BD Hubs: Collaborative Proposal: Midwest: Midwest Big Data Hub: Building Communities to Harness the Data Revolution

The Midwest Big Data Hub (MBDH) is a network of regional institutions created to facilitate collection, management, and use of complex information, creating active partnerships of experts and resources to address issues relevant to life in the Midwest.

MBDH aims to help member organizations working in Big Data coordinate current activities and launch new collaborative projects. The project includes stakeholders in the twelve states of the Midwest Census region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) and leading regional universities that support hundreds of researchers, technologists, and students. The current award involves a collaboration among five academic sites (Indiana University, Iowa State University, UIUC/NCSA, the University of Michigan, the University of North Dakota, and the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities) and focuses on priority areas that are both important to the region and can also be influential on the national stage: Agriculture; Water Quality; Advanced Materials and Manufacturing; Health and Biomedicine; and Smart, Connected, and Resilient Communities. 

This hub provides a basis for collaboration and outreach that increases the potential for benefitting society. Integrative rings connect all spokes and are organized around themes of data sciences, tools, and services needed to collect, store, link, serve, and analyze complex data collections, and educational activities to advance the knowledge base and train a new workforce in the practice and use of data science and services. Groups across the region are naturally incentivized to work together as they all realize that the challenges they face are larger than any single group, institution, state, or region can address alone.