Doodle 4 Google, meet the 40 Regional Finalists (we did!)

For the first time ever, as part of this year’s Doodle 4 Google competition, we’re heading straight to classrooms all across the United States. From Gig Harbor, WA to Niceville, FL, Googlers are visiting the schools of our top 40 Regional Finalists to celebrate art and technology with thousands of K-12 students and teachers.

With our top 40 Regional Finalists unveiled, it’s now your turn to vote on the top 40 doodles! Starting at 6:00 a.m. PDT today through May 25 at 5:00 p.m. PDT, you can cast your online votes for your favorite Regional Finalist’s doodle (one from each of the four grade groups). On May 26, we’ll announce the national winner at our awards ceremony in New York City, and the winning design will appear on google.com on Thursday, May 27. The national winner will also receive a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 towards a new computer lab for their school.

The Doodle 4 Google contest is all about designing and dreaming big, and this year we asked students to design our Google logo with the theme, “If I Could Do Anything, I Would...” More than 33,000 submissions poured in from all 50 states, and we were absolutely delighted by the creativity and talent of the submissions we saw. How exactly did we get from 33,000 to the top 40? We were lucky to have in our judging process not only Google employees but also 12 Expert Jurors, well-known cartoonists and animators from companies like Disney, Pixar Animation Studios and The Peanuts Gang/Charles Schulz.

In addition to our top 40 Regional Finalists, we’d like to congratulate the 400 State Finalists as well as our Extra Credit Technology Booster award winners.

Doodle 4 Google wouldn’t have been possible without the help and guidance of teachers and administrators who work hard every day to encourage art and creativity in the classroom — it is this sort of creativity that will lead to tomorrow's designers, technologists and engineers.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience