The AWS Imagine Grant is an annual opportunity providing financial and technical resources to registered nonprofit organizations for cloud technology projects, supporting them at various stages of their cloud journey.
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hello welcome to the AWS imagine Grant
application tutorial whether you are
just learning about the grant or are
ready to put together your application
we are here to help you through the
process uh let me tell you a little more
about how this tutorial is going to be
segmented so that uh if you you know
don't have the time to watch all of it
you could jump around to different parts
of the tutorial so this is going to be
segmented into four distinct Parts the
first part is all about the basics of
the Imagine Grant so we're going to talk
about the timeline the eligibility all
that good stuff so if you're just
learning about the grm this is probably
where you'll want to start and then
we're going to go into part two which is
where I'm going to explain about our
three funding areas our three award
categories and you know the eligibility
within each category we'll also be
talking a little bit
um about example projects winners from
the past that really exemplify the
spirit of each award
category and then the third part this is
where we're going to start going into um
starting and approaching putting
together your application um so this is
where you could start and then we'll
have a guest speaker from a previous
winner talk about how they um put
together their
application and then part four our last
part is going to be about approaching
the techn iCal requirements of the
Imagine Grant proposal so we'll have
another guest from a previous winner who
talks about how they approached this
this portion of their proposal now for
part one you're going to have me Irene
Blanchard woo I'm the senior program
manager on the AWS Global Healthcare and
nonprofits team taking you through the
101 of AWS inagine Grant so if this is
the first time you are hearing about the
a imagine Grant you might be wondering
well what is this what is the Grand and
is it for
me the a imagine Grant is a once a year
public Grant opportunity that is really
open to all registered nonprofit
organizations across all Mission areas
to receive a holistic package of
Financial and Technical Resources to
help you implement a cloud technology
project they imagine Grant really is
designed to support projects at all
stages of your Cloud Journey so let's
talk about who can apply for the
grant now right now um the Imagine Grant
is available in three countries as of
2024 the US the UK and Ireland we
continue to expand our grant program
globally so make sure to check out our
grant website for program launches in
regions um so let's say you're a
nonprofit organization so that in
includes Charities and NOS membership
organizations associations research
institutions nonprofit healthc care
providers you know so that's hospitals
clinics um credit unions and Public
Utilities um if you have a registered
tax ID in one of the program countries
you are eligible to apply so in the US
context that would be any 501c
organizations and it's really not just
limited to 501c3 so any
501c um if you're registered um and have
a tax ID you are eligible if you're
overseas then you know organizations
with active 501c status or equivalent
that serve um your country area that's
that makes you eligible um one thing is
you know if you're registered in your
home country so let's say you're a
registered 501c something in the US but
really the B of your beneficiaries are
overseas are um in another continent or
other countries you are still eligible
because you have a registered 501c
status in the
US um one caveat to all of this is that
at this time education institutions so
that will be primary secondary um and
higher education institutions um these
are outside of our funding areas so you
would not be eligible but we do have
other programs that are designed
specifically for you so please check out
our AWS for Education
page uh let's talk about the application
process and
timeline so the Imagine Grant has two
rounds round one opens May through June
um and that's open to everybody
everybody who is eligible can apply in
July you're going to find out whether
your r one application has been
shortlisted and everybody's going to get
an email one way or another at that
point if you are shortlisted then you
proceed to round two which opens um you
know around mid August through
mid-september and that's only open to
those shortlisted from round one and by
December all the round two applicants
would be notified of their status and
that's also when the winners are
announced now all the way back in March
so every year we launch our new cycle
around mid-march and that's also when
you could start downloading our run one
application guid lines on the Imagine
grant website so what you're seeing on
the top right hand corner the QR code
that's um what you can scan to then go
to our website to then download the
instruction so that instruction it's a
really informative PDF that gives you an
in-depth description of the program and
our award categories um all of the
questions that you're going to need to
answer for the wrong one application so
you really get a sneak peek of
everything that you need to put together
to you know to apply for run one in May
you'll also get a program timeline um
with specific dates other helpful
resources and Grant terms and
conditions so this is available before
