Interview between Dell and Presidio Graduate School

Presidio Graduate School President and CEO William Shutkin interviews with Dell EIR Ingrid Vanderveldt about creating a unique sustainability education program.

Transcript:

Ingrid Vanderveldt: This is Ingrid Vanderveldt. You are on the Road with IV with the Dell Entrepreneur in Residence campaign here at South by Southwest Eco. We are talking to William Shutkin, the President and CEO of Presidio Graduate School. Welcome.

William Shutkin: Thanks, Ingrid. Great to be here.

Ingrid Vanderveldt: Good to see you. Tell us a little bit about the Presidio School. What makes you guys so special?

William Shutkin: We're among the first and leading sustainability graduate schools in the world. In fact the Huffington Post ranked us the number one green MBA program in the world ahead of Michigan and Stanford and Yale. We're eight years old. We have about 500 alumni, about 250 students currently enrolled and we offer two degrees, a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Public Administration, as well as executive end.

Ingrid Vanderveldt: That is really impressive to get those kind of rankings.

William Shutkin: Thank you.

Ingrid Vanderveldt: What do you think has been critical to your success?

William Shutkin: Being based in San Francisco has helped. The brand of San Francisco in terms of attracting the up and coming entrepreneur has helped us a lot. We're actually based in the Presidio ,which is a great experiment in green urban living, that's a public-private partnership, a national park and home to some of the most innovative technology companies and non-profits in the country.

Ingrid Vanderveldt: Speaking of technology and being in the middle of all of that, I'm really curious from a technology standpoint, if you have, as you're really promoting sustainability in education, have you seen any unique applications of technology that have really moved the industry forward?

William Shutkin: There's a host. In fact, the school is focused in a variety of ways on the intersection of technology and sustainability. For example, we're very interested as a matter of our research in the evolution of the so-called smart city model for urban development and how OEMs, technology companies like Cisco, and Hewlett Packard and Siemens can deliver their technology to make cities smarter and greener, to improve the quality of life and affordability of cities by way of technology. Smart meters and smart cars, electric vehicles, house that are powered by carbon free electric, this is part of a smart city framework between a collection of technologies embedded in public policy and entrepreneurship making our communities greener and better.

Ingrid Vanderveldt: If somebody wants to learn more about those smart cities, could they plug into the Presidio Graduate School and learn more about that?

William Shutkin: They could, and our curriculum and many of the big companies also are promoting their smart city programs.

Ingrid Vanderveldt: Interesting. Thank you very much, William. Nice to see you.

William Shutkin: Thank you, Ingrid. Great.

Ingrid Vanderveldt: Appreciate it.

Learn more about Presidio on our blog: www.presidioedu.org/blog