With the objective of encouraging the Cuban blogosphere and motivating those who use the Internet for expressing ideas, information and testimonies, the team of the magazine Convivencia and the editorial board of the site Desdecuba.com, announce the contest titled A Virtual Island.
The contest rules will be sent by email to all bloggers who write from Cuba. In they message they will be asked to confirm if they will to participate in the contest. Only those who respond affirmatively to our call will be considered nominees for one of the prizes described here.
Rules
- Cuban bloggers currently living in the country are eligible to participate.
- The blogs submitted can participate in other contests at the same time.
- Blogs can be submitted regardless of the date they were begun.
- Blogs on diverse themes will be considered, including personal, informative, news, computers, tourism, etc.
- Each contestant can enter the number of blogs they desire.
- The blogs in the competition must be signed with one’s own name.
- This call is in effect from today, December 19, 2008, until August 30 2009, when the final deliberations of the jury will begin.
- The results of this contest will be announced on September 9, 2009, through the digital media involved in the event.
- The decision of the jury is final. Any category included in the competition can be canceled if the jury decides to do so.
- Honorable mentions may be awarded if the jury decides to do so.
- The members of the jury are excluded from participating in the contest.
- Participation in the contest requires conformity with these rules.
Prize categories
- Best blog, Jury Award
- Best Blog, by public vote
- Best Blog Design
- Best Blog, Informative and Newsworthy
- Prize awarded by on-line voting to best commentator who vists Cuban blogs
- Special Prize Awarded by the site 233 grados (http://233grados.com)
During the course of this contest different news institutions related to Internet journalist may offer a special prize under the criteria of their choice.
The jury is composed of:
- Enrique Del Risco, blogger de enrisco
- Reinaldo Escobar, blogger de Desde aquí
- Ernesto Hernández Busto, blogger de Penúltimos Días
- Yoani Sánchez, blogger de Generación Y
- Virgilio Toledo, diseñador de la revista Convivencia
- Dagoberto Valdés, director de la revista Convivencia
The Jury Prize will be a Laptop that will facilitate the work of the blogger. The prizes for the other categories will be announced on March 1, 2009, along with the final list of contestants. Starting on that day, on-line voting will begin for readers to select which they consider to be the best blogs.
This is an awesome initiative and a huge step forward for Cuban bloggers on the island.
I think it’s incredible for Yoani to step up this way and I think it’s equally as amazing to see all these people attending these meetings despite continued government pressure for them to stop.
Maybe the people who comment here, like myself, could raise funds and offer a prize in one of the categories or something? I’d be up for it. What does everyone else think?
A prize from the readers! Sickboy — I think that’s a FABULOUS idea. Perhaps one way to arrange it would be through Ernesto Hernández Busto of Penultimos Dias. He is based in Spain and could collect the donations from readers of all the translated sites (or just the English, but I think all the sites would be nice… we can post on them and suggest it)… and depending on how much we raise, we could decide on a prize. I think a laptop or computer equipment of some kind would be a great prize, and they don’t cost that much any more. He already has a donation button on his site, and might be willing to allow people to designate donations to go to the prize. Why don’t you contact him?
Elias
I’ll contact him tomorrow if he isn’t willing I’ll put something up on my blog for donations or talk to the translation team here and see what ideas they might come up with. As far as delivery is concerned my next trip to Havana is going to be in early summer or late spring and I could even bring it down myself. As far as how much we could raise I think that if we get all the translations of this site involved we could buy quite a few laptops. I mean you can get a decent one nowadays for like 500-600$…
I just think it would be a nice way for us to give back to people who are trying really hard to make some concrete changes to a place that desperately needs changing and who’ve brought all their readers so much.
Thanks for the advice Elias and thank you for your enthusiasm, I really appreciate it.
great idea and maybe digital camaras for runner up. I’ll donate $$$ for sure. Paypal makes sending money easy.
Camera’s might be an excellent idea! Or MP3 recording pens for when the MinInt tries the stop these bloggers again!!!
With the help of our friendly English translator we’ve emailed a lot of the other translators and we are waiting for them to chime in on how we should proceed. I’ll keep everyone posted, when I get an update I’ll post it here in this thread.