Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs Workshops: Charrettes for Accelerating the Big Data Innovation Ecosystem

Usenix Association, Tahuya WA

Investigators

Abstract

As a part of a White House sponsored "Data to Knowledge to Action" event held in November 2013, dozens of public and private organizations met to announce an array of Big Data related collaborations. To sustain the forward momentum of the Data2Action event, the National Science Foundation has been working to establish a national network of "Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs." These hubs will stimulate, track, and help sustain new regional and grassroots partnerships around Big Data. This series of 5 workshops will support four Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs centered in the Northeast, West, Midwest, and South regions the United States. These hubs will help Big Data stakeholders from different sectors (e.g. industry, academia, non-profits, local government) partner around collaborative projects that will further Big Data innovation in their geographic region. The Hubs could take on activities including but not limited to accelerating development of Big Data solutions, forging collaborations across sectors, help share best practices, speed up technology transfer, instigate dialogue between thought leaders on social impacts of Big Data, and supporting the education and training of the Big Data workforce. The first four events will provide a space for stakeholders to exchange ideas, discuss potential projects, and devise a set of actionable goals within their region. The final summary event will bring together members of each of the four regions together to synthesize their conclusions and develop action items, as well as discuss cross regional-collaboration. As a part of this workshop series, a virtual community platform will be established so that interested stakeholders that are not able to attend the live events can connect and collaborated with other interested parties in their region; this platform will be made available and open to users for one year. The primary outcome of this meeting will be a consensus on the design and governance of each regional Hub by major Big Data stakeholders in the region and plan of action for implementing the Hub. A summary of this information will be made available in written form by workshop organizers; supplemental information will be available on the virtual platform and supplied by workshop participants.