the run one Pho opens in May so make
sure you go and download this PDF so
that you could start you know using it
to help you put together the
application and one last word about
where to access the portal when it opens
so when the portal opens in May you
could access portal either via the
Imagine Grand website or if you had
already downloaded the instruction
before you know the ronland portal
opened in May if you had already
downloaded the instruction then you will
get an email with the portal link
provided to you so there are two ways to
do that um and of course these specific
dates vary slightly by year so make sure
you go to our imagine ground website to
get the specific
dates welcome to part two of the AWS and
Magic Grand application
tutorial now for this portion you're
going to have me again Irene blenard wo
and this time my colleague Ben turull
who's a Senior Solutions architect on
the AWS Global Healthcare and nonprofits
team now once you've decided that your
organization is eligible to apply for
the grant and you're still within the
application timeline you now might be
asking if your project fits into one of
our funding areas
we know that cloud enabled digital
transformation is truly a journey and so
the Imagine Grant categories were really
designed to support organizations at all
levels of that Journey which we call
Cloud maturity um last year we publish a
report on nonprofit Cloud maturity which
you can download by scanning the QR code
on the screen on your right hand
side so the Imagine Grant has three
distinct award categories that
correspond with each level of the Cloud
maturity with commensurate award
packages designed to support the cost
and capacity needs of Technology
projects so each award package is going
to include um unrestricted cash funding
and AWS Computing credits that support
you in overcoming part of the cost
hurdle these AWS Computing credits they
complement the cash funding in that it
offsets the cost that you incur on AWS
as part of using our technology to
implement your
project next you're going to have access
to ad technical implementation guidance
and AWS training and these are really
designed to help you overcome your
capacity challenges which is a common
blocker for many nonprofits as we
know last but not least you're going to
have the opportunity for marketing
promotion by
AWS we know that exposure and visibility
really helps um organizations in getting
more donations and engagement so we will
use our various platforms to amplify the
stories of our winners for specific
amounts for each category um feel free
to check out our website or the round
one application guidelines on the lower
right hand corner here also please note
that for each organization you could
only apply for one project per Grant
cycle if you have two or more projects
what I would suggest is that you just
apply for the project that's the most
mature in its stage of
development now let's talk about the
awards so the first one that uh that's
up here is called the momentum to
modernize award so if you're in an early
stage of um of your Cloud Journey where
you're just you know embracing the cloud
and embarking on that on some
foundational Cloud projects um this
category is for you so this is really
designed for folks who are pursuing
modernization um and digital
transformation efforts in the cloud um
like migrating your servers or
developing new or modernizing existing
applications expanding optimizing your it
it
infrastructure we're really looking for
organizations that view these types of
projects as foundational steps to
unlocking other doors for operational
and Mission
Innovation and in r one PDF you're going
to find specific case studies that serve
as references for the types of projects
and workloads we Fund in this
category now Ben I'm going to invite you
up here now to expand on these
categories from a technology
perspective thanks Irene hello everyone
I'm Ben turble I'm a Senior Solutions
architect supporting nonprofit
organizations here at AWS and I'm happy
to share a few examples from past
winners uh first up we have the Chicago
Lighthouse and at the Chicago Lighthouse
they are implementing an endtoend supply
chain platform for their Industries
program so their goal was to increase
Revenue and direct additional resources
to enhance job training for Chicago's
Blind and Visually Impaired Community
how they use AWS to support this well
they started with a landing Zone on AWS
and this is using the control tower
service to establish a best practice
multiac account setup that's a
foundation for AWS uh environment they
also refactor their inventory and Order
management applications to run on cloud
native services for storage and compute
so two foundational steps using a WS
secondly we have the Ronald McDonald
House of New York and at Ronald McDonald
House they were building a data
warehouse to centralized data and more
easily apply analytics to improve
programming to directly support the
families that they serve and they
started by setting up foundations for a
data Lake on AWS they centralized data
from disparate sources and different
Data Systems and then they stood up a
data warehouse using Amazon red shift
and began visualizing that data with
quick site so these are two strong
examples of winners that are getting
started using the cloud to support their
missions thank you Ben next we have the
go further faster award so if you've
already launched some initial Cloud
projects and you're now looking Beyond
the Horizon and trying to innovate then
