Awards

The Ambar Mukherjee Beautiful Minds Award and Suparna Rajguru Beautiful Minds Writing Award are cash awards given annually by The Friends of Ambar - Beautiful Minds Foundation. These awards are non-prescriptive, non-competitive in spirit, and could be used for any purpose including but not limited to funding a research project or trip, buying specific equipment, support one's education at SPA or financing an external educational/vocational course, to name a few.

Each year, from the nominated 2nd and 3rd year B.Arch. students, up to 3 students will be awarded the Ambar Mukherjee Awards of between Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 1,00,000 and up to one student will be awarded the Suparna Rajguru Writing Award, upto INR 50,000. The amounts awarded will depend on the merit and specifics of proposals provided by the shortlisted nominees. The money needs to be spent over a period of nine months, post disbursement.

Nomination

The first stage of selection of students for the award is by peer nomination (by other students of any year) or self nomination. Only currently enrolled B. Arch. students at SPA Delhi are eligible to submit nominations.

Only currently enrolled 2nd and 3rd year students in the B. Arch. degree program at the School of Planning and Architecture are eligible to be nominated for the award. These students can also nominate themselves. You can nominate only one person.

The nominated student should-

have passion and talent, but lack the means to develop them.
be interested in a new skill/expertise/investigation. This could be central to, or on the periphery of architecture.
be able to undertake and identify with an 'internal journey' that enables personal growth and development through the award period.
be unlikely to be covered by the existing merit or need-based awards at SPA.
in the case of nomination for the Suparna Rajguru Writing Award, have a talent and desire for writing.

Nominations should not be based on the popularity of the student, but rather fit within the spirit of the award and the nominating guidelines above. If you are nominating a friend, think carefully about why this person is the right fit for the award. Only one nomination can be submitted by one individual. This is verified via the nominator's email and roll number. All nominations are confidential only to be accessed by the foundation and selection committee members.

The recommendation text in the nomination form can have up to 500 words, and should be used to describe why you are nominating the person, and how you think they may benefit from the award and what big or small journeys you think they could take if they were to be awarded . You are encouraged to provide links to the nominee’s work. In case you are self-nominating, all the above mentioned guidelines need to be considered.

The nominations will be reviewed by a group of volunteer supporters and scored on the basis the nomination write-up submitted. The scores will be summed up, and the the top ten (10) nominees will be shortlisted for the selection process.

The Reviewers' & Jury's decision will depend on the quality rather than quantity of the nominations received for a person.

Nomination form

Selection

A five member selection panel comprising of a School Faculty (1), a representative of the student body (1), and three panelist from the Friends of Ambar foundation (3). The Panel will review all submitted nominations to shortlist a subset . Typically 5 to 7 nominations will be shortlisted.
The selection panel will reach out to the shortlisted students to inform them of their nomination. If the nominated student wishes to continue in the selection process, they will be asked to provide a short outline of how they plan to use the funds, if granted the award.
The selection panel will make the final award decisions based on a review of these outlines.
Final award decisions will be posted on this website within 45 days of the end of the nomination period.

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