Awards Ceremony for Doors to Diplomacy Student Web Site Contest Winners

Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman will present awards to honor the winners of the Department’s “Doors to Diplomacy” contest to students and coaches from two teams at a special awards ceremony to be held in the Harry S Truman Building Treaty Room on Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 10 a.m.

The students and coaches are visiting Washington, DC as part of their prize for building the Web sites that best teach about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. A total of 260 teams from 52 countries, with students ranging in age from 11-18, participated in the contest, co-sponsored by the Department of State and Global SchoolNet.

Global SchoolNet http://www.globalschoolnet.org is a not-for-profit, Internet-based education program. The Doors to Diplomacy Award was specially created for Cyberfair, a contest that encourages students and educators to join together to build high-quality, educational Web sites on a variety of topics. These Web site entries will be available on the web as learning tools to millions of people around the globe.

The winning sites are:

”The History of Foreign Relations, Past, Present, Future,” http://www.elementblue.net created by a team of five students from Kendalville, Indiana, USA, who worked together to develop an educational Web site that uses a fictional international situation to familiarize users with diplomatic tools and processes.

“Uzbekistan: Opaque Reality,” http://www.tashschool.org/peace/main.html which investigates human rights in Uzbekistan. The site was built by a team of four students from South Korea, Belgium, and Uzbekistan who attend the Tashkent International School.

In addition to their three-day trip to Washington, DC, each student member of the winning “Doors to Diplomacy” Award team will receive a $2,000 scholarship to be put toward college or technical training. The winning coaches and schools will each receive a $500 cash award.

The winners were announced on May 5.