this category might be for you now this
award is really designed for folks who
are thinking big about what they can do
with the cloud and you're really looking
to integrate Advanced Services like AI
ml um into Data like a data warehouse
high performance Computing Internet of Things
Things
Etc and for this category we're looking
for think big highly Innovative projects
that will really Propel your mission
forward and with the enablement of cloud
technology Your solution may
revolutionize how changes are affected
in that particular field Ben um please
come up here again and we would love to
hear from examples from you yeah
absolutely so we have two great examples
and you can feel the the step change of
innovation and development with these
examples here and we'll start with uncf
which is the United Negro College Fund
and they were building a learning
management system or an LMS to advance
access digital learning and boost
student outcomes for historically black
colleges and universities
HBCU they had a goal to mature that
platform into a common student interface
for the 100 plus HBCU across the country
and they used AWS to support the cloud
native application development they were
running their devops
and their actual frontend development
onws and supported underlying
infrastructure for storage databases and
content delivery and lastly they were
using adbs to support extensive
networking and security configuration
for that application so this is an
example of an ambitious and highly impactful
impactful
initiative and second we have orbus
international so orbus is expanding its
AI assisted technology for millions of
people to screen for diabetic ropy and
glaucoma with the goal of eradicating
these two types of avoidable blindness
globally so on AWS they developed their
own AI platform called cybersight Ai and
this tool uses a deep learning AI
algorithm to provide immediate automated
results which allow patients to receive
essentially point of care results in
seconds so with AWS they were hosting
and orchestrating containerized
applications uh managed kubernetes
applications and they were also using
services like Amazon sagemaker to
support the machine learning development
for that deep learning uh clinical
decision support
tool thank you Ben yeah and last but not
least we have the Pathfinder generative
AI award um this is our highest work
category and it's really designed for
organizations that are looking to
implement a highly Innovative Mission
critical project that leverage generative
generative
AI projects in this category you may use
the same services that we just talked
about and go further faster and momentum
to modernize but you have to also use
generative AI as an additional
workload now if your organization is
already on the cloud and you have a
strong data strategy data foundation and
the use case for generative AI is
defined and your project is already at
least in planning stage then this
category is for you so s as go forther
faster Pathfinder projects are highly
extensible um and may impact an entire
field and as we all know generative AI
it's an emerging technology so to help
you harness its potential and deploy
Your solution at the highest bar and
quality uh the Pathfinder winner is also
going to get guaranteed access to the
AWS generative AI Innovation
Center now Ben could you give us some
examples of projects that exemplify the
spirit of this award
award
absolutely yeah we're really excited
about this new award and you know given
that it's a first- Time award we don't
have winners from the past as examples
but we can share some winners from last
year that could have qualified for the
Pathfinder given their their use cases
uh and first up is a uh great
organization crisis text line and they
were developing applications based on
large language models or llms to enhance
highly nuanced crisis conversations so
their goal was to decrease time to
intervention for individuals at risk of
harming themselves or others and they
you know the foundations for generative
AI start with data and crisis text line
was using AWS to develop the pipeline
data pipeline including data preparation
um ultimately moving to model
development where they were deploying a
fine-tuned model using Amazon Bedrock
hosting that for inference and
monitoring model performance so the
generative AI component here is
fine-tuning one or more foundational
model to the task of answering spefic
specific questions from each
conversation that's crisis text line and
second we have a customer data friendly
space which is creating a generative AI
powered virtual assistant for
humanitarian staff operating in
fast-paced rapidly changing environments
data friendly space developed a
generative AI platform called ganet and
it's the first in the humanitarian
sector it will help staff to access
extract and visualize life-saving
information to boost humanitarian
responses worldwide and again on the
data end used AWS to develop an end
pipeline for ingesting preparing storing
analyzing and visualizing the data and
that data will be used to support the
core of the system which is an AI
powered virtual assistant that
understands user queries and generates
natural language responses using those
foundational models hosted on Amazon
Bedrock so these projects are both you
can see they're both highly ambitious in
scale of reach and impact and the
solution combines Advanced AWS services
for in this case data preparation with
strategic use of gen using services like Amazon
Amazon
Bedrock thank you so much
