Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer has been announced as the latest recipient of the Professor Hawking Fellowship by the Cambridge Union Society.
Ive is only the second ever recipient of the award which was created in 2017 to better recognize outstanding contributions to STEM fields and social discourse.
Varisty magazine, the official publication of the society, reported the announcement during a ceremony yesterday at the Cambridge Union. It states “Ive, who is responsible for designing the iMac, iPod, MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad, is an honorary fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He holds over 5000 patents and was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen for his services to the design industry in 2006.
The Cambridge Union’s “Hawking Committee” lists 14 prominent figures in STEM fields each year then has three Cambridge academics rank each of them. They were Professor Arthur Gibson from Department of Pure Mathematics, Professor Patrick Maxwell, the Regius Professor of Physics, and Lord Martin Reese, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics.
Fellowship of the iPhone ring
The Hawking Fellowship was created by the Cambridge Union Society in 2017 in partnership with the late Professor Stephen Hawking.
The Union Society approached Professor Hawking about the creation of a fellowship in his name in late 2017 with the intention of recognising Hawking’s contribution to Cambridge, Academia and Disability Rights.
Professor Hawking delivered the Inaugural Fellowship Lecture in November 2017, in one of his last public appearances before his death in March 2018.
Sir Jony Ive was touted by Charles Connor, Cambridge Union Society President for Michaelmas 2018 as one of the “most influential individuals in modern technology”.
Sir Jony will now deliver a lecture during the first academic term at Cambridge University’s Debating Chamber. He is expected to give a reflection on his career, split with a more general reflection on technology and design as a whole.”