With concerns galore from the US tech industry about a `big data' skills gap, Jeremy Burton - EMC's VP of product operations - said in his keynote speech at Oracle OpenWorld on Monday that the skills gap in data-analysis education and training needs to be filled --- a concern which was reverberated in a Wednesday report by non-profit TechAmerica Foundation's Big Data Commission.

While Burton projected that the next five decades will chiefly be all about data science, the Big Data Commission report highlighted that, for meeting its assurance of "big data" - that is, massive amounts of data used by organizations for analyzing trends and working out strategies -, the federal government will have to focus on the training of the workforce.

Going by the recommendations put forth in the report, an IT Leadership Academy should be set up for promoting data analysis-related skills, as well as for training facilities to incorporating Big Data understanding into the technology curriculum.

In addition, the report also recommended that chief data officers should be appointed by companies and government departments to shoulder the responsibility of managing and understanding data streams both within the organization and outside.

Meanwhile, pointing out that the "commercial, off-the-shelf technology" has become extremely "robust," the commission's co-chairman Steven Mills said that though federal agencies may have to work with private companies, they will not have to "to plow money into pure research in order to achieve results" because of the availability of cheaper, already developed technology.