Held October 2, 2012

We are in the midst of a "big data" explosion, in volume and velocity. The challenges for federal agencies, industry, and other organizations are to figure out how to manage and analyze big data to create value, increase accurate predictions, and provide approaches that drive sound decision making.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Volpe Center and the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, co-hosted a roundtable of experts to discuss the topic and found that with these great challenges, new insights and opportunities emerge—new technologies and processes are being considered, industry trends and best practices are being reviewed, and deep data is waiting to be mined. It is projected that analyzing big data will become a key basis of competition, enabling productivity, growth, and innovation as long as the right policies and enablers are in place.

Significant workforce challenges lie ahead as well. A workforce with deep analytical experience will be needed and managers will need to become data literate. Those who figure out how to unite domain expertise with data science will move to the forefront.