Friday, May 6, 2011

Kansas City Area Sophomore Regional Finalist for $15,000 Doodle

Alexis Zaborac, a sophomore at Liberty High School, has been selected as a "Doodle 4 Google" regional finalist.
More than 107,000 students in grades K-12 submitted doodles for scholarship consideration. Alexis is one of only 40 students named as regional finalists; she's Region Six for Grades 10-12.
Alexis described her doodle submission by saying, "Someday I'd like to use green technology to (a)ffect not only my environment, but the entire world. Learning from the past, solving the present problems, while designing for the future."
Google employees used specific judging criteria to narrow the field from 107,000 doodles to just the 40 regional finalists:
    • artistic merit
    • creativity
    • theme communication
    • appropriateness of the supporting statement

In addition to the Google staff, there were also guest judges who reviewed submitted artwork. Included were: 
    • Whoopi Goldberg (actress, comedian, and TV talk show host)
    • Jim Davis (creator of the "Garfield" comic strip)
    • Evan Lysacek (Olympic gold medalist and World Champion figure skater) 
    • Michael Phelps (Olympic gold medalist and World Champion swimmer)
    • Paul Tibbitt (Executive Producer of "SpongeBob SquarePants")
    • Jeff Kinney (author of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid")
    • Beverly Cleary (acclaimed children's author)

For a full list of the guest judges and their bios, click here.
The contest not only provides the winner with a $15,000 scholarship to be used toward college education, but also endows the winner's school with a $25,000 grant for technological upgrades
Google will announce the national winner on Thursday, May 19 at an awards ceremony in New York and the winning doodle will appear on Google the next day, Friday , May 20.The regional finalists' doodle submissions are posted online and a public vote will determine the winning doodle. Voting is now open and will continue through 11:59pm PST (9:59pm CST) on Friday, May 13.
Click here for a direct link to vote for Alexis' Google doodle. 
Click here for a list (including doodle graphics) of the 400 state finalists.

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