ben um so some last words about
Pathfinder um you know we know that this
W has the most requirement and it it is
the most selective so you know if your
project does use generative AI but you
don't fit all of the criteria that's up
here um for example um your project is
still in conceptual stage you're not you
know you haven't started planning for it
yet um you could actually apply for go
further faster instead um and because
we'll we'll short list only a handful of
Pathfinder applicants from round one to
round two all of the projects in round
one that are going to qualify for
Pathfinder will actually also
automatically consider them for for go
further faster so what this means is
that when you apply for Pathfinder in
round one you might get an invitation to
apply for go further faster for round
two um but of course then it's your
choice as to whether or not you want to
continue with the application process
but I wanted to point this out to you so
that um you understand that um you know
you could definitely use generative Ai
and go further faster if you don't fit
all the parameters in Pathfinder and and
that's totally fine and we in fact
expect uh some of our winners and go
further faster this year to also be
using generative AI welcome to part
three of the AWS imagine Grant application
application
tutorial now for this part you'll have
me again Irene Blanchard woo but also um
I'm very happy to invite Zenia today she
is from FAA International she's the
senior director of strategic initiatives
and thinka international was an imagine
grant winner in 2022 so very happy to
have Zenia today to share with us how
she and her team put together a proposal
now at this point if you've already
watched part one and part two you might
be thinking to yourself that you know
you're eligible to apply you're within
the application timeline and you're
interested in one or more of the award
categories but now you might be thinking
well I'm ready but where do I start to
put together my proposal and this is
especially true if you are used to
writing GRS that are more traditional in
nature um because you know for
technology grants there is going to be a
little difference um because the
technology part really comes into play
here more than a traditional Grant and
you really need to incorporate that as a
strategic enablement and really have it
come through in your
proposal so the first thing you want to
do is that you really want to get
together across functional team in the
room to help you plan and help you
articulate this team it may may include
a Project Lead program staff an IT
person in your organization or a
technical person and this is important
um if you could get a senior leader who
is the project champion in the room
that's going to go a really really long
way in your planning um and you know
leveraging technology is as much of a
mission decision as it is a technology
decision and so getting these diverse P
perspectives together is really going to
help you ensure that your solution is
focus on the mission while the
technology component is strategically
integrated and I should have mentioned
you know sometimes you might want to get
you might want to think about getting a
Communications colleague in the room
because they have excellent writing
skills and they might really be able to
help you put together your entire
technology project in a very holistic
Mission driven way um as you put it down
onto your
proposal and so once you have that
crossfunction team in the room um what
we would typically recommend is what we
will call the working backwards process
um and so this process um really is to
help you Center a technology-driven
project on the human element on your
mission so remember technology is only a
means to an end ultimately what it
should do is that it should enable your
mission so as you start to articulate
the project to plan the project
um always start from the perspective of
the end user and so it could be your
beneficiaries donors members staff or
any other stakeholders for whom you're
designing this solution and ask yourself
so who are these end users and what
challenges are they facing now and you
know regarding that challenges what
doors is my solution going to unlock for
them what opportunities is going to
bring and what's the experience going to
look like for them um as they benefit
from your project what's the user
experience here and last but not least
of course where does technology fit into
all of this how is it going to
strategically be integrated to enable this
this
experience and of course you always want
to you know the end goal is always to
accelerate your mission so connect
everything back to your
mission so at this point I'm going to
invite Zenia off mute to join us um and
share with us her you know her and her
team's experience Ian putting together
their proposal and really um bringing
everything that I said to life as they
plan for their project so zel welcome
again and my first question to you is
what was your winning
project well thank you Irene it's such a
pleasure to be here um at think
International our mission and vision is
to eleviate Global poverty um we have
been doing so for over 40 years and as
imagine grant winners we used and
continue to use aw AWS services such as
the data Lake this allowed us to
dramatically widen the sources of data
for our work and quickly deploy a set of
dynamic dashboards on poverty Financial
Health woman economic empowerment
indicators and really representing the
voices of millions of clients we serve
