Business
USC Hosts Forum on Renewable Energy
By Jennifer Cooke on April 2, 2009 2:46 PM
- MBA students and panelists network before the event.
USC’s MBA chapter of Net Impact sponsored the second annual AlterEnergy forum, a panel discussion about challenges facing the energy industry, held last month in Popovich Hall.
Net Impact is an international nonprofit whose mission is to make a positive impact on society by growing leaders who use business to improve the world.
“There is a high cost associated with our dependence on foreign energy,” said Andrew Choi, president of Net Impact at the USC Marshall School of Business. “It is vital for us to educate future business leaders and the public regarding renewable energy.”
The event was intended to raise awareness about current issues and opportunities facing the firms represented by members of the panel as well as those facing the energy industry collectively.
Panelists included Kevin Christy, chief operations officer of Axio Power; Mike Marelli, director of origination and analysis at Southern California Edison; Andrew Wang from Solar Reserve; and Jordan Newman, director of project finance at Tioga Energy (a USC Marshall alum); and Zelinda Welch, market analyst at Sharp.
Mark Bernstein, managing director of USC’s Energy Institute and a visiting faculty of political science at USC, moderated the discussion, which touched on the impact of the financial crisis on funding and growth, education of consumers about solar power and various technologies and approaches to clean energy.
A Q&A session and networking event with students followed the discussion.
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Los Angeles Times featured the USC Rossier School’s centennial gala, which took place February 1. USC President Steven B. Sample was honored with the Global Education Leadership Award, and USC alumna Cindy McCain was honored with the Dean’s Alumni Achievement Award. “It’s rare for someone who’s lived as long as I have in politics with my husband to be speechless, but I truly am,” McCain said. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Sample, recounting his work in raising USC’s stature globally, being open to international students, and understanding USC’s position in Los Angeles as “the gateway to Asia and Latin America.” Nearly 350 people attended the event, including Sen. John McCain; Ed Roski, chairman of the USC Board of Trustees; Barbara and Roger Rossier, for whom the Rossier School is named; John Katzman, Princeton Review founder and benefactor of an endowed chair at the Rossier School; and alumni and longtime USC supporters Debbie and J. Terrence Lanni and Verna Dauterive.
The Chronicle of Higher Education included USC in a chart on international fundraising by higher education institutions. USC has received $2.9 million from international philanthropic funds, and is estimated to have more than 6,000 foreign alumni, the story stated.
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured Paul Debevec of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, who won an Academy Award for co-creating a light stage capture device and image-based facial rendering system that has been used in movies like “Avatar.” The award will be presented at a formal dinner on February 20, the story noted. Asked whether the technology could be applied to education, Debevec said: “Absolutely, yes. Maybe there’s a little rendering of a chemistry professor at the side of the screen who smiles at you when you get the question right and frowns when you get the question wrong. [In perhaps 10 years] that computer might, through its Web cam, look back at you, see where you’re looking on the screen, see how engaged you are, and actually adapt itself to trying to teach you in the way that it seems to be working the best. Just like one-on-one tutoring.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured linguist Paul Frommer of the USC Marshall School, who created the language Na’vi for the Golden Globe-winning movie “Avatar.” “Doing this kind of work as an academic is not going to advance your research reputation. It’s not going to result in publications in peer-reviewed journals,” Frommer said. “But it just may push the world forward in the way it’s turning on young people to the wonders of language”
Los Angeles Times reported that the 22nd annual USC Libraries Scripter Award was given to “Up in the Air” novelist Walter Kirn and to USC alumnus Jason Reitman and Shelton Turner, who adapted Kirn’s book for the screen. Los Angeles Times ran a second story about the Scripter Award.
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