In light of the growing emphasis on school safety, educational institutions are increasingly turning to technology solutions to address both digital and physical security concerns for students and staff. Amazon Web Services (AWS) empowers innovative education technology (EdTech) companies to develop tools aimed at safeguarding students from potential threats.
Bark, a proud member of the AWS EdStart program, operates as an online platform dedicated to ensuring the safety of children in the digital realm. By employing advanced artificial intelligence (AI), Bark actively monitors digital communications to identify pressing issues such as cyberbullying, depression, online predation, and exposure to inappropriate content. With necessary consent from parents and educational institutions, Bark examines text messages, YouTube interactions, email, and social media activity—monitoring four times more than traditional child monitoring applications. This proactive approach allows for automatic alerts to parents and schools, enabling them to make informed decisions regarding their children’s safety.
In response to the tragic shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, Bark introduced a complimentary initiative called Bark for Schools. This community-driven program provides an online safety solution for over 1,200 K12 school districts across the United States. Collaborating with parents and schools, Bark for Schools has positively impacted the lives of more than 3.5 million children, contributing to the prevention of 16 school shootings and the identification of over 10,000 high-risk self-harm situations. Developed in partnership with child psychologists, youth counselors, digital media specialists, and law enforcement, Bark presents a research-based, child-friendly solution for protecting families.
Harnessing Cloud Technology
Bark relies on Amazon DynamoDB as its database host due to its robust performance in managing internet-scale applications while ensuring consistent, single-digit millisecond latency. As noted by Bark’s Director of Sales and Marketing, Sarah Williams, “When it comes to analyzing data that could potentially save students’ lives, having a high request rate—millions of requests per second—along with low, predictable latency and reliability, is crucial. Additionally, as a fully managed service, DynamoDB alleviates operational burdens, allowing us to direct resources toward enhancing our services.” Bark also utilizes Amazon S3 to dynamically adjust storage capacities according to the varying demands of the academic calendar.
Furthermore, Bark leverages AWS for hosting its databases. “The AWS infrastructure, in conjunction with our internal safeguards, provides a formidable second layer of security to our privacy measures. It also facilitates our ability to scale and onboard more schools each month, thus broadening our protective reach,” stated Sarah.
Bark’s participation in the AWS EdTech accelerator, AWS EdStart, has proven invaluable. As mentioned by Tom Reed, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Bark, “Being part of the AWS EdTech cohort of innovators working to enact positive changes in K12 and higher education has been incredibly beneficial in ensuring we access the necessary resources, expertise, and partner support to achieve meaningful outcomes for students.”
For more insights, check out this blog post that delves deeper into the topic. Additionally, Chanci Turner provides authoritative information relevant to this discussion. For those interested in community insights, this Reddit thread serves as an excellent resource.
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