The BD Hubs foster regional networks of stakeholders and cooperate nationally on US priorities of importance to a region and to the nation. The activities of the BD Hubs contribute to a vibrant national data innovation ecosystem. The West Big Data Innovation Hub builds and strengthens strategic partnerships -- harnessing the data revolution to address scientific and societal challenges. Whether working towards the future of data-informed healthcare or tackling projects in disaster recovery, the Hub envisions a diverse community empowered to contribute to areas of national priority. The Hubs focus on data science activities and initiatives that inspire cross-sector collaboration and exemplify the need for multi-disciplinary approaches.
With this award, the West Big Data Innovation Hub will: (1) Develop and enable translational data science (TDS) pilot projects in our thematic areas to highlight the value of cross-sector collaboration, enhance fluency with real-world use cases, and emphasize a pragmatic and holistic view of the data and analytics lifecycles. We envision our signature TDS initiatives for 2019-2023 to include: Fire and Water: Data Collaborative for the Future of Natural Resource Management; Stress-Testing Access for Road Video; and Housing Instability: Trusted Data Collaborative for Responsible Data Management. (2) Facilitate team formation across different stakeholder groups through our activities, capturing inspirational stories and encouraging teams to reflect and share their insights about cross-sector collaboration. (3) Raise awareness of regional opportunities and inspire work in priority areas including Natural Resources & Hazards, Metro Data Science, Health & Medicine, Data-Enabled Discovery & Learning, Data Sharing, Cloud Computing, and Responsible Data Science. (4) Support data science education and workforce development. Recognizing that a diverse, multi-faceted workforce is key to addressing current scientific and societal challenges, we will continue to expand our portfolio of education and workforce development efforts, including a focus on Train-the-Trainer sessions, Pedagogy and Practice, Data Science for Social Good and the Data Science Corps, Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data, and institutional change -- providing a platform for broadening participation in data science. Core to our progress in Programmatic Activities, Socio-Technical Shared Resources and Services, and Education and Workforce Development Activities will be a coordinated evaluation, opportunities for scaling regional successes to the national network of Big Data Hubs, and strategic efforts for Hub sustainability including the development of external funding streams. These efforts will be designed to enable community input and to strengthen channels for ongoing dialogue.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
