Governor Deval Patrick is headlining the launch of hack/reduce, Boston’s
Big Data hacker space, tonight. hack/reduce is a unique collaboration
between industry, government, academia and venture capital that will
help Boston foster the talent and technologies necessary to galvanize
the Bay State’s leadership in the Big Data sector.
“To lead in the Big Data revolution, Massachusetts is cultivating the
best talent, the most cutting-edge technology, and the best environment
for spurring future innovation,” said Governor Patrick. “This launch
builds on our investments in the innovation industries that have
positioned Massachusetts as a global hub for innovation.”
hack/reduce provides the community with access to high performance
computing clusters, petabyte data sets and training from the best
academic and technology leaders in Boston. Since opening its membership
application process last month, hack/reduce has received more than 50
membership applications for Contributors and Resident Hackers from
around the world. One of the first Resident Hackers will be sqrrl,
a start-up company spun out of the National Security Agency (NSA), which
is addressing Big Data security. And one of the first projects at
hack/reduce will be analyzing massive amounts of traffic data to solve
the biggest congestion issues in Massachusetts.
“hack/reduce is about engagement, education and innovation,” explains
Chris Lynch, co-founder of hack/reduce and Partner at Atlas Venture.
“Boston is a hot bed of activity in the Big Data space. We are excited
to open the doors and start making things happen; and we’re extremely
fortunate to have the support of Governor Patrick, the state of
Massachusetts and our industry, academic and venture capital partners.”
In addition to Resident Hackers and Big Data projects, hack/reduce will
host educational events for the community, as well as hack/reduce Big
Data hackathons. Hackathons are full-day programming marathons for Big
Data software developers to focus on solving a singular problem by
delving into a specific large data set. The first hack/reduce hackathon
to be held at the hack/reduce space will be on Saturday, November 17,
2012.
“Hackathons get the community involved and engaged in mining interesting
and useful information from large data sets,” said Frederic Lalonde,
co-founder of hack/reduce and founder and CEO of Big Data travel company
Hopper. “They are fun and exciting, and some of the best programmers in
Boston will be involved. We expect to drive deep insights into
real-world issues and foster advancements in the science and technology
of Big Data.”
hack/reduce is a 501(c)(3) non-profit created to cultivate a community
of Big Data experts in Boston. It is supported by the State of
Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative; industry
leaders Dell, EMC, Go-Grid, Google and Microsoft; venture capital firms
Atlas Venture, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners,
Brightspark Capital, Charles River Ventures, Matrix Partners and North
Bridge Venture Partners; and in partnership with MIT, Harvard and Yale.
About hack/reduce
hack/reduce is Boston’s big data hacker space. A 501(c)(3) non-profit,
hack/reduce provides the community of students, data scientists,
industry professionals, and other enthusiasts the space and the
resources – intense compute power, large data sets, and subject matter
experts – that are critical for making new big data discoveries. A key
element of Governor Patrick’s Mass Big Data Initiative, it is supported
by the Mass Tech Collaborative, along with many of Greater Boston’s
venture capital and technology leaders, with the goal of cultivating a
critical mass of Big Data talent and innovation in Greater Boston. Visit www.hackreduce.org.