Cyclist plans stop at Rutgers Business School-New Brunswick as he pedals around the world with messages about sustainability and a foundation dedicated to providing free educational materials on technology

There is, for starters, the elaborate underground geothermal system that will be used to heat and cool the new Rutgers Business School building, which is expected to be completed in time for the fall semester. The campus is also home to two large solar facilities that provide more than half of the power requirements on campus. 

Cyclist Max Peer is scheduled to ride onto the campus June 25 as part of a 35,000-mile trip to raise awareness about sustainability and the work of the Denmark-based Interaction Design Foundation. The journey, which is also being called the Share the Knowledge Tour, is expected to take Peer four years to complete.

"He's passionate about making a difference," said John Baxter, who manages SAP's university alliances in Canada and the Eastern part of the U.S., including one with Rutgers Business School, which also has a campus in Newark.

The bike ride of all bike rides is being sponsored by SAP in partnership with Interaction Design Foundation. The foundation is a not-for-profit online publisher of free educational material. Its goal is to spread knowledge about technology design in hopes of making everything from websites to electronic appliances more people friendly and easier to use.

The foundation's educational material is created from a combination of academic thought leaders and industry giants such as Google.

Peer, a former sound engineer turned activist on a bike, has gone on previous rides on behalf of non-government organizations. In addition to education and other causes, the Austrian-born cyclist has supported clearing landmines from agricultural areas to help create sustainable land for farmers in Southeast Asia.

On his way to Rutgers from Florida, Peer has made stops to speak about IDF and SAP at Georgia Southern University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical, Virginia Commonwealth and Towson. He also has a stop planned at SAP's U.S. headquarters in Newtown Square, outside Philadelphia.

On Tuesday, he is expected to ride past the new Rutgers Business School building as he arrives at the Livingston Campus about 2 p.m. He will speak about his trip beginning at 2:30 in the Lucy Stone Hall Auditorium.

Peer will also talk about the work of Interaction Design Foundation, its commitment to sharing information about technology and the free online courses available through SAP. He will also have a chance to learn about the university's efforts to put sustainability into practice on the Livingston Campus.

On one side of the campus, a seven-acre field of solar panels was created nearly four years ago as a source of renewable energy. It remains one of the largest solar energy facilities on a U.S. college campus. In January, the university supplemented the field by erecting the state's largest solar carport over a parking lot near the new Rutgers Business School building.

Together, the solar facilities supply 65 percent of the power required by the campus, according to Michael Kornitas, the university's energy conservation manager. He said the two solar structures are expected to reduce the university's carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 6,364 metric tons.

The geothermal system contained beneath a field not far from where the business school building stands is also impressive, with 321 vertical holes reaching as far as 500 feet into the earth.

Rutgers Business School landed on Peer's itinerary as a result of its 11-year relationship with SAP.

As part of its university alliances program, SAP provides the Department of Supply Chain Management and Marketing Sciences at RBS with licenses to use its software systems in classes. The partnership also results in scholarships and more promising job placement prospects for students.

"We teach using their software," said Lian Qi, an assistant professor in supply chain management. "We want to show our students how SAP systems work."

Most of the major pharmaceutical companies in New Jersey use SAP software systems to manage their supply chains, and nearly 95 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies use SAP's systems, according to Qi. The experience of using the systems in the classroom gives students an advantage in the increasingly competitive area of business logistics.

"If the students know SAP,'' Qi said, "then they can quickly find a job."

SOURCE Rutgers Business School