Originally published on the CGS blog on May 8, 2007.
It’s that time again folks! The last week has seen the conclusion of the much anticipated third installment of the GlobalSolutions.org Flash Movie Contest . Once again this acclaimed initiative demonstrated its value in educating youth about the key global issues and concerns of the day, and gained some exciting and sophisticated movies that are arguably some of the best we’ve ever had. As the contest continues to go from strength to strength, it’s rewarding to find ourselves as inspired by what our young audience is creating as they are by the work that we do as an organization.
This year saw over 5,600 registrants from across the globe, including Pakistan, Mexico and the Ukraine. We saw the greatest age range in our contest participants than ever before – from ages 11 to 60 and for the first time brought in a five member panel to judge the submissions. The winners ranged in age from 15 to 24, with the first place movie focusing on energy and thus tying in perfectly with our key organizational campaign of 2007.
Tellingly, the winning submissions this year all focused on issues relating to energy and the environment, demonstrating how strongly young people feel about the need to combat pollution, develop alternative energy sources and focus far more on sustainable development.
The animator of the winning movie, 24-year-old Jeffrey Knight from Savannah, Georgia, pointedly commented that, “Be they small or large, our decisions and demands will shape the future of our world and make it a future worth saving.”
Flash technology is an exciting medium for bringing complex foreign policy issues to a broader audience, especially youth. Communicating key concerns in the space of a couple of minutes is phenomenally challenging, especially when many people that we engage are new to the subjects and have to start from scratch. This reflects not only that youth understand the issues at hand far more intricately than they are given credit for, but also demonstrates their astounding ability to communicate two minute animations that retain many of the nuances of what are complicated global problems.
Ensuring that GlobalSolutions.org stays high on the top of the technology wave is a crucial goal of the flash contest, but lets not lose sight of the bigger picture of what this initiative is all about education and engagement.
Flash has constructed both an echo chamber in which peoples’ own voices can resound, and a channel by which their opinions may flow into the foreign policy debate. And in accordance with our organization’s vision and mission, these engaged young people have adopted our policy areas as the vehicles through which they can both join the conversation and offer their own personal solutions to the intricate threats and challenges of the 21st century.
