Get out and Vote for Ireland’s Top Doodler!

Get out and Vote for Ireland’s Top Doodler!

Forget X Factor, forget The All Ireland Talent Show, the BIG Vote is to find Ireland’s top doodler- public voting opens runs from January 18 to Feburary 1. The 80 finalist's work will be displayed at Science Gallery from February 26 - March 4.

Entries for the second annual Doodle 4 Google competition flooded in from primary and secondary schools around the country.  Through their doodles, students highlighted themes such as global warming, space travel, technology and careers as they depicted the theme ‘My Future’.  80 regional finalists were chosen by a panel of expert judges and will now battle it out for the public vote and the crown of Ireland’s champion doodler.

From Monday 18th January members of the public can vote for their favourite doodle in each of the competitions’ four age categories on www.google.ie/doodle4google.  Voting will close at midnight on February 1st.  The four doodles, one from each age category, that receive the most public votes will go forward to the final and Google’s master doodler and Chief Webmaster Michael Lopez will select an overall  winner.  The winning doodle will appear on Google’s homepage in Ireland on 3rd March where it will be seen by millions of people.

All four finalists and their teachers will receive a laptop each.  The overall winner will have their doodle shown on the Google homepage and the winner’s school will receive a €10,000 technology grant from Google.

About Doodle 4 Google

The Doodle 4 Google competition was launched in Ireland in October 2009. Open to all primary and secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland, this year students were asked to create a doodle based on the theme 'My Future’. From time to time Google changes its logo to mark special events and these are known as doodles – the drawings that are designed on, around and through the Google logo on the company's home page.

Entries were accepted in 4 categories – two primary school categories and two secondary school categories.  Primary level, Group one comprises junior and senior infants, 1st and 2nd class.  Group 2 comprises 3rd, 4th, 5th 6th class.  Secondary level, Group 3 comprises 1st, 2nd and 3rd year and Group 4 comprises transition, 5th and 6th year and Youthreach. 

The expert judging panel included Katy Fitzpatrick, Education Curator with Hugh Lane Gallery and Beth Gormley, Events Officer with the Science Gallery in Trinity College Dublin.  The entries were judged on both artistic merit and how well students explained what the theme 'My Future’ means to them.

Along with having their doodle displayed on the Google home page in Ireland on March 3rd 2010, the winner will also receive a laptop for themselves and one for their teacher and the winning school will receive a €10,000 technology grant.

20 counties in Ireland are represented in the online vote and the regional finalists will need the public’s help in getting to the final stage of the competition.  The top doodle from each category as selected by the public will go through to the final stage when Michael Lopez, Chief Doodler and Google Webmaster will select the overall winner at a gala event at Google’s European headquarters in Dublin at the beginning of March.

About Google Inc.

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets.  Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.ie <http://www.google.ie/> . Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.