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West Virginia University West Virginia Public Education Collaborative

2021 Focus Forward

Focus Forward: Beyond the Cloud

West Virginia is poised to become the epicenter of a multibillion-dollar expansion of our nation’s private weather industry.

Valued at $7 billion and growing at a rate of 10-15% each year, there’s great opportunity in the private sector to develop cutting-edge technologies, products and services to solve today’s growing weather challenges and meet consumers’ wants and needs. 

Whether you're an entrepreneur, cloud provider, stock market investor, techie, researcher, farmer or municipality in West Virginia or around the world, the opportunities for entrepreneurial ideas and commercialization ventures are endless.

Discover how to leverage unparalleled data sets and world-leading supercomputing resources through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the I-79 Technology Park in Fairmont, West Virginia. The combination of advanced infrastructure, state-of-the-art resources and strategic partnerships is unmatched worldwide.

“If we can all lean in and get excited about this, there is no way to stop us." Brad D. Smith

Join tech experts, cloud providers and thought leaders in the Focus Forward: Beyond the Cloud event series as we explore what’s beyond the cloud and how the NOAA Big Data Program offers promise and potential in West Virginia for decades to come. Be part of the transformation.

Learn more in this State Journal op-ed

Focus Forward:
Beyond the Cloud Videos

West Virginia is poised to become the epicenter of a multibillion-dollar expansion of our nation’s private weather industry. Revisit past Focus Forward events and discover how you can be part of the transformation. 

Focus Forward:
Beyond the Cloud Part I

March 17th, 2021

Focus Forward:
Beyond the Cloud Part II

April 22nd, 2021

Focus Forward
Design Thinking Workshop

April 22nd, 2021

Focus Forward: Beyond the Cloud Agenda

Welcome: Opportunities beyond the cloud in West Virginia

10 a.m.

Donna Peduto, Executive Director, West Virginia Public Education Collaborative
Jerome A. Gilbert, President, Marshall University
Michael Graney, Deputy Secretary, WV Department of Commerce

Keynote: Forecasting your startup future in weather data

10:20 a.m.

Craig McLean, Acting Chief Scientist and Assistant Administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, NOAA

Industry Panel: Gauging your startup barometer

10:50 a.m.

Moderated by Kelly Wright, Director, Technology Partnerships Office, NOAA
Carling Hay, Lead Climate Scientist, risQ
Ed Kearns, Chief Data Officer, FirstStreet Foundation
Kian Mirshahi, Founder and CEO, Mayday.ai

Reaching beyond the cloud

11:50 a.m.

Brad Price, Assistant Professor, Chambers College of Business and Economics, West Virginia University

Jen Giovannitti, President, Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation

Focus Forward: Design thinking workshop

12 p.m.

NOTE: A separate link will be provided to attend the workshop. Registrants will receive an email before the event with further instructions.

Tricia Ball, Associate Director, Innovating for Impact Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (iCenter), Marshall University
Ben Eng, Co-Founding Director, Innovating for Impact Center for Entrepreneurship
and Business Innovation (iCenter), Marshall University
Doug Perry, Deputy Chief Information Officer, NOAA

Key Takeaways

Focus Forward: Beyond the Cloud Part II

  • The projected economic expansion of the commercial climate and weather sector could be orders of magnitude bigger than originally projected.
  • There is real potential to add a new line of business to companies that have historically supported the coal, oil, and gas industry. 
  • A growing majority of international investment dollars are being targeted for this industry expansion.  The unique set of NOAA assets in West Virginia has put the state on the radar of these investors.
  • The unique approach West Virginia has taken to proactively educate its population on the opportunities associated with climate and weather expansion has increased the potential for economic growth tenfold. 
  • As the major cloud service providers bring more datasets online entrepreneurial growth is expected to be exponential resulting in several billion dollars within a few years.
  • No other region has the growth potential currently possible in central Appalachia since the 1960s and Silicon Valley.
  • The convergences of the NOAA Big Data initiative and the efforts to make West Virginia a “start-up” state is a “once in a lifetime” opportunity for transformation.
    West Virginia has never been positioned so well to competitively participate in the multibillion-dollar growth of a knowledge sector expansion until now.       
  • West Virginia is concocting the ideal recipe of business, capital and product to help attract more diverse industry leaders and innovators to the State. 
  • All of NOAA's datasets have untapped potential because they can be viewed and used by new audiences and communities. We must consider things that may not immediately be obvious. This is what will generate innovation.
  • There’s opportunity to use NOAA's technology and datasets today to impact what the world will look like 100 years from now. 
  • When handling a triple helix of different languages spoken among government, academia/science and business/entrepreneurs, the translator needs to be economically and analytically minded to progress forward.
  • It’s important to tap into the passion and drive of researchers and problem solvers who seek to tackle impending weather and climate challenges. Once they are committed to finding and solving a problem, then we can help provide the entrepreneurial and business skills to commercialize their innovations.
  • The key to building successful businesses, companies or innovative products relies on the intersection of skillsets and expertise. The need to build a team and combine skillsets is vital to success. 

