By Jake Chng

DURING the 24 hours of Aug 9 this year - National Day - the logo on the website of search engine Google Singapore will be a special one designed by a student, which reflects what he or she loves about Singapore.

This will be the prize for the winner of the Doodle 4 Google competition, a contest held here for the first time for those aged four to 19 years to design Google logos.

The winner will also get a three-day, two-night, all-expenses- paid trip with a parent and a teacher to Google's headquarters in California.

The competition, organised by Google and supported by the Ministry of Education, was opened yesterday to students here, including those from private institutions and pre-schools.

Mr Derek Callow, head of marketing at Google South-east Asia, which is based here, said: "We wanted to give the students an opportunity to showcase their creativity and artistic talents to a global audience."

Contestants can register and submit a hard copy of only one design each through their schools, under five categories based on their age.

Google will send logodesign lesson plans to 1,500 schools here, said Mr Callow.

It expects several thousand entries by the submission deadline of Feb 26, he added.

Once the designs are in, 500 entries will be shortlisted by Google employees here and uploaded to the competition's website for judging.

The top 10 for each category will then be picked based on factors such as artistic merit and drawing skills.

The public will then vote online and select a winner for each category.

Google's first "logo modifier", webmaster Dennis Hwang, will select the national winner from the five category winners.

Ms Chai Chew Yee, 25, a Chinese-language teacher at Fernvale Primary School, said: "It is a good way for them to express themselves, as primary- school pupils are more limited in their command of languages."

First-year Nanyang Polytechnic student Muhammad Ja'afer Iris, 19, said: "My chances of winning are good since I've been into art for a while now. I will definitely feel proud and happy to see my logo on the Google website during National Day."

chngjm@sph.com.sg

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