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Big data partnerships form SEEDCorn

A Midwest data hub has been created to solve community challenges by using big data.

Principle investigator Ed Seidel, with the University of Illinois, tells Brownfield the Midwest hub is called SEED Corn, or Sustainable Enabling Environment for Data Collaboration.  “We want to develop the ability for communities to come together around big data to help solve problems that are important for not only science, but for society.”

He says food, water, energy and digital agriculture are a few of the spokes where the hub will concentrate efforts and try to better understand issues with big data.  “We’re trying to be able to create both the communities of experts that can bring together the knowledge on how to bring this data together and how to make it accessible and understandable and how to use it for practical purposes like farming, and then also the different groups that have the data.”

The University of Michigan, Iowa State University, Indiana University, the University of North Dakota and the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign are the leading the project with more than 100 other private/public partners.

The Midwest Big Data Hub is one of four regional hubs created to address regional issues with big data.

AUDIO: Interview with Midwest Data Hub coordinators