They’ve drawn, coloured and created, and now 75 students from across Ireland have left their Google Doodles up to a public vote to help select the winner of Google’s annual Doodle 4 Google competition.
Internet users can vote online for Ireland’s favourite stylised Google logo based on the theme of ‘my invention’ from today until 4 March. Afterwards, the five most popular doodles, one from each age category, will advance to the final and one of Google’s professional doodlers will select the overall winner.
The student who wins the competition will receive the thrill of seeing their doodle gracing Google Ireland’s homepage, Google.ie, for a day in April, as well as a €5,000 scholarship for his or her college studies.
The winning student and his or her teacher will also each receive a Chromebook laptop, while their school will receive a €10,000 technology grant. In addition, the five class group winners and their teachers will receive Chromebooks.
“This year we had the most entries that we’ve ever had, over 2,500, so our judging panel had an extremely tough time selecting the 75 finalists,” said John Herlihy, head of Google Ireland.
“Every one of our entrants should be tremendously proud of their success. Now, it’s over to the public to select our five class group winners. So I urge everyone to go online, check out the fantastic creativity of our finalists and to vote for their favourite.”
A panel of judges, including rugby player Robert Kearney, Gary Granville, professor of education at the National College of Art and Design, and Marianne Kelly, former assistant curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, selected the 75 finalists.