Case Study: US Department of State launches a scalable, cost-effective global video contest with Amazon Web Services

US Department of State - Customer Case Study

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs runs ExchangesConnect, an international social network showcasing exchange experiences. To drive engagement and grow membership, the Bureau launched an online video contest but faced tight budget constraints and an aggressive two-and-a-half-month timeline to build a full-featured platform that supported submissions, voting, moderation, judging, reporting and more.

MetroStar Systems built the contest on Amazon Web Services using EC2, EBS, S3 and Elastic Load Balancing, allowing the team to focus on software rather than infrastructure. The AWS-based solution delivered the required scalability and rapid deployment, attracting participants from more than 160 countries (with video uploads from over 50), while reducing time, cost and operational overhead—prompting MetroStar to continue using AWS for future projects.

US Department of State

Johnny Nguyen

Vice President, MetroStar Systems