Google Malaysia is bringing back the Doodle 4 Google competition. As before, it is inviting students between the age of seven and 17 to submit entries in a bid to be featured as the official Malaysia Day Google Doodle this year.
The contest is divided into four age categories: 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-17. Each category will be shortlisted and voted on separately, although all four will be in consideration for the ultimate prize of representing the spirit of Malaysian creativity on the Google Malaysia home page.
Google’s theme for this year is “Celebrating Malaysia’s Diversity”, and students are welcome to submit their entries from today until 31 July. This can be done both online through the Doodle 4 Google microsite, or offline through the mail. Google Malaysia will also be running a series of roadshows in shopping malls for students to submit their entries in person.
From there, a panel of judges from Google Malaysia will shortlist a number of entries to be presented to the public for voting. The winners for each age category will then be sent to the Google Doodle team in Mountain View, California; who will determine the grand prize winner.
There’s no cash prize for the contest. Instead, Google is offering students the opportunity to have their work featured on the front page to be seen by the 24 million Malaysians who use the search engine daily.
This is the second time that Google Malaysia is holding the Doodle 4 Google contest. The last one was in 2014, where 16-year old Lee Yee Run from Sekinchan had the honour of seeing his doodle appear for Malaysia Day.
Country specific Google Doodles are a rare occurrence. For the most part, the Doodles are created by a dedicated team in Google’s headquarters. Malaysian Googlers often have to find an interesting angle or topic in order to convince the team to design a specific Doodle for the country. Thus far, this has been achieved with Doodles dedicated to film-maker Yasmin Ahmand, footballer Mokhtar Mansur, and actor P. Ramlee.
