RAVI K. AND AMALIA SAWHNEY
CREATIVE EXCELLENCE COMPETITION AND AWARD

Purpose

The Ravi K. and Amalia Sawhney Creative Excellence Award—a cash award of $10,000—will be awarded to recognize and celebrate the creative achievements and professional promise of a graduating senior in the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication. The primary goal of the award is to help launch the professional career of an outstanding graduating senior.

Qualification

Seniors who will graduate in May 2013 from the six departments of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication may apply for The Ravi K. and Amalia Sawhney Creative Excellence Award if their fall 2012 accumulative GPA is 3.0 or higher.

Annual Award

$10,000 and trophy designed by RKS

Special Instructions

Since this is an award intended for a student’s post-graduation career, it will be paid directly from the CSUN Foundation with any required tax paperwork on or after July 1st, 2013.

Selection Process

Step 1: At the end of the fall semester and after final grades are posted, the Dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication will invite the College’s six department chairs to identify qualifying seniors in their respective departments. The chairs will invite those students to apply for the award by submitting the following materials to the chair:

• One-page application form with the signature of a faculty sponsor
• Resume
• Portfolio of creative work
• Five-year career plan following graduation (maximum 250 words)

Step 2: Each chair will review his or her students’ materials, weighing portfolios and plans with equal consideration, and recommend up to three candidates to the Dean’s Office.

Step 3: A jury that includes the Dean and Ravi and Amalia Sawhney will review these candidates, identify three finalists and select the award recipient.

Award Recipient Obligations

In addition to composing and mailing a thank-you letter to the Sawhneys, the award recipient must commit to speaking to a class of MCCAMC students to share his or her experiences since graduating and winning the award once at the end of each of the two spring semesters following the award (2014 and 2015).

Schedule

History

Ravi K. Sawhney has spent more than thirty years at the forefront of product and technology innovation, and is also an author, lecturer, and thought leader on design and innovation. As founder and CEO of RKS, he has developed solutions for clientele in diverse industries, incubated companies, created licensed products, assembled a high-caliber team of colleagues, and accumulated accolades recognizing the team’s hard work. He’s also established a powerful culture at RKS focused on the belief that “it’s not how you feel about the design or experience, but rather how it makes you feel about yourself,” which helps RKS consistently develop human-focused solutions with impact. He has led the firm’s solutions for clients in areas such as healthcare, consumer packaged goods, appliances, housewares, sustainability solutions, entertainment/audio, consumer electronics, and lifestyle accessories. Recently Sawhney has been leading the firm’s efforts to deliver a game-changer in the field of DNA sequencing, helping the blind better see the modern world with a new optimized smart phone, and helping introduce a revolution in live sound for performing musicians.

Sawhney invented the Psycho-Aesthetics® design methodology, which Harvard Business Press has explored as a business school case study. Psycho-Aesthetics® is also the central focus of Predictable Magic, a book co-authored by Sawhney and published by Wharton School Publishing in 2010. Sawhney has been inducted as a Fellow in the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) and recognized with an honorary Ph.D. from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He has spoken globally and at dozens of U.S.-based conferences and lectures often at prominent design and business schools. Sawhney also contributes editorial writing on topics of design, business, and innovation for FastCoDesign, HBR.com, and Core77. He is the innovator/Jury Chair emeritus of IDSA’s Catalyst case program, championing design’s power to effect positive change in business, in lives, and throughout the world.