Doodle 4 Google 2014 - US Winner

For our 7th annual Doodle 4 Google competition, we asked kids, grades K-12, to draw an invention that would make the world a better place. Out of more than 100,000 submissions, 250 state finalists, 50 state winners, and 5 national age group winners, we are excited to present the 2014 Doodle 4 Google winner: 11-year old Audrey Zhang of New York!

"To make the world a better place, I invented a transformative water purifier. It takes in dirty and polluted water from rivers, lakes, and even oceans, then massively transforms the water into clean, safe and sanitary water, when humans and animals drink this water, they will live a healthier life."
- Audrey Zhang, 11

We quickly lost count of all the delightful elements of Audrey’s doodle. So in the spirit of this year’s theme, we asked Audrey to spend a day with the doodlers to turn her illustration into a moving animation. As an animator and director for a day, she made sure we twinkled each light and cleaned the water just right and took extra care for the  illustration’s dragons—about whom she is also writing a novel.  

We thought she might consider it a pretty cool gig, but alas, Audrey eventually had to fly back to New York with the $30,000 college scholarship and $50,000 Google for Education technology grant for her school. We were also so inspired by her doodle invention that google.org donated $20,000 in her name to charity:water toward providing clean water to schools in Bangladesh.

Audrey’s doodle was one of many amazing contributions to Doodle 4 Google this year. We encourage you to take a look at the outstanding national grade group winners, who we announced at an event with all 50 state winners at the Googleplex back in May.

Doodle 4 Google is easily the Doodle team’s favorite event of the year. Getting to spend the day with 50 incredibly talented young doodlers was inspiring to say the least and truly reaffirmed our values in curiosity, creativity, imagination, and innovation. This year was also a reminder of the importance of perseverance: we saw some familiar faces this time around, including Audrey, who was a third-time (!) finalist this year.

Congratulations to all our Doodle 4 Google winners!

Posted by Liat Ben-Rafael