, it helps to track my activity as an ambassador. There is no commercial benefit in this, so please do not judge strictly. So students, faculty and university representatives can create an AWS Educate account here . After submitting the application, you can write to me in a personal, I will bother the people responsible for the validation and activation of the account.
AWS Activate
In addition to educational programs, Amazon offers support for startups that are spawned in educational institutions and beyond. Assistance offers $ 1,000 promotional credits to your AWS Account (valid for 2 years) and $ 350 credits to AWS Developer Support (valid for 1 year). The project must be active, it must have either its own website, or a LinkedIn page or a platform with business information about a startup (Crunchbase, AngelList, etc.). Official registration of the company is not required. Projects that have previously received any bonuses from AWS directly or through various accelerators are not eligible to participate.
The responsibility of the ambassadors includes a preliminary assessment of startups for compliance with the criteria, therefore I will not give a direct link. If you are interested in this program, write a description of the project in a personal note, I will tell you about the next steps.
More on the topic: Part 1: Google > Part 2: Microsoft > Part 3: Amazon Web Services > Bonus part
Instead of a conclusion
Hope it was helpful. Share information with fellow students, faculty and deans. If you know any other educational offers from Amazon, write in the comments. Follow us so you don't miss the sequel on various educational opportunities.
We also want to offer all students a 50% discount for the first year of using our hosting services and cloud VPS , as well as VPS with dedicated drives . To do this, you need to register with us , place an order and, without paying for it, write a ticket to the sales department, providing a photo of yourself with your student. An employee of the sales department will adjust the cost of your order in accordance with the terms of the promotion