UK CHILDREN SHORTLISTED FOR INTERNATIONAL WEB AWARDS: 12 year-old from Yorkshire wins recognition for environmental campaign 31 January 2003

Five innovative UK websites are in line for a prestigious international web award, after being included in the final shortlist for the 2003 Cable & Wireless Childnet Awards, which was announced today.

A 12 year-old environmental campaigner from South Yorkshire and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital join finalists from Canada, Egypt, USA and Italy – and have the chance to win a share of the £15k prize money to help them further develop their projects.

With almost 300 entries from 50 countries, the independent panel of Award judges shortlisted Sarah Bowler’s Cool Kids for a Cool Climate website and Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Kids & Teens website for their “originality, creativity and appeal to young people worldwide.”

Great Ormond Street’s Kids & Teens site has been written by and with young people at the UK’s largest specialist children’s hospital. The interactive site provides a powerful platform from which children can share their hospital experience with others and learn about medical issues.

“The site caught our attention because of its simplicity, rich content for different age groups and strong visual identity”, explain the award judges. [See Notes to Editor below for full list of judging panel.]

“It is an example of how a hospital can create quality, authoritative information on issues relating to health in a fun, child-centred and accessible way.”

Sarah’s Cool Kids for a Cool Climate website encourages people to ‘think global and act local’, promoting the idea of planting trees to compensate for the pollution caused by modern transportation. The website’s ‘tree calculator’ is just one feature which caught the attention of the judges.

The judges explained: “the site is a wonderful example of how young people can use the web to turn ideas into action and extend an offline activity so others can take part online. Working on limited resources, Sarah has produced a simple, easy to understand website which has huge potential.”

Sarah will join other shortlisted web creators from around the world – including a 16-year-old Australian cartoonist, the US creator of a Harry Potter inspired online newspaper and the web development team at Middlesborough’s Priorywoods community special school – at the prestigious annual Awards ceremony to be held at the Science Museum in London later this year.

The Awards, run by children’s Internet charity, Childnet International and supported by Cable & Wireless recognise the innovation and creativity of young people, teachers and not-for-profit organisations that have developed websites which benefit young people around the world.

According to Nigel Williams, chief executive of Childnet International and chairman of the judging panel, the shortlisted entries demonstrate just how powerful and exciting the Internet can be. He said:

“The finalists this year really do bring the Internet to life, enabling young people to share ideas, express their own creativity and use the web as a powerful tool for learning, fun and communication.”

The Award’s ‘New to the Net’ category will also recognise the potential of two brand new Internet projects that are at an early stage of development.

Sierra Leone’s iEARN web initiative aims to create an on-line resource, which will incorporate the issue of peace and reconciliation into the local school curriculum. The project will encourage young people who have grown up in a country ravaged by war and conflict to use the web to assist a smooth transition towards peaceful co-existence.

Aimed at young entrepreneurs, Biznet.com has been created by two Egyptian teenagers determined to succeed in the world of business. The site includes a ‘hall of fame’ and a business simulation tool – with an online magazine under development.

For further information please contact:

Stephen Carrick-Davis, Childnet International 020 7639 6967 or 0771 245 1859
Joe Franses, Cable & Wireless 020 7315 4489 or 07961 338 721
Ed Knight, Cable & Wireless 020 7315 6759
or see the Awards website: www.childnetawards.org

-ends-

Notes to Editor

1. The full shortlist of finalists is as follows:

Bonjour - Stephane Derone (UK)
www.bonjour.org.uk

Kidzdom - Andrew Fei (Australia)
www.kidzdom.com

Daily Prophet - Heather Lawver (USA)
www.dprophet.com

Cool Kids for a Cool Climate - Sarah Bowler (UK)
uk.geocities.com/coolkidsforacoolclimate

Priorywoods School (UK)
www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk

Liceo Classico "Duni" – Matera (Italy)
www.gdmland.it/giornalino_matera/giornalinomatera.asp

Willougby Elementary School (Canada)
www.schoolcentral.com/willoughby4/

Polka Theatre (UK & USA))
www.webplay.org

Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital (UK)
www.gosh.nhs.uk/kidsandteens

YouthNOISE (USA)
www.youthnoise.com

IEARN (Sierra Leone)
peacereconcile.virtualactivism.org

Young Biznet.com (Egypt)
www.youngbiznet.com

2. The Awards judging panel was comprised of:

Carol Vorderman – Channel 4, TV Celebrity
Lord Warner of Brockley – Chairman, Youth Justice Board & Chairman, NVCO
Judith Judd – Associate Editor, Times Educational Supplement
Heba Ramzy – Schoolnet Africa
Dan Fitz – Group General Counsel, Cable & Wireless
Trond Waage – Norwegian Ombudsman for Children
Larry Magid – Technology Consultant, CBS News and author of safekids.com
Neil McClean – British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta)
Nigel Williams – Chief Executive of Childnet International

3. Childnet International is a UK registered charity, working to help make the Internet an exciting and safe place for children and young people.

4. Cable & Wireless is a major global telecommunications business with revenue of over £5.9 billion (US$8.6 billion) in the year to 31 March 2002 and customers in 80 countries.

It consists of two core and complementary divisions: Cable & Wireless Regional and Cable & Wireless Global. Cable & Wireless Regional offers a full range of telecommunications services in 33 countries around the world, with major businesses in the Caribbean, Panama, the Middle East and Macau.

Cable & Wireless Global provides IP (internet protocol), voice and data services and managed solutions for business customers. It has developed advanced IP networks and value-added services in the US, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region in support of this strategy. Building on its strong national businesses in the UK and Japan, Cable & Wireless Global will focus on serving primarily multinational companies (both enterprises and service providers) in the US, UK, continental Europe and Japan/Asia. For more information about Cable & Wireless, go to www.cw.com.