New York teen Audrey Zhang wins Doodle 4 Google US competition

Eleven-year-old Audrey Zhang from New York has been named the winner of Google’s 7th Doodle 4 Google competition in the US. Google took entries from kids in kindergarten to grade 12 and out of 100,000 submissions, they chose 250 state finalists, 50 state winners and 5 national age group winners, along with Zhang as the overall winner .   Students from across the US were asked to draw an invention that would make the world a better place for the contest, that’s held in different countries. Last year, Pune’s Gayatri Ketharaman won the India leg of Doodle 4 Google with her doodle on women empowerment in the country.   Audrey’s doodle (seen above) had many elements that sought to bring a change to the world and as a part of this year’s theme she was also asked to spend a day with the doodlers at Google to turn her illustration into an animation. Details in her illustration such as the twinkling lights and the dragons were animated by the team.

  Besides the award, Audrey received a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 Google for Education technology grant for her school. Google.org also donated $20,000 in her name to a charity foundation which will work towards providing clean water to schools in Bangladesh.