Thank you for all who have participated in the 2008 APEC ICT Poster Competition. Organized for the first time as an international competition in the APEC region, the competition has received more than 350 entries from 12 APEC member economies including Australia, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and United States.

Seven prize winners and thirty finalists were selected by a panel of judges, as a result of their excellence in visual image and illustration of the competition theme, “Information and Communication Technology for Hope.” The judges agreed that the winning posters depicted the ICT as a tool for building a global community of hope in a diversity of ideas and expressions.

The first prize went to Pandora’s New Box by Sergio Bumatay III from the Philippines. The judges particularly appreciated the interpretation of the competition theme depicted in the poster, that ICT can enhance the youth’s imagination for a better future.

Read the comments of the Competition Judges

The winning posters will be displayed in the Poster Exhibitions in the APEC member economies. Please stay tuned for more updates on the Exhibition schedule!

Professor Sang-rak Kim
Director of Design Management Center, Dankook University, Korea

2008 APEC ICT Poster Competition, jointly organized by the KT Cultural Foundation and the APEC Education Foundation for the first time as an international competition covering the Asia Pacific region, was a very successful event, receiving 350 entries from 12 APEC member economies.

Considering that the imagination and innovation inherent in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have increasingly become a reality in our lives, I hope the 2008 APEC ICT Poster Competition to expand further and invite even greater variety of input from all over the world.

It is not an easy task to depict the positive and negative sides of ICT in a form of a poster, the crown jewel of visual communication, and to win a common appreciation from different APEC member economies with varying tradition, culture and environment.

The competition judges agreed that the 30 finalists and 7 winners among 350 entries showed outstanding qualities in their layout, expressions and ideas.

The Grand Prize winner, Pandora’s New Box by Sergio Bumatay III from the Philippines stands out with its hopeful message that the youth, our future generation, can make good things happen through their imagination and ICT education, displayed in a very unique and fascinating illustration and layout.

Tech Taking Over by Mikey Bravo from the United States was chosen for the Gold Prize. It is an interesting artwork illustrating the ICT as a key to a better future, overlapping on a picture of an impoverished area. And IT is hope by Ah-Young Kim and Ji-Hun Kim from Korea showed a brilliant imagination by displaying ICT as a tool to overcome the generation and cultural gaps and to open a hopeful world in the future.

There were other posters among the winners and finalists which illustrated the positive and negative effects of ICT with strong visual impact and intriguing imagination. I’d also like to commend that it was highly interesting to see the different poster design styles of the 12 APEC member economies.

Congratulations to the winners, as well as the competition organizers including the CEO and the project staff at the KT Cultural Foundation, for making this competition a success.

Professor Jae Eun Choi
Myongji University Division of Design, Korea

It is really a great thing to share the theme “Information and Communication for Hope” and communicate with others internationally through a visual language, posters. Particularly this year being organized as the first time to open its door to international participants in the APEC region, I very much appreciate the diversity and uniqueness in the expression style of the posters. In terms of the ideas, the competition entries also showed how a poster competition should be globalized in today’s world, with a variety of intriguing and fun approaches taken by many poster entries. I sincerely hope that the competition will achieve an even greater success next year and continue its contribution to spreading a culture of effective and productive utilization of ICT.

Pandora’s New Box was chosen for the Competition winner due to its excellent selection of colors, unique image work, and brilliant interpretation of the competition theme described as looking for a future of unlimited potential by the youth.

The Gold Prize winning entry, Tech Taking Over used a very interesting combination of the binary codes 0 and 1 with a picture of an impoverished area. It is visually strong in conveying the idea that ICT brings hope to people regardless of their wealth.

The Silver Prize winner, Hope Land expressed vey well the competition theme in a message that just like the island meant a hope in the era of exploration, ICT means a hope of a better opportunity in the era of digital communication. The image of a mouse depicting an island, the unique layout as if looking through a telescope, and the overall look and feel of the poster as in an old map were altogether very interesting.

Another silver prize winner, IT is Hope compared the viewpoints of two very different generations on the digital world, where ICT aids them to bridge their generation as well as cultural gap. The poster stands out with an interesting idea and fun image works illustrating the theme.

Dr. Hyungdo Ahn, Executive Director, APEC Education Foundation
Mr. Young Geun Kim, General Manager, KT Cultural Foundation