Cast Your Vote For A Contest That Counts

Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Andy Russell of Launchpad Toys. Andy was showing me his prototype of Toontastic, a phenomenal experience for iPad that lets children produce their own cartoons and stories. I never would have met Andy had it not been for a mutual contact at the Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. The Cooney Center actively supports breakthrough ideas in children’s learning, and one of the ways they do this is with their Prizes for Innovation program. Andy’s Toontastic was a finalist in that program last year, along with other successful innovations such as Motion Math and Project Noah. Curious about what’s on the agenda for this year? Here are the details…

The Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation seek to identify, inspire, nurture and scale breakthrough ideas in children’s digital media and learning. Inspired by Educate to Innovate, President Obama’s initiative to promote a renewed focus on science, technology, engineering, and math, the National STEM Video Game Challenge invited developers – from middle school youth to collegiate and professional teams —  to submit proposals and prototypes for games
to motivate interest in STEM learning among America’s youth.

We are thrilled that we’ve received about 550 applications for the Youth and Developer prizes. The winners, to be selected by a panel of distinguished jurors, will be announced later this spring. But in the meantime, check out our Public Voting page (http://cooney-stem.skild.com/Vote.jsp ) and learn more about some of these amazing projects. Share your comments, vote for your favorites, and spread the word about these games! The winner of the Public Vote will receive a Game Developers Conference 2010 package courtesy of Game Connection. Winners will be announced later this spring.

The last day to vote is Friday February 25th.

Thanks in advance for your support of these next generation ideas for kids!