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.