all over the world um by doing so this
really allowed us to dramatically widen
the sources of data for our work and
quickly deploy a set of dynamic
dashboards on poverty Financial Health
um women's economic empowerment
indicators um in order to represent the
voices of millions of clients we serve
all over the
world yes so Zenia I mean clearly your
uh the work of FAA is global your impact
is huge and you know this data Lake
Project I know is is very much um you
know one of the earlier steps to much
larger vision and ambition that you have
can you talk more about how did this
project fit into that long-term Vision
that you're trying to get
to absolutely so as imagine grant
winners we started off using various AWS
services and to pres such as the data
Lake I shared earlier and to present
date um We are continuing to use AWS
Services um through the use of AI as a
tool tool for our researchers and our
research team to be able to extract and
find out content relating to Sol solving
and finding data sets as it relates to
the world's most pressing problems so in
essence we're building a platform for
research researchers to engage with AI
and really the ability for our research
team to train AI for the data sources
that thinka trust and and hopefully be
able to spread and deploy this for
others to be able to trust as
well now to plan uh a vision that
involves so many different types of
stakeholders um you know as end users
and beneficiaries I would imagine you
probably didn't do that by yourself you
probably had a team of people um I would
love to learn more about you know who
did you pull into the room for the
project or even the vision and and why
did you pull them
in absolutely Irene internal
collaboration is key to all of this and
and what do I mean by internal
collaboration it's identifying the key
stakeholders within one's team and or
teams that could be the board of
directors that could be external
Consultants you name it a number one
that is crucial to be part of the
building blocks of these projects is
identifying that team member with a
technology background Um this can be an
IT person or as senior as the CTO and I
share this because when navigating AWS
and when navigating the various benefits
of the tools it really does require a
knowledge and having a technology
background of some sort to be able to
build and grow so in additional in
addition to a key technology team member
uh Senior Team Member is must namely to
get leadership Buy in and support to
think not just about the present but
really what is The Five-Year Plan of how
one's nonprofit is keeping up with the
culture of innovation and technology and
growth a Communications team lead is is
also important as well the reason being
to share messages both internally within
one's organization but also externally
as you're building up building upon
projects um doing so will surprisingly
in our experience at FAA also attract
external stakeholders really wanting to
learn more about these projects as it
relates to one's mission and vision and
lastly a project lead and a team manager
of all of this again there are so many
moving pieces to all of these parts when
it comes to building upon this project
and it definitely requires one wrangling
it all in and building team members and
bringing team members together to really centralize
centralize
strategies yes it's uh I would imagine
it would be quite the hurting cats process
process
um and so once you have all the cats in
the room what did your planning process
actually look
like you know it for full transparency
Irene it was an arduous it was an
arduous process where we worked backwards
backwards
we put pen to paper as a team to really
diagram and build out what we wanted for
FAA and how this aligned with our
strategic mission and vision I'll also
go back to say we did ask for help we
didn't have all of the answers and for
us it was being vulnerable and reaching
out to the right AWS team leads and
sources to really help put us on track
for our journey but also reach out to
executive team members to really help
out and ask how we could start on the
right path for our journey as well so I
would say really building upon the
internal Talent of our team at FAA but a
willingness to ask for help from folks
from Industries so different from from
our Norm in the International Community spaces
spaces
I love your resourcefulness and also
just the Curiosity to to to keep
learning um so thank you Zenia any last advice
advice
yeah don't give up uh and I share this
because for full
transparency we did not win our imagine
Grant the first time around
around
and this experience actually was a
fantastic learning opportunity for us I
mean of course we were dismayed to to to
not immediately get funding through the
door but at the same time it did Empower
us as a team at FAA to Think Through
okay what do we need to be doing
differently or how do we need to be
building our team to keep up with
various Trends in the technology sector
as it relates to building upon and
expanding our project so we were we were
able to do just that it took a lot of
time it took a lot of a lot of grit but
I I will say this is don't give up a no
does not mean no right now
and these projects what I've come to to
my pleasant surprise also expand Beyond
Industries and Beyond reach which is
corporations foundations institutional
partners and just donors in general
really wanting to learn more and be part
of these projects and ideas so um don't
give up on a no it could definitely
extend to to someone or something else
