U.S. Department of State Announces Winners of Global Online Video
Contest
Encourages Cross-Cultural Understanding and Community Building
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs (ECA) is pleased to announce the four winners of its online
video contest, “My Culture + Your Culture =?”. The contest was
co-sponsored by the Adobe Youth Voices initiative of the Adobe
Foundation. ECA launched the initiative at the National Press Club on
December 1, 2008, to encourage cross-cultural community building and
mutual understanding via the Web and social media platforms and to
attract new members to the groundbreaking ExchangesConnect social
networking site, at http://connect.state.gov.
Since its launch in October 2008, ExchangesConnect has drawn over
8,400 members from 170 countries.
Members of the ExchangesConnect
online community were invited to submit a 3-minute video addressing the
contest theme, and they submitted more than 170 videos. The
community voted on the video entries and an expert panel of judges — all
alumni of ECA exchange programs — ranked the “top 40” videos. ECA
selected two foreign and two American Grand Prize winners, including one
adult and one youth winner in each category. The
international winners will receive a two-week, all-expenses-paid
exchange program to the United States and the American winners will
receive the same to an overseas destination. In addition,
winners will receive multi-media software provided by the Adobe
Foundation and they will be honored at an event later this year.
The contest winners are:
1) Jose Vinícius Reis Gouveia of Recife,
Brazil, age 16, for “Human Colours”
2) Bijoy Thangaraj of Bangalore, India, age
23, for “My Culture + Your Culture = World of Wonder”
3) Grant Jirka of Columbus, Nebraska, age 14,
for “Winning Team”
4) Tim Peters of Wheaton, Illinois, age 22,
for “A Friend in Nanjing”
The winning videos can be viewed at http://exchanges.state.gov
or http://connect.state.gov.
The contest judges were musician, performer, and author Toni Blackman;
actress and Founder of the Cancer Schmancer Movement Fran Drescher;
graphic artist Milton Glaser; President of the Egyptian Cultural
Civic Education Organization Raafat Khalid; and Founder
and former Co-Chairman of New Line Cinema and Principal Unique Features Bob
Shaye.