MADISON, S.D. (AP) — A seed planted by South Dakota legislative and higher education leaders four decades ago has blossomed into one of the nation’s top high-tech universities located in a small city in the rural midsection of the state.
MADISON, S.D. — A seed planted by South Dakota legislative and higher education leaders four decades ago has blossomed into one of the nation’s top high-tech universities located in a small city in the rural midsection of the state.
But as told by current DSU President José-Marie Griffiths, the new focus on tech dovetailed with the decision by financial giant Citibank to move its credit card operation to Sioux Falls, an hour’s drive from Madison. “Later on we looked upon it as a welcome opportunity,” she said. “It was kind of hazy and then all of a sudden, it just clicked.”
A milestone achievement, and a significant source of mission confirmation, came 20 years later, in 2004, when the National Security Agency named DSU a Center of Academic Excellence in computer security, one of the first. It is now one of just 10 in the nation to hold three center of excellence designations from NSA.
In 2017, the research and development efforts took a major step forward with the launch of the Madison Cyber Labs, or MadLabs, facility on campus. A sparkling, glass-encased $18 million research building is at the heart of what overall was a $40 million program to expand research into groundbreaking fields of cyber security, digital forensics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, among others.
The 2024 state Legislature approved $3 million in spending to pay for faculty and other resources to help DSU and other colleges take a leading role in understanding quantum computers and developing a path forward for their use. “That’s one thing I really liked, that it doesn’t limit your opportunities,” she said. “You get a strong real-world education in your classes.”
Kulm said her fellow DSU graduates took cyber positions in Hawaii and Washington, D.C., and she feels well positioned for her own professional future. “The ideas generated at forums like this are just further proof that it doesn’t matter the size of the university. It’s really about the power of innovation and the focus on collaboration and the cutting edge of emerging technology that really makes this place something truly miraculous,” Easterly said.
“We started as a handful of college kids with a garage-band mentality,” Waldman, a self-described “technology nerd,” told News Watch in an interview during DakotaCon at DSU in March.
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