Siddharth "Sid" Muthal Memorial ECE Undergraduate Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award Fund
Siddharth (“ Sid”) Muthal completed his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2015. He planned to start graduate school in the fall of 2016 when his life was cut short due to an untreatable lung infection, which was the result of a genetic health condition he fought since his birth in 1993.
During his senior year at Illinois ECE, Sid and a team of fellow students embarked on a Senior Design Project aimed at “Improving the Patient’s Experience” during hospitalization. The project had its origins not only in his own personal experience with hospitalizations as a child, but also from his over powering yearning to make every moment count by doing something purposeful. This was a philosophy of life that drove him to success and fulfillment despite his short life . The project won the “ Best Marketable Idea” award from the ECE Department in 2015 and culminated in the startup company Corvae (https://youtu.be/afJZc4pz0-Q). Sid became an entrepreneur and a CEO at 22.
The Siddharth “Sid” Muthal Memorial ECE Undergraduate Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award is dedicated towards that spirit with which Sid lived and illuminated every moment of his life and of those around him.
As a young child he was quick witted, curious, and strong. Inclined toward self-discovery, Sid enjoyed showing people what was possible. Despite having to live with the daily routine of his ailment, he remained high-spirited about living a purposeful and impactful life. At the age of five he began Karate and became a black belt at fifteen. Determined to make his lungs strong, he became a long distance swimmer and represented his school in inter-school and varsity tournaments. Sid’s boundless spirit also manifested itself in the adventure sports he was fond of, the most notable among them were sky diving, zorbing, and surfing.
During elementary school Sid started playing the viola and became a master player during high school, performing at Tri-State events and the philharmonic recital in Chicago. Music was in his DNA. During subsequent years he self-taught himself to play all types of guitars, piano, and percussion instruments. He even started singing.
Sid graduated from Fremd High School in Palatine, IL and secured admission to Illinois to pursue a degree in electrical engineering in the fall of 2011.
Sid can be called a dreamer with big ideas, but he never lost his focus on execution. His many achievements in such a short time are a testament to this fact. He would be the first to remind you that ideas are free, and that having the courage, perseverance, and passion to execute your idea is what separates a visionary from an entrepreneur. For him, courage was a qualifier, not a differentiator; he embodied it himself and he recognized it in others.
To know Sid is to know joy, as innately and purely as he experienced it each day. He simply lived in the moment, made that moment wonderful, and made sure that everyone else was invited. Perhaps the most important thing to know about Sid is that he chose to live a life filled with limitless possibilities.
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To make a gift, please visit our giving page and look for the Sid Muthal fund in the Special Projects section. For more information, please contact Heather Vazquez, Senior Director of Advancement, at (217) 333-2517 or via email at hfv@illinois.edu.