BD Hubs: MIDWEST: SEEDCorn: Sustainable Enabling Environment for Data Collaboration

在美国国家科学基金会大数据中心项目的推动下，伊利诺伊大学、印第安纳大学、密歇根大学、北达科他州大学和爱荷华州立大学创建了一个灵活的中西部地区大数据中心（MBDH），拥有一个由不同的、坚定的地区支持合作伙伴组成的网络（包括学院、大学和图书馆、非营利组织、工业、城市、州和联邦政府组织，他们从多个私人、公共、政府来源和资助机构带来数据项目）。美国国家科学基金会资助的SEEDCorn项目将成为推动MBDH活动的基础项目，利用合作伙伴的活动和资源，协调现有项目，启动20-30个新的公私合作伙伴关系，分享最佳实践和数据政策，启动试点，并帮助获得资金。SEEDCorn的成果将是在整个地区和全国范围内建立一个可持续的大数据活动中心，使研究团体能够更好地解决复杂的科学、工程和社会挑战，支持美国工业的竞争力，并使决策者能够在从公共政策到经济发展等主题上做出更明智的决定。MBDH专注于对中西部地区具有重要意义的三个领域的特定优势和主题：社会（包括智能城市和社区，网络科学，商业分析），自然与建筑世界（包括食品，能源，水，数字农业，交通，先进制造业），以及医疗保健和生物医学研究（涵盖患者护理到基因组学）。综合“环”连接所有辐条，并将围绕MBDH的特定优势主题进行组织，包括(a)数据科学，可以开发计算和统计方法，并将其与支持“数据到知识”的潜在需求的领域知识和社会考虑相结合；(b)收集、存储、链接、服务和分析复杂数据收集所需的服务、基础设施和工具，以支持试点项目，并最终在整个中心提供生产级数据服务；(c)推进知识库和培训新一代数据科学专家以及在数据科学和服务的实践和使用方面更广泛的劳动力所需的教育活动。有关该项目的更多信息可在http://midwestbigdatahub.org上找到。

Catalyzed by the NSF Big Data Hub program, the Universities of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Dakota, and Iowa State University have created a flexible regional Midwest Big Data Hub (MBDH), with a network of diverse and committed regional supporting partners (including colleges, universities, and libraries; non-profit organizations; industry; city, state and federal government organizations who bring data projects from multiple private, public, and government sources and funding agencies). The NSF-funded SEEDCorn project will be the foundational project to energize the activities of MBDH, leveraging partner activities and resources, coordinating existing projects, initiating 20-30 new public-private partnerships, sharing best practices and data policies, starting pilots, and helping to acquire funding. The result of SEEDCorn will be a sustainable hub of Big Data activities across the region and across the nation that enable research communities to better tackle complex science, engineering, and societal challenges, that support competitiveness of US industry, and that enable decision makers to make more informed decisions on topics ranging from public policy to economic development.The MBDH is focusing on specific strengths and themes of importance to the Midwest across three sectors: Society (including smart cities and communities, network science, business analytics), Natural & Built World (including food, energy, water, digital agriculture, transportation, advanced manufacturing), and Healthcare and Biomedical Research (which spans patient care to genomics). Integrative "rings" connect all spokes and will be organized around themes of specific MBDH strengths, including (a) Data Science, where computational and statistical approaches can be developed and integrated with domain knowledge and societal considerations that support the underlying needs of "data to knowledge," (b) services, infrastructure, and tools needed to collect, store, link, serve, and analyze complex data collections, to support pilot projects, and ultimately provide production-level data services across the hub, and (c) educational activities needed to advance the knowledge base and train a new generation of data science-enabled specialists and a more general workforce in the practice and use of data science and services. Further information on the project can be found at http://midwestbigdatahub.org.