The US 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 1 December, 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 three- 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 programmes - 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 programme to the US 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 honoured at an event later this year.
The contest winners are:
1) Jose Vin'icius 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 Nanjin;
The winning videos can be viewed at 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 Organisation, Raafat Khalid; and founder and former co-chairman of New Line Cinema and Principal Unique Features, Bob Shaye.
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