you might not think of in your
backyard that's fantastic thank you so much
much
Zenia of course Irene it's been a
pleasure welcome again to the adist and
mine Grand application tutorial part
four now for this part you'll have me
again irin plard wo but I also have
invited um Elena who is from fair trade
USA and they want the imagin grand go
forther faster award in 2023 so oena is
GNA um join us today to share how she
and her team figured out their Project's
technical requirements and what
resources they leverag in the process
today's session is going to be all about
the technical stuff so welcome
Elena before we um start you know
learning from oena I just have a couple
of things that I want to um give you as
an advice so um if you've you know
attended the first three parts and
you've gotten a pretty good idea of how
to approach the proposal how to
determine your eligibility at this point
you might be asking well how do I
approach the technical portion of the
proposal and of course one of the main
distinctions between traditional and
Technical Grant proposals is the level
of technical details that's going to be
required and as you dive into that
portion you are going to have to
articulate things like your Project's
technical design technical needs what
services is it going to use how do the
elements fit together what do you have
in-house currently and what's your plan
to acquire the rest of the skills and
resources you
need and so this is where you're going
to really want to lean on your it
technical colleagues the most but even
so you may not have all of the required
expertise in the room to flush out all
of the technical aspects of your project
and may need additional support
identifying which services and products
are required um how do all the
technology pieces fit together
coherently both in the design and
deployment what skills and resources you
have and how you can augment all of those
those
capabilities um this is also a place
where you could lean on um outside
expertise um where you know at AWS we
have a huge network of implementation
technology Consulting Partners who could
give you that support and of course in
the house we have Solutions Architects
and many other types of Specialists
where we could connect you to so make
sure that you're seeking this additional support
support
early um and here on the bottom right
hand side um if you scan the QR code and
download Raman instructions you will get
a list of links and specific resources
is to help you get those um procure
those things um right
away now next we understand that cloud
technology projects are going to be
inherently long-term Investments um for
example your organization may need to
First migrate aging infrastructure or
understand your data assets before you
could really start building a data L and
you know and go further faster on your
Cloud Journey um and of course these
projects are also it
and so predicting a project timeline can
be difficult so this is really all about
communicating all of that and bake it
into your proposal and show that you
understand all of the different elements
and all of the
unpredictability what you can do is that
you could break a long-term strategy
into definable Milestones you could also
support your you know Vision with a high
level plan about how you're going to get
there and then just building flexibility
and sustainability from the beginning to
show that you know things are going to
change but you have that long-term
Vision that's going to Anchor the
project that you're going to be
embarking on this is also why aligning
with your organizational stakeholders
early and often is really going to go a
long way because all of these people
could help you articulate that and more
importantly a good funding partner
someone who is going to be funding your
project and of course they're going to
become a key stakeholder in your project
project as they get involved they really
should share your long-term goals and
vision and support your implementation
Beyond just the cost the financial
components and really should be there as your
your
partner now this is the fun part to dive
deeper into the technical section and
get really concrete advice Elena I'm
going to invite you to come out here and
go off mute to share with us um your own
experience putting together a winning
proposal so Elena first question tell us
about your winning project what was it
about yes sure hi everyone so we are
building an on demand Data Insights
platform within our existing online
partner portal um where we try to help
our partners better evaluate their
supply chain risks and see their impact
and this platform is uh going to be
powered by the data warehouse and a
variety of a services that we utilize
for data inje transformation storage
governance delivery and for many other
things that's a short snippet I'll jump
into more like technical aspects later
as we go through the
questions great thank you and Elena I
know that you know you have a data
warehouse project you want to dab on
analytics and use Advanced Services down
the road but I also know that this
project is really part of a much longer
term vision and strategy that you have
so can you break it down for us how did
your project fit into that long-term um
planning yeah sure it was actually a
perfect fit because at the point when we
applied for the grant and we decided
this is the project that we're going to
use in that application we already had a
clear need for this project we had an
organization level
initiative uh around this we had a
