The Digital, Analytics, Technology and Automation (DATA) Initiative is a cross-disciplinary, innovative hub of thought leadership committed to researching, developing and sharing new knowledge and approaches for transforming organizations into data-driven businesses and helping them to manage seamless transitions between the natural and virtual worlds. Hosted by the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, DATA pursues a holistic model of integrating cutting-edge research and education in the domain of data-driven and technology-enabled analytics and automation. This initiative brings together all of the University’s colleges and embraces interdisciplinary collaboration as a core tenet— thus enabling a generation of intellectual leadership in the areas of digital convergence. As an industry-academic collaborative, DATA connects academic scholars and industry leaders to harness the strong feedback loops between research, scholarship and meaningful connections with industry practice, leading to new research insights and practical applications. Such collaboration also informs innovative curriculum design and development, involving new educational programming with a strong experiential component and industry engagement opportunities.