What’s Beyond the Cloud in West Virginia?

10 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.

Welcome and introduction by Dr. E. Gordon Gee, President, West Virginia University

Brad D. Smith, Executive Chairman of Intuit, Chairman of Nordstrom’s Board of Directors, SurveyMonkey board member, co-founder of Wing 2 Wing Foundation.

Get on Our Radar: NOAA Big Data Program

10:45 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Introduction by Jim Estep, President and CEO of the High Technology Foundation

Zach Goldstein, Chief Information Officer, NOAA
Jonathan O’Neil, Director, Big Data Program, NOAA

Armchair Discussion: How Amazon and Microsoft can augment your ideas to reality

11:30 a.m. Brad chats with AWS's Zac Flamig
12 p.m. Brad chats with Microsoft's Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño

Brad D. Smith, Executive Chairman of Intuit, Chairman of Nordstrom’s Board of Directors, SurveyMonkey board member, co-founder of Wing 2 Wing Foundation.
Zac Flamig, Tech Lead, Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative, AWS
Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño, Principal Scientist, Microsoft “AI for Earth”

Forecast our Future: Be part of the Global Transformation

12:30 p.m. - 1 p.m.

Jen Giovannitti, President, Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
Doug Perry, Deputy Chief Information Officer, NOAA

Key Takeaways

West Virginia’s role in seizing opportunities, addressing challenges

  • West Virginia can become a leader in solving the world’s growing climate and weather challenges thanks to the resources, talent and support from government, NOAA, AWS, Microsoft and others. 
  • There are immense entrepreneurial opportunities in the private weather sector and big data analytics (both multibillion-dollar, growing industries). We just need to combine these assets and collaborate to drive innovation and growth.
  • Leveraging the NOAA Big Data Program to generate startups will help West Virginia attract new financial resources that can drive economic growth.  
  • Forging diverse, interdisciplinary communities that include academia, business, government, entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers will drive opportunity.
  • Broadband is the most critical equity issue today, and the key to a successful future for tomorrow. 
  • Until all K-20 students and workers have access to the tools and technology that will meet the demands of today’s digital workforce, growth will only occur in certain parts of the state.

The value of big data analytics

  • Data is our greatest piece of intellectual property. There are limitless ways of creating value from data.
  • Demystifying the cloud and big data is essential to enable everyday people to accomplish great things. 
  • To solve our world’s greatest challenges, data (like NOAA’s) must be publicly accessible.

Educational skillsets and talent

  • A list of degrees is not necessary to succeed. It only takes curiosity and a thirst for knowledge to gain the skills needed to create impact, devise innovative solutions or launch startups. 
  • Students' depth of knowledge is important, but acquiring specific skills are crucial. 
  • It’s important to educate West Virginia students about these opportunities at a young age if they want to develop the best skillsets to succeed in fields like data analytics or computational science. 
  • The cloud allows people to live and work where they choose. West Virginia can both retain people and attract new businesses and talent based on West Virginia’s unique supercomputing assets, resources and partnerships.

Additional Articles and Resources

NOAA Information

Articles

Big Data

About Focus Forward

Led by the West Virginia Public Education Collaborative, Focus Forward brings together business, government and education leaders to explore forward thinking ideas and how they can be adapted in West Virginia to help strengthen its workforce and economy in a rapidly evolving world.

Building on past events that focused on future jobs impacted by artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data, Focus Forward: Beyond the Cloud includes a series of events – including hackathons, design thinking workshops and technical training sessions – for researchers, students and entrepreneurs to engage in using NOAA data and to discover groundbreaking opportunities in cloud solutions and public data.

West Virginia Public Education Collaborative
West Virginia University
Marshall University
Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
High Technology Foundation
Vantage Ventures