Google India has just released the results of its annual Doodle 4 Google competition. According to the announcement, Pingla Rahul More, an eighth class student from J B Vachha High School, Mumbai won the competition with her doodle “Galaxy, Space Exploration”. To set some context, “Doodle 4 Google” is an annual competition by Google to provide a platform to showcase the creative potential of school students. Each year, the company decides a theme for the competition and posts the winning entry as the Google Doodle on November 14, the birthday of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. A day that is also celebrated as the Children’s Day in the country.
This year, the company set “What inspires me?” as the theme of the competition. According to the announcement, more than 75,000 school students took part in the competition as part of five age groups. In addition to the entry being selected as the Doodle of the day, Google also gave a Rs 500,000 scholarship to the winner along with a Rs 200,000 technology award for the school.
Watch: Google Pixel 3 XL Hands-On
Google also selected four more winners including Shaikh Mohd Rufael Rizwan from Mes. Crescent English High School, Thane for Group 1, Aarohi Dixit from Dolphins International School, Pune for Group 2, Daniya Kulsum from Sri Prakash Vidyaniketan, Vishakapatnam for Group 3, and Dhwanit P Nagar from Swami Vivekanand International School, Mumbai for Group 5.
3 Wise Monkeys. Winner for Group 1. Image credit: Google
Farmers. Winner for Group 2. Image credit: Google
As part of the competition, Google also asks for a description of the doodle. It is likely that this requirement gives the judges a better understanding of the doodle along with a deeper context to the story. Pingla made use of the description to lay a better context to the doodle and the idea behind it. According to the description, “I am extremely inspired by Space Exploration as there is still so much more to know about our Universe — from planets to stars to galaxies and beyond. It is inspiring to learn how small we are, and how small our problems are, in the grand scheme of things.”
My Desk, My Inspiration, Winner for Group 3. Image credit: Google
Animals Inspires Me, Winner for Group 5. Image credit: Google
She went on to add that she drew herself in the doodle with a telescope to convey the idea of exploration along with galaxies and planets “to represent the vastness of things”. Google issued a statement while announcing the results of the competition adding, “We are overwhelmed to see great participation from talented and creative young artists year-on-year. It is heartening to see how these young kids expressed their unique inspiration and powerful stories with incredible creativity in such colorful Doodles.”
Winner of Doodle 4 Google 2018. Image credit: Google
The company went on to add, “It was a tough competition. Our heartiest congratulations to all the winners and participants.”
As reported previously, the competition was judged by a panel of judges including Arun Iyer, popular artist, and YouTube Kids creator Rob (Harun Robert), YouTuber Sejal Kumar, and the lead of Google Doodles team Ryan Germick. The decision was aided by “300,000 votes from the public”.