vision and we knew exactly what we
wanted to build um it was already
defined priority for our Organization
for the upcoming year and we had an
executive Buy in implementation plan the
team the budget
Etc uh another thing that helped us was
that uh the project was already in early
stages it was already under way uh over
a couple years prior to actually
starting the implementation we've buil
deliberately creating a foundation for
this project by building out our
infrastructure on AWS building out our
data warehouse gradually bringing in
data and so on it was very very early
stages but that helped us a lot as well
and as I already said we already had a
project plan and a long-term vision for
how we saw this project evolve over time as
as
well thank you now Elena I mean I think
pretty much everybody who has shopped in
supermarkets have heard of fair trade
and I would imagine that in your
organization you already have at least a
solid small team of IT staff and
Specialists like yourself that could um
you know really help with designing the
project and implementing it but I also
would imagine there definitely probably
were some skills and resources that you
may not have had so can you tell us more
about how did you go about augmenting
your in-house skills and resources with outside
outside
support largely because AWS was already
our platform of choice and we already
had people who are skilled and
knowledgeable around the project uh the
project and the services and the
ecosystem and the selection of services
we pretty good place but we also always
try to upscale so we attend AWS
conferences uh we try to get
certifications uh and we try to keep up
with like the on online learning
possibilities and opportunities that AWS
provides and many of those are free so
uh we constantly keep learning on our
own in addition to that we use I would
say two uh more ways to to um supplement
our own internal knowledge uh the first
way was uh we also worked and we
continue working with our account
manager to from AWS to bring in
additional expertise when needed and get
a specialized help from AWS Solutions
architect so we've done that in a couple
of places like for example like for
we've BR brought in data experts C C
Security Experts AI experts and so on
and this can be different for every
organization your account manager can
help you the right PE find you the right
people to help with your specific use
case and for this project we also
because it's around analytics and
insights we've also worked with our bi
software implementation partner and we
collaborated that with them and we
continue to collaborate to ensure that
we build Solutions in a scalable and a
sustainable way and that we follow the
best practices so for us I would say
those are the two main ways we augment
our internal skills and internal
knowledge thank you
Elena now we talked a lot about figuring
out the technical requirements um of
course the very last step as you put
together your proposal is that you're
going to have to translate all of that
onto paper and be able to connect that
with your larger Mission also we know
that you know you had this long-term
vision and plan and the project that you
were proposing really is a small part of
that long-term Vision so what was your
process in deciding what are you going
to include what's in scope and what's
out of scope for your
proposal yeah this was actually very
exciting but also a very challenging
part uh because there's always so many
ideas things that you could build and a
huge variety of services that you could
use for that uh so as we worked in our
proposal we actually made a decision uh
to focus and keep things narrowed down
to the most impactful and critical
features specifically for this proposal
and justify all of our
choices uh because otherwise it's very
challenging to um squeeze it in into one
year into one like scoped project it
doesn't make sense and you cannot like
address it like the right way um in
addition to that I would say we did a
few other things that we again uh triy
to include in the proposal to uh make it
more effective and make it more clear uh
about what we trying to achieve the top
two things I would say um that's what we
did and I think others would want to do
is first clearly demonstrate the problem
that you want to solve with your project
and the current state uh I'll give an
example in our case it was dealing with
big amounts of uh data coming from
multiple sources in the unstructured way
and an efficient processes of analyzing
the data in deliver delivering Insight
sometimes in a manual manner uh then you
would want to uh clearly describe and
demonstrate what the solution to your
problem is going to be and the what the
future State and the outcomes that you
expect again in our case our example
would be we wanted to collect all of the
data from multiple sources put it in one
centralized Place cleaning up and then
automate the inside delivery so the data
is clean and is available on demand to
our partners as it's needed eliminating
all of the fish inefficiencies and
manual processes in between
between
um the third tip I would say it may be
specific to us it may not be applicable
to everyone but because we already
started working at the project before we
applied uh we try to demonstrate how
much progress has been already made in
this project and and um what is left
what is still there that you try to
accomplish and finish so it's going to
be clear that way how the Imagine Grand
can help you get your initiative across
