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Executive Education Holds First TelePresence Session

July 08, 2010

NBC executives at 30 Rock and Moore students in Columbia meet via high-def technology.

Executive Education at the Darla Moore School of Business took its first steps toward real-time, interactive global education with its first live session in the school’s new Telepresence studio classroom. The session was held with NBC executives via their TelePresence in New York City on April 12.

The Telepresence studio is a collaboration with Cisco, a worldwide leader in Internet networking technology.

“We have been working to take the ‘distance’ out of ‘distance learning’ and the ‘remote’ out of ‘remote learner’ by creating a very engaging and connected learning experience model that we might call ‘connected learning,’” said Ray Smith, associate dean of executive education at the Darla Moore School of Business.

The session involved students from Professor Tim Carroll’s Organization Design class, who presented NBC executives the findings and recommendations from Action Learning projects that they have been working on for NBC Universal.

“Our MHR students are working with real executives on real projects that will have real impact. That learning experience is very powerful, and TelePresence enables it to happen,” said Carroll.

“It is our intention to create a virtual live classroom experience no matter where you are on the planet, whether in South Carolina or in southern Asia,” said Smith. “In this environment, participants will feel that they are in the same class with others at locations around the world – learning together, talking with and seeing each other, and led by faculty from our school and partner schools to create connections between people, ideas, practice, cultures and experience.”

Written by Gail Crouch