A 17-year-old Toronto student named Cindy Tang has won the first Doodle 4 Google contest for Canada. Her drawing is of a girl peering into a giant telescope facing a sea full of aquatic life.
The contest gives artists all over the country a chance to redesign the Google home page for a day. Tang is a student at Dr. Norman Bethune Collegiate Institute, and was picked from 25 regional finalists from Ontario, the Prairies, Atlantic Canada, British Columbia and Northern Canada. Tang will now receive a $10,000 education scholarship and an HP Chromebook computer. Her school will receive a $10,000 grant.
“We believe it’s important to challenge young Canadians to fire up their imaginations and ignite their interest in science, art and innovation,” Chris O’Neill, Google Canada’s managing director, said in a statement. “Our hope is that these 25 students, and the thousands across the country who participated, will be the next generation of Canadian talent that can harness the full potential of technology and begin solving the tough problems we face with inventive, imaginative thinking we’ve seen in these doodles.”
The students were invited to create a Google logo based on this year’s theme, “If I could invent anything, I would invent…” The winner’s ceremony was held today at the Royal Ontatio Museum in Toronto, where several finalists attended. There’s also an exhibit at the ROM featuring 70 drawings from participants.
Even Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield gave a video talk to the finalists at the event.
Now Tang’s drawing will appear on the Google homepage on Wednesday. She was the finalist for the Ontario region, while four other national finalists received a $5,000 scholarship and a laptop computer.
They are:
- Prairies: Xusheng (Sam) Yu of St. Francis Xavier Community School for Electric Trees.
- Atlantic Canada: David Isaiah Jeans of Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School for Age Reversing Machine.
- Quebec: Meriam Akkou of École Secondaire La Camaradière forUnderwater City.
- British Columbia and the North: Maria Angela Viaje of Johnston Heights Secondary for Virtual Reality Simulator.