Columbia University Sustainability Management "Living on the Edge" Capstone Midterm Briefing

The Capstone Workshop is the final degree requirement of Columbia University’s Master of Science in Sustainability Management program. The workshop serves as culminating educational experience for the students in the program to apply  practical skills and analytical knowledge learned through the program's curriculum into an applied project, giving students hands-on managerial experience. [1]

For this semester, my Capstone workshop group project called, “Living on the Edge,” works with integrating renewable resource strategies in Mexico’s urban periphery.  Our clients, or “partners” (as our advisor, Lynnette Widder, likes to call them) are three Ashoka Foundation for Public Innovation Fellows in Mexico. Each partner’s organization focuses on a different scale of resource extraction and social enterprise in the context of the urban periphery:[2]

1.   Isla Urbana: Rainwater catchment and low water-use appliances at the scale of the individual house or group or house

2.   Sistema Biobolsa: biogas and fertilizer production for groups of small holders of farm animals;

3.   Yansa: Wind energy production and distribution as the engine for social enterprise.

Our Capstone group’s mission is to assist three entrepreneurial NGO’s in Mexico to empower transitioning peri-urban communities through the appropriate use of sustainable alternative technologies.[3] Below is a preview of the work that we have done so far-- through our Capstone group’s midterm briefing last March 12, 2013.

Living on the Edge Capstone Midterm by esperanzagarcia86

Saami Sabiti presenting "Living on the Edge" Midterm briefing

"Living on the Edgers" (left to right): Joe Persaud, Steve Burke, Henry Gordon-Smith, Esperanza Garcia, Melisa Pernalete, Adriana Kliegman, Melissa Boo, Lynnette Widder (advisor), Derrek Clarke, Saami Sabiti, Challey Comer

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[1] Dubov, Alyssa. "Sustainability Management Students Present Innovative Solutions to Clients’ Challenges." State of the Planet: Blogs from the Earth Institute. Earth Institute, 25 Apr. 2012. Web. Apr. 2013. .

[2] "Integrative Workshop in Sustainability Management Master of Science in Sustainability Management." Columbia University Earth Institute and School of Continuin Education, Spring 2013.

[3] "Columbia University Sustainability Management Living on the Edge Capstone Midterm." Columbia University Earth Institute and School of Continuin Education, n.d. Web. Apr. 2013. .