Zach Goldstein: The specific program that we hope to make a big difference. JIm Flyzik: Okay. Zach Goldstein: It's the newest thing we've got and I'm so glad that Tom at NASA talked about his stovepipes, and Gene at GSA talked about the use of our data by the climate community. Because when you take those two ideas and you put them together, combined with an agency that spends a lot of money on big data but primarily to tell people when to run and how to stay safe, you end up having -- excuse the pun -- a perfect storm. JIm Flyzik: Yeah. Right. Zach Goldstein: How do we do this? How do we only -- Because of the dynamic that Tom just described about data being in silos and generating masses amounts of data, but for a very specific use doing research and development super computer runs. The data stays where it is, but we have this big opportunity, if you can expose that data to the outside world, but that's not free. JIm Flyzik: Right. Zach Goldstein: What we're talking about is unique business models. We have a request for information where we're seeking partners with innovative ideas that can work with NOAA, to establish a means for extracting all of this valuable data from our stove pipes, exposing it to those who can make money on it, and generate jobs, innovative uses, creative uses, and do it in such a way that the data's available rapidly, scale able, and it's in the cloud. All of that impacting our mission critical operations. The initiative is still in its infancy. We have the RFI-Out. We believe this partnership could allow our vast volumes to be put in the cloud and co-located with analytical resources that others can access. The idea behind it being a new business model is that used to be self-sustaining. JIm Flyzik: Right. Zach Goldstein: So that those who make money on the data can fund the extraction, access, and all of the other things that need to be done to the data, to make money on the data, and all doing that without raising our cost. Still, our commitment though is that if the data is there in its native form and it's available for free, that part would remain so. We're not talking about changing the way we distribute our information today. What we're talking about is coming up with a mechanism to drive the American economy and the uses that other people have eluded to, but without distracting us from our main mission. JIm Flyzik: Terrific.
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