HP and Cartoon Network announce winners of Toon Creator Awards

11 January 2010

Singapore – Hewlett-Packard and Cartoon Network named Dylan Stehlik (Australia), Shreyas Aiyar (India), Mohammad Aidy Adham (Malaysia), Jeslyn Seetoh Hui Yi (Singapore), Jonathan Chu (Taiwan) and Elise Finney (Thailand) as its six Individual Country Winners of the inaugural Toon Creator Awards. Malaysia's Mohammad Aidy Adham was also named as this year's Asia Pacific Grand Prize Winner.
They were chosen from over 31,000 individual and school contest entries from budding young animators spanning the Asia Pacific region. Toon Creator Awards is an interactive contest in which kids create their own short animations.
"I was very surprised and happy to know that I was the grand prize winner of the Toon Creator Awards. My dad inspired and motivated me to join this contest," said the 9-year-old Mohammad who aspires to be a scientist someday.
Each country winner was awarded with an HP TouchSmart PC and a Cartoon Network Digital Pack loaded with Ben 10 branded goodies including an MP3 player, a pre-loaded MP4 player, a digital camera, a USB flash drive and an MP3 speaker. In addition to the prizes won as an Individual Country Winner, Grand Prize Winner Mohammad from Malaysia received an HP Digital Makeover consisting of additional HP products designed to nurture his creative abilities; and an HP technician onsite for the setup. His prizes consisted of additional HP Pavilion p6000 desktop PC, an HP Pavilion dm3 notebook PC, a printer and an array of supplies.
The aim of the awards was also to encourage schools in the region to encourage students to nurture their creativity and express themselves through technology with Toon Creator Awards. Five schools with the most registered entries – St Spyridon College (Australia), Kendriya Vidyalaya NO 1 (India), Sekolah Rendah Sri Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Queenstown Primary School (Singapore) and Assumption College (Thailand) – each received three HP TouchSmart PCs for their computer labs to enhance their learning experience as they 'Touch the Future' with the new PCs.
"As the number one kids' channel in Asia Pacific, we strive to animate kids' lives across all platforms. We hope this regional initiative will continue to serve as a community platform to promote self-expression and imagination in a fun and exciting way, encouraging young talent to showcase their creativity through technology," said Benjamin Grubbs, regional director for Turner Entertainment Interactive Media.
Dennis Mark, vice president and general manager, marketing, personal systems Group, HP Asia Pacific and Japan, said, "The level of quality and creativity displayed by the winners of this year's inaugural Toon Creator Awards was outstanding and we firmly believe that each and every one has a bright future ahead of them, be it in animation or any other creative field. This competition sits very close to our hearts at HP as creativity breeds innovation, something we continually strive to achieve on a daily basis."