A 10-year-old boy’s hope that his country will be at the centre stage of scientific advancement in 25 years and the image he drew to portray it won him the Doodle for Google competition 2022 on Children’s Day.
Shlok Mukherjee’s drawing was the Google doodle for 24 hours on November 14, selected from over 1,15000 entries from across 100 cities in India.
The day started at 4am at their home in Kankurgachhi, when Shlok’s mother woke up to her son’s doodle on Google. A few hours later, phone calls followed and of course, celebration.
The student of Delhi Public School New Town in his doodle married science with nature. “My doodle has an eco-friendly robot that plants trees and stops them from getting uprooted. I have shown India at the centre stage and the rest of the world applauding our advancement,” the Class IV boy told The Telegraph.
About 10 days back, when Shlok was getting off the school bus one afternoon, his mother told him he was one of the finalists of the competition and he would have to go to Delhi.
“In Delhi, he was one of the 20 finalists from across the country. We were told that the winner’s doodle would be up on Google on November 14. I woke up at 4 am today to check and there it was,” said Shlok’s mother Paromita Chatterjee.
The theme for this year’s competition was “In the next 25 years, my India will...”
The entries were judged on artistic merit, creativity, alignment with the contest theme, uniqueness and novelty of approach, Google said in a video.
“We appreciate his ability to think deeply about the future of the nation and the environment,” said Sonali Sen, principal of the school.
Google said that it was heartening that “advancement of technology and sustainability emerge as common themes across many of the Doodles”.