the finish line or get you you where you
want to be faster in a more efficient
way um another thing uh that's I kind of
touched on that already uh we decided to
keep it focused
and uh focused on the
foundational work so we wanted to
demonstrate that we clearly understand
that your foundation needs to be right
before you jump into any like fancy or
Advanced or popular features such as AI
because in at least in our data project
if you cannot get your data right if you
cannot get your foundation right there
is no point uh
on like in leveraging many of the
advanced features uh so you really want
to demonstrate that you understand those
dependencies and you understand that you
need to work through your problem in a
structured way to get the results uh in the
the end
end
um and the last thing I would say
um what we try to do in the modern
ecosystem U manual for it systems and
solutions rely on multiple platforms
Cloud providers SAS services on premises
so there's a lot
involved and AWS will be most likely a
part of that ecosystem so in the uh
application and in your technical
diagrams we what we Tred to do was
clearly show what part of this solution
relies on AWS and explain why and also
when it comes to the choice of the AWS
services that we planning to use again
clearly describe uh what services you
are going to use and why because there
are multiple ways and combinations of
services that going to help you achieve
the same goal but like one is usually
better than another so you would
probably want to explain uh why you're
making certain decis
decisions um I would say those are the
top few tips I would give and those are
the top uh a few things that we try to
include in our proposal to make it more
clear and focused and convey uh the
essence of project to uh to the grant uh
reviewers thank you Elena any last
advice for
applicants yeah sure um um like a few
quick tips they may not be uh applicable
to everyone but they still may be
helpful uh the first one I would say
that's how we approach our technical
sections of the proposal uh we used AWS
architectural diagrams that they use
themselves in their events conferences
case studies and so on as a base for our
architecture it helped us ensure that we
follow the best practices uh on one hand
and then on another hand it helped the
readers from AWS team to easier
understand of our architecture it's just
going to be much easier for them to read
because that's we kind of using the
common language there
um one more thing that we did as I said
we kept the proposal focused on the most
impactful realistic and critical pieces
of the project but we also did include
asp ation features we deliberately
included them as out of scope or like
future state vision for the uh for the
project but they kind of I believe they
helped us demonstrate what the longterm
vision is going to be and what the
long-term plan that we have for this
project and how we see uh the solution
that we're building involve in the
future and the last thing I would say
just a little bit again make it an easy
like us your experience for people who
review our proposals and who assess our
projects first uh consult with Solutions
Architects and with your account manager
they're going to give you lots of good
tips on how uh to improve your proposal
and another thing that we did um if you
have a ux team that's what we did with
our internal ux team if you don't just
take a few of your colleagues and ask
them questions but what we did we ran
the proposal Al though by them and just
to make it sure make sure that it's easy
to grasp for a reviewer who's not very
familiar with your organization not very
familiar with your project who may not
be very technical and have very limited
time uh because we understand that
there's like lots of proposals coming in
and um the reviewers of our grand
proposals may not have a lot of time to
go into every single detail so you want
to convey your uh Point very
clear and make it easy to grasp and
understand right away so I would say
those are the top tips I would
give thank you so much Elena and you
know I mean fair trade it's very clear
they did a lot of work um but keep in
mind really the application has two
rounds the first round is pretty high
level um and the second round it you
know know goes into more depth where um
you know all the all the things that
olena and her team did really came
through in their round two application
so all that is to say round one it's
pretty high level but really what's
beneficial is that you start this
process early so even though round one
is high level by the time you advanced
round two and you're putting together
round two proposal you're already doing
all this all these steps to make sure
that your round two is very put
together lastly we have several
resources for you to use if you have
additional questions so check out the
Imagine Grant FAQ page for some really
common questions that people ask and see
if you can find answer there also in our
round one PDF um you have the contact us
form this link on the screen here but
also um in the PDF where you could email
us and get help on defining your project
scope um someone from our team will
reach out to you very quickly to connect
to the right person and then lastly um
of course if you have any application
specific questions please email us at
AWS andag Grand
amazon.com and so this concludes our
entire four-part application tutorial
thank you for watching and good luck on
your application we really look forward
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