An Act designating the New Jersey Big Data Alliance as the State's advanced cyberinfrastructure consortium, and supplementing Title 52 of the Revised Statutes.

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

1. a. The New Jersey Big Data Alliance is designated as the State's advanced cyberinfrastructure consortium. The purpose of the consortium shall be to encourage State government, academia, and industry to address, in a strategic and coordinated manner, the significant and immediate challenges posed by the proliferation of big data sources and the resultant deluge of digital data. Major initiatives shall include, but not be limited to: (1) encouraging the creation of joint education programs, including the establishment of a common curriculum for data sciences and the creation of coordinated certificates, workforce training, and outreach programs; (2) promoting inter-university research collaborations; (3) catalyzing interaction with national and international data consortiums, such as the National Consortium for Data Science; (4) organizing events that promote big data education and collaborating across State government, academia, and industry; (5) collaborating with the Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute and the Office of Information Technology to develop an advanced cyberinfrastructure plan for the State; and (6) collaborating with the Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute on the development of a shared data cloud that integrates data infrastructure, hosted data, and data analytics.

b. The New Jersey Big Data Alliance shall consist of the following members: Rutgers, the State University; Princeton University; New Jersey Institute of Technology; Rowan University; the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey; Kean University; and the Stevens Institute of Technology. The New Jersey Big Data Alliance shall determine the appropriate size of its membership and admit future members as the alliance deems appropriate.

c. As used in this section:

"Big data" means high volume information assets, high velocity information assets, high variety information assets, or all three, that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery, and process optimization.

The term "cyberinfrastructure" includes, but is not limited to, data networks, computational facilities, computing resources, large data sets, specialized software applications, information technology usage improvements, and the human expertise necessary to develop and manage such resources.

2. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

This bill designates the New Jersey Big Data Alliance as the State's advanced cyberinfrastructure consortium.

Under the bill, the purpose of the consortium is to encourage State government, academia, and industry to address, in a strategic and coordinated manner, the significant and immediate challenges posed by the proliferation of big data sources and the resultant deluge of digital data. Major initiatives are to include, but not be limited to: (1) encouraging the creation of joint education programs, including the establishment of a common curriculum for data sciences and the creation of coordinated certificate, workforce training, and outreach programs; (2) promoting inter-university research collaborations; (3) catalyzing interaction with national and international data consortiums, such as the National Consortium for Data Science; (4) organizing events that promote big data education and collaboration across government, academia, and industry; (5) collaborating with the Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute and the Office of Information Technology to develop an advanced cyberinfrastructure plan for the State; and (6) collaborating with the Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute on the development of a shared data cloud that integrates data infrastructure, hosted data, and data analytics.

Under the bill, the New Jersey Big Data Alliance is to consist of the following members: Rutgers, the State University; Princeton University; New Jersey Institute of Technology; Rowan University; the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey; Kean University; and the Stevens Institute of Technology. The bill provides that the New Jersey Big Data Alliance is to determine the appropriate size of its membership and admit future members as the alliance deems appropriate.

Under the bill, "big data" means high volume information assets, high velocity information assets, high variety information assets, or all three, that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery, and process optimization. The term "cyberinfrastructure" includes, but is not limited to, data networks, computational facilities, computing resources, large data sets, specialized software applications, information technology usage improvements, and the human expertise necessary to develop and manage such resources.

The New Jersey Big Data Alliance, Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute, and the Office of Information Technology are to collaborate to create an advanced cyberinfrastructure plan that will consist of, among other things, a shared data cloud that integrates data infrastructure, hosted data, and data analytics. An advanced cyberinfrastructure allows businesses, researchers, and students, via a network backbone, to connect with supercomputers and data repositories from their desktops to analyze and store large, complex data sets. The ability to analyze and store large, complex data sets is key to achieving breakthroughs in finance, mathematics, medicine, and other applied sciences that would not otherwise be possible through the use of traditional computational, data management, and software tools.