Drupal, Sustainability, and MIT

I would like to invite the Sustainability Community to Dries Buytaert's lecture at the Stata Center on Monday, October 26, 5-7pm. Last year Dries was named one of Technology Review's Young Innovators Under 35 for his work in creating Drupal, the website platform that we use to run the Sustainability website. Drupal is taking strong hold at MIT, and extraordinary sites are being run with it (CEE, Media Lab, Humanities), with more due soon (Dean of Undergraduate Education, IS&T). I've been working with Drupal for the last two years or so, and have been an almost obsessive admirer from the start. I think Drupal will prove to be a seminal piece of software. But not because it's free or powerful, a booming business in both content and code, or because it's difficulty is perfectly balanced with its rewards.  It is revolutionary because of its capacity to build new communities. Not coincidentally, this is what sustainability requires. And to be perfectly frank, so does MIT. New communities developing new ideas in new ways.

I'm the first to admit that the sustainability website, despite the extraordinary work its student members are doing out in the real world, doesn't reflect their work. Drupal isn't Blogger. It's not suited to a one-man band, yet there's still a gap between its power and its ease of use. The gap has to close before the revolution can begin. Which brings us back to Dries' lecture, and my hope that you will be able to join us. Many web developers from MIT, Harvard and other area schools will be there; an intrepid pair will even be driving down from Montreal. I would likely go as far for the opportunity to meet Dries. But what Drupal, sustainability, and MIT most need are people with something to say, which is why I hope you will join us on Monday.

Ed Carlevale
Webmaster, Sustainability@MIT