Doodle 4 Google - what a response!

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Doodle 4 Google Team


I wanted to give you an update on the Doodle 4 Google initiative that we launched a couple of weeks ago. We've had an amazing response, with over 1,300 Australian schools registering. Registrations close in a little over a week.

There's been quite a bit of media and blog interest in the initiative.

And we're thrilled that Education Departments are right behind it.

Halloween doodle 2006

If you're not familiar with D4G (our internal nickname), the program invites school children in Years 1 to 10 across the country to use the Google logo as a starting point for their own creativity around the theme of 'My Australia'. The winning student will have their 'doodle' appear on the Google Australia homepage on Australia Day 2008. The winner will also receive a MacBook for themselves and over $10,000 worth of technology equipment for their school.

We're particularly excited about the geographical spread of the schools that have registered, which range from Hobart to Darwin and everywhere between. With so many teachers and students getting behind the initiative, we estimate that over 100,000 students will be designing Google doodles.

Frank Lloyd Wright themed doodle

Needless to say, we can't wait to see what Australia means to today's generation of school kids. We've also had really positive response from teachers, who have taken the opportunity to work with their students to consider what it means to be Australian.

In terms of our next milestones, we're focused on registrations closing on August 17, then the cutoff for entries on September 7. And if you're a registered school and reading this, look out for your certificates and bookmarks, which we'll be sending out by mail later this month.

Ed: Since Ash wrote this post this morning, we're now well over 1400 schools!