

Our finalists were chosen based on a combination of public voting and our judging criteria, including artistic merit, creativity and how well participants communicated the theme in their artwork and written statement. And today, we’re happy to share that the votes are in, the judges have deliberated and drum roll please…we’re ready to announce our five national finalists for the 2021 Doodle for Google contest! After carefully reviewing all the submissions, we announced our 54 state winners and opened up public voting on our website. We received tens of thousands of submissions from students in all 50 states, as well as Washington D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. We kicked off the 13th annual Doodle for Google contest back in January and invited K-12 students across the country to submit their artistic interpretations of “I am strong because…”.

And that strength is boundless and inspiring. This theme also presents an opportunity to not only honor, but also celebrate a more general beautiful truth that we sometimes don’t talk about enough: kids are strong and resilient. And not just because of the unprecedented pandemic and growing social movements and conversations we’ve seen sweep our nation and world over the last year. For real.I’ve worked on the Doodle team at Google for more than five years - and I believe this year’s theme, “I am strong because…” is our most powerful prompt to date. Gerald is also the author of 'Get Technology: Upgrade Your Future', published by Aurum Press, and also holds a Guinness world record on Tetris. Gerald is also a contributing tech pundit for BBC Radio and has written for various other publications, including T3 magazine, GamesRadar,, Real Homes, MacFormat, music bible DIY, Tech Digest, TopTenReviews, .uk, Brandish, Kotaku, Shiny Shiny and Lifehacker. If it has an acronym and an app, he's probably been there, on the front lines reporting on the latest tech innovations. Living in London in the UK, Gerald was previously Editor of Gizmodo UK, and Executive Editor of TechRadar, and has covered international trade shows including Apple's WWDC, MWC, CES and IFA. You'll never see him without his iPad Pro, and he loves gaming sessions with his buddies via Apple Arcade on his iPhone 14 Pro, but don't expect him to play with you at home unless your Apple TV is hooked up to a 4K HDR screen and a 7.1 surround system. Gerald Lynch is the Editor-in-Chief of iMore, keeping careful watch over the site's editorial output and commercial campaigns, ensuring iMore delivers the in-depth, accurate and timely Apple content its readership deservedly expects.
