by Richa Nevatia
The academic year at the Communication Leadership program ended on an exceptional note with our annual Screen Summit, a showcase highlighting our students’ exceptional work. Every year, this celebration invites students to share projects they’ve done across three categories: Storytelling, Design and Strategy. This year’s theme was Impact, and our students did not fail to deliver!
They showcased their vision and creativity with projects spanning various disciplines. From design and strategy to data visualization, audio, and video stories, their work has covered everything from teaching entrepreneurship in high schools to healing through dance. They developed strategies and stories for various organizations, interviewed rock stars, and even created new platforms and apps that address real-world problems. Their projects have re-imagined access to beauty products and focused on health equity and well-being.
This year, the Storytelling Award was renamed to honor Matt Chan, the beloved instructor who passed away earlier in the year. Matt’s influence on the program was profound, and we hope it inspires a future generation of storytellers to tell impactful stories. Mihye Chung, Maien Sandberg and Yinuo Hong won the Matt Chan Storytelling Award for their project for Office of Budget Planning, highlighting civic engagement.
Yaxin Luo, Yubo Fan, Akah Fu, Cecilia Lu and Adeline Li won the Design award for Azi, an AI-powered personal scheduling ally, unlocking the full potential of your university years
Richa Nevatia won the Strategy award for Build-A-Business, a transmedia project proposal for high school students to learn about entrepreneurship and promoting equitable access to education.
In addition to panels of industry judges representing Amazon, Uber, WE Communication and more, other students and guests were also encourages to learn about the students’ projects – and vote for their favorites. Eriza Saenz, Kevin Laird, S’Morr and Jeb Fronda won over the audience and received the Audience Choice Award for their project All in Beauty – a platform for those who want to use beauty products but don’t find themselves represented in other popular apps or beauty brands, featuring minority-owned beauty brands and utilizing AI.
Our students’ achievements are a testament to the strength and responsiveness of our community. They are a true embodiment of the spirit of Comm Lead, and have shown through their work what impact can look like in the real world. We’d like to thank our outstanding judges for their invaluable contributions Suna Jeffreys, Brian Marr, Kanhaiya Maheshwary, Devika Kool, Ian Magwire, Yvonne Xiao, Derek Belt, Liv Faris and Thomas Zou.
Congratulations and thank you to all the wonderful who put themselves and their work out there for us all to enjoy! We are looking forward to more projects next year and beyond
Check out some other projects here:
University of Washington
Department of Communication