During my summer at Columbia Business School, I worked on the Climate Curriculum Initiative with Professor Bruce Usher and Ivy Hatsengate. The goal of the initiative is to provide business schools with a way to share information, allowing them to incorporate climate change topics into their curriculums. The primary method of doing this is through an online platform where faculty members can upload syllabi, lecture notes, and other materials. These materials can then be used so that faculty can see what is being done at other schools and can use that to incorporate similar topics into their courses. This fits with CBS's mission of “educating and developing leaders and builders of enterprises”, as curriculum improvements, like those in the increasingly important topic of climate change, helps to ensure the school is fully preparing its students for leadership in their future roles and industries.

In executing the market research for the Climate Curriculum Initiative, some of the key takeaways I learned from the core Strategy and Marketing courses came in handy. Thinking about the positioning and branding for our intended platform helped me to ask pointed questions to help determine overlap or similarities between the Climate Curriculum Initiative and the other organizations I researched. Approaching the conversations with the specific intent of determining the positioning and branding of the other organizations helped to expedite the information-gathering process. Some of the lessons from the Leaders' Voice course also helped me to run these meetings effectively. While I do not have much experience in giving presentations that are non-technical in nature, the practice and lessons I learned from that course helped me to be more prepared and confident in the meetings with the other organizations, and I was able to effectively lead the discussions.

One of the challenges I faced was around the development of the platform for information sharing. The work involved market research into what existing curriculum-sharing is being done, but the development of the platform itself was more open-ended. Not having a tech background made determination of the platform design and path forward a challenge. One of the ways I overcame this was by researching other similar platforms and using the market research component of the project to inform best practices regarding the platform. Another way in which I addressed this obstacle was by splitting up tasks with the other intern — Dan focused on some of the platform pieces while I focused on the market research. Working with the third intern, Giorgia, helped me to articulate the path forward and put the necessary information into a thorough presentation. Lastly, using my project management experience ended up helping me to develop a clear path forward once I had a better understanding of the platform and what our goals were for it.

One of the things I learned from this experience was the bigger picture of climate solutions than what I had seen before. In my engineering role prior to coming to Columbia Business School, I was very focused on one tiny aspect of refineries and plants. Similarly, it can be easy to fixate on one aspect of climate change and necessary climate solutions, like climate technology. However, understanding the bigger picture — such as the need to educate students on climate change to ensure future leaders are informed and the importance of climate policy in encouraging new technologies or discouraging emissions — is key. Working on this project and discussing similar organizations helped me to learn about various aspects of research and education that are part of the climate change solution. On a more specific note, working on the platform for the initiative gave me some insights into the tech industry that I had not seen before.