Amazon just announced AWS in Education, a new program that will give students and educators free access to Amazon's Web Services (AWS) for work on research projects, class assignments, or other entrepreneurial projects on campus. Grants for researchers will be offered four times a year, and educators can request Teaching Grants, which would give every student in a teacher's class $100 in AWS credits. Students who are working on entrepreneurial class projects can also apply for grants.
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Obviously, part of this program is, without doubt, self-serving. Students who are familiar with cloud computing, and Amazon's Web Services in particular, are, after all, likely to advocate for the use of AWS for other projects in the workplace as well. Apple, for example, has successfully used this same strategy for years (though its field trips to the Apple store might just go a bit too far).
To us, this looks like a great way to introduce students to cloud computing, and, as far as we are concerned, the more students get access to this technology, the better. We also like Amazon's idea to grant researchers access to its services, as this can mean significant cost reductions for many academic projects, which, given the current economic climate, can only be a good thing as well - and, of course, it will also introduce these researchers to the potential of cloud computing.
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