With the encouragement to students that “if I can do it, you can do it,” Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi accepted the Prism Award for Distinguished Leadership during a packed luncheon at Gotham Hall in Manhattan on June 24. Joshi is executive vice president of the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) of HP, a $29 billion business unit that includes inkjet, LaserJet, commercial printing, printing supplies, and other key activities of HP. He was honored both for being the driving force behind IPG’s market leadership and for his visionary role in advancing the digitization of graphic communications. Joshi is the 23rd industry figure to receive the Prism Award, bestowed annually by the board of directors of the Master of Arts Program in Graphic Communications Management & Technology at New York University. The program is a part of the Division of Media Studies and Design at NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS). Vyomesh (VJ) Joshi in his acceptance remarks at the Prism Award luncheon. The Prism luncheon, attended by several hundred print, publishing, and media professionals from throughout the metro area, also included the presentation of a student award to Nancy H. Schueneman, a member of the M.A. class of 2009. She currently works as an account executive for Diversified Global Graphics Group (DG3), a print service provider in Jersey City, NJ. Nancy H. Schueneman, winner of the student Prism Award, with Robert S. Lapiner, dean of NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and Bonnie Blake, director of the NYU-SCPS M.A. program in Graphic Communications Management & Technology. Introduced by John Wren, president and CEO of the advertising/marketing conglomerate Omnicom Group Inc., Joshi used his acceptance remarks to remind the group of the need for passion in the service of graphic communications. “Every day when I get up in the morning, I want to make a difference,” he declared. “Passion is the most important thing we all can have.” Joshi’s particular passion is for “Print 2.0,” an initiative that HP has pursued for the last two years. Print 2.0 is about empowering consumers to print for themselves from the Web, and its ultimate objective is to move pages from conventional production to digital output using HP equipment and supplies. A major intended step in that direction was HP’s announcement earlier this week of Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web, an Internet-enabled color inkjet printer. But when asked by an NYU student in the audience what he considered the most impactful technology yet introduced by the Imaging and Printing Group, he gave that distinction to HP’s 30" inkjet web press. According to Joshi, this high-volume production printer, now in commercial use, “runs half as fast” as a sheetfed litho press and will make strong inroads into the traditional litho realms of book, newspaper, and magazine printing. “We believe that the opportunity is tremendous,” said Joshi, predicting the digitization of all forms of printing within the next 10 years. “We have a fantastic industry, and we’re going to continue to transform it.” Preparing students to find careers in the transformed graphics industry is the mission of the NYU-SCPS M.A. program, which is under the direction of Bonnie Blake. The program has won an International Award for Excellence in Education and Innovation in Higher Education from the Electronic Document Scholarship Foundation (EDSF). Video interviews with the Prism recipients will be posted here or at WhatTheyThink.