Value This! award winners announced at Ed.D. immersion

Zach Mercier, Elizabeth Morales, Stephanie Herrera and Rose Nicole Villanueva from the Antelope Valley campus cohort were the top winners in the Value This! competition.

Six projects out of 20 submissions earned awards in the Value This! Global Innovation Tournament, an assignment in their “Creativity, Innovation and Sustainable Change” course.

More than 86 doctoral students were assigned to work on one of 20 student-led teams.   Each team was charged with developing an idea for a new venture by choosing from four everyday objects: paper cups, a washcloth, plastic grocery bags or yellow caution tape.  Each team’s mission was to change the world by creating the most value possible.

The winners of the Grand Showcase award – Zach Mercier, Elizabeth Morales, Stephanie Herrera and Rose Nicole Villanueva from the Antelope Valley campus cohort – transformed a small towel into a cell phone holder with a heart symbol to remind drivers not to text and drive. The project involved more than 130 community volunteers who helped assemble, sew and distribute the 1,000 Reminder Rags at three high schools and one community college. Lancaster Honda has promised to continue including a Reminder Rag in every car sold or serviced.

Other winners were:

• “Rags to Wishes” from the San Diego cohort – Jury Prize
• “All 4U Project” from Monterey – Show Place Award
• “Rally in the Valley” from Visalia – Silver Spirit Award
• “True Colors” from Roseville – Classic Award
• “The Kindness Cloth” from Modesto – Classic Award

All can be viewed at the 2016 Value This! Winners YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLupvrJ-cmS0wW-b1x_DgmzigC41B007A6

Ten projects, judged by outside partners known in their field for being creative innovators, made it to the final. The judges were:

• David Owens, professor at Vanderbilt University and author of “Creative People Must be Stopped.”
• Alan Jones, president of Emaginos, Inc.
• Sarah Parsons, owner of Plus Sign & Graphics, a certified minority/women-owned business enterprise
• Alan Rasmussen, executive officer of Education Support Services
• Bruce Newland, retired superintendent and current professor
• Mark Crowley, author of “Lead from the Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21^st Century”
• John Landis, Apple Inc. development executive
• The past two Brandman ED.d. Innovation Tournament winners

Owens commented after judging the top ten finalists, “I must say that this was harder than ever – the projects are unbelievable.  You must be so proud of these students and the amazing accomplishments they did.  Also while more than a few of these projects totally blew me away, I will say that the aggregation of all these projects is that an amazing amount of good is being done in the world in such creative ways.  I’m humbled – again!”

Crowley said, “Clearly, some student teams did a lot of work to create something that could make a difference in the world — even if just for 50-100 people.  The projects that impressed me most were the ones that showed the work that went on behind the scenes to produce/distribute the product.”