September 19, 2019
by Dr. Bill Hudson, Head of School
This summer, I attended a meeting of independent school heads at Stanford University and spent a few days in the San Francisco Bay Area. My custom has been to visit with alumni when I travel and I had the opportunity to connect with David Siegel ’04. David is a techie, philosopher, and creative thinker. Blending his love of technology with a sensitivity to human flourishing, he is driven to understand how technology affects people. He recently launched his own start-up, Glide, which enables users to create an app that turns Google spreadsheets into beautiful, easy-to-use apps, without code.
During his years at MPA, David gravitated mostly toward Spanish, film, writing, and critical thinking. When I asked him what class or experience at MPA he attributes to his success, without hesitation he said, “photography class.” Through photography he learned perspective, empathy, problem-solving, and iteration, all necessary for innovation. When asked for his advice to MPA students he said, “Develop your own theories about problems that interest you, seek out people working on those problems, and explain your ideas to them. View professional challenges as opportunities for creative thinking and devise your own solutions to these problems, rather than succumbing to pressure to behave uniformly.” Read More