Praveen Vajpeyi is Executive Creative Director for the College Board, whose mission is to connect students to success and opportunity in higher education. Born in Calcutta, Praveen began his career as an apprentice at his family’s printing press. After a few years, he founded Iris Communications, a design studio that focused on solving a wide range of creative challenges through innovative design. Believing that honesty in design lies in its elegant simplicity, the studio provided a wide range of cross-channel solutions—from brand strategy, graphic, to interactive and web design. In 1999, Praveen craved a creative challenge and moved to New York to pursue an MFA in design and technology at Parsons School of Design. His thesis, Designing Rich Sensory Experiences with Strategies of Transformation and Augmentation, won wide acclaim.
After earning his degree, Praveen joined a small ed-tech start-up, fully determined to return to India after a few months. However, once he saw how his work could play a vital role in making education more accessible to more people, he couldn’t leave. He has been involved in promoting education ever since, never straying from his commitment to craft innovative, user-centric experiences to further education.