Vaidehi Reddy’s drawing for the Doodle4Google contest on this year’s theme, ‘A place in India I wish to visit’, will go live on the Google India home page today; it was chosen from over a million entries
Vaidehi Reddy
Vaidehi Reddy (14) has become the sixth winner of the nationwide Doodle4Google contest, held across 50 cities and 1,700 schools. The Std IX student’s drawing for this year’s theme, ‘A place in India I wish to visit’, will go live today on the Google India home page to mark Children’s Day.
Vaidehi’s ‘Natural and Cultural Paradise — Assam’ was chosen from over a million entries
“It is the best day of my life; I am really excited to see my drawing go live,” said Vaidehi, a student of Army Public School, Pune. She added that she has always loved painting and nature inspires her to draw.
Vaidehi’s mother, Gayathri Reddy, said, “She has always been interested in arts, sketching, painting and drawing. Her principal was also very happy and has told her that she can paint anything she wants, which will be displayed in the school’s new building. She has the ability to sit and paint at any place. Even if we would go to a hotel, she would take a tissue paper and start drawing on it with a pen.”
Her father, Col Eshwar Reddy, added, “This is entirely her achievement. She has always had an artistic bent. We want her to achieve her goals and support her in every way possible.” He added that Vaidehi wants to join J J School of Arts to pursue
her dream.
The contest
Launched in 2009, the Doodle4Google contest is open to students from Std I to X, to design a Google Doodle for Children’s Day every year. This year, Google received over 1 million entries, from 1,700 schools across 50 cities. The drawings of 12 finalists were uploaded for online voting. Google’s National Jury comprising political cartoonist Ajit Ninan, art director, children’s publishing at ACK Media, Savio Mascarenhas and Google Doodle team lead Ryan Gerick, helped select the winner.
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Rajan Anandan, VP and MD, Google India, said, “Doodle4Google is the perfect platform for the youth of India to showcase their talent on an international platform. It allows youngsters from, not only the metros but also Tier II, III and even IV cities to participate, which is evident from the entries seen this year. The response of over 1 million entries is indeed overwhelming and the talent, which has surfaced through the entries, is remarkable.