Section 6H: Big Data Innovation and Workforce Fund
Section 6H. There shall be established and set up on the books of the corporation a Big Data Innovation and Workforce Fund. There shall be credited to the fund the proceeds of any bonds or notes of the commonwealth issued for the purpose of the fund and any appropriations designated by the general court. The corporation shall hold the fund in an account separate from other funds, including other funds established under this chapter. Amounts credited to the fund shall be available for expenditure by the corporation without further appropriation for all activities consistent with this section and which support the purposes specified in this section as the corporation may determine are appropriate including, without limitation, grants, contracts and loans. Amounts credited to the fund shall be expended or applied only with the approval of the executive director of the corporation upon consultation with the director of the John Adams Innovation Institute. Amounts credited to the fund shall be used to promote the use of big data, open data and analytics by including, but not limited to: (i) bringing together academia, industry, public sector and private sector organizations to make recommendations regarding how to educate and prepare a workforce for careers in big data including, but not limited to, through continuing education programs, advanced degree programs and community college and science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, courses to close the skills gap; (ii) providing access to tools and technology to enable academia and industry to analyze open data sets to help identify and solve problems in transportation, public health, energy and other areas of public policy concern and to support economic development; (iii) providing challenge grants that enable departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the commonwealth that utilize big data to solve public policy concerns and to support economic development; and (iv) supporting the development of big data at the Venture Development Center at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. The corporation shall support efforts to develop policies and guidelines to safeguard personally identifiable information.