Divyanshi Singhal doodles her hope to have “Walking Trees” in the future, to protect the next generations from deforestation

The idea of “walking trees” wins votes and hearts to become the national winner of this year’s Doodle for Google contest

This year’s contest saw over 1.1 lakh children from classes 1 to 10 across the country sending in their doodles, based on the theme ‘When I grow up, I hope ..’. It was heartening to see so many fresh, creative depictions for a better world: from cleaning up the ocean, to flying solo using technology, to simply dreaming about a world without boundaries.

After three months, and with participation from over 50 cities across India, we are thrilled to announce this year’s National winner of our Doodle for Google contest: seven-year-old Divyanshi Singhal  from Gurgaon is the national winner with her imaginative, thoughtful, and inspiring doodle, entitled ‘The Walking Tree’. Divyanshi’s doodle will be featured on the Google India homepage on November 14th as part of our celebration of Children’s Day. 

Divyanshi from DPS, Gurgaon, expressed her dismay on trees been cut down, where through her doodle ‘The Walking Trees’ she says, “When I grow up, I hope the world’s trees can walk or fly. The land could be cleared so easily without making them die. There would be so little deforestation and humans can just ask the trees and their friends to move to another place.”

When we inquired how she came up with this delightful idea, she explained, “When I visited my grandmother, I was so sad to see the trees around her house being cut. So I thought that if trees could walk or fly, we will not have to cut them'' she said wistfully.

This year’s jury, comprising creative masterminds including Rajiv Chilaka, (creator of Chhota Bheem & CEO of Green Gold Animation,) Prajakta Koli (India’s leading female YouTube Creator,) and Neha Sharma (famous artist and creator of Neha Doodles) along with the Google Doodle team had a mammoth task at hand; first, to shortlist from the submissions received, then to choose the 20 Finalists from across the nation, with every piece of art as compelling as the other. All entries were evaluated on the criteria of artistic merit, creativity and theme communication, as well as the uniqueness and novelty in the approach.

The final 20 shortlisted doodles were then showcased online at https://doodles.google.co.in/d4g/ for public voting. The designs for this year’s theme were incredibly creative across all class groups. In addition to the national winner, 5 group winners were also selected. Over 6 lac public votes helped us determine the following group winners for the 5 class groups

Class group 1-2: 

G.S.S. Sharvan, Sri Prakash Vidya Niketan, Visakhapatnam 

Doodle Title: Ocean Friendly  

“When I grow up, I hope to live in a world where the underwater sea animals become free from plastic waste. I would like to clear the underwater using a machine to help sea animals and plants.”

Class Group 3-4: 

Bhaswati Bishoi, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bhubneswar  

Doodle Title: From moon to moon!

“My parents gave me the nickname “Moonmoon”, telling me go moon to moon. When I grow up, I hope to fulfill my parent’s dream, and to participate in the space voyage to discover the undiscovered.”

Class Group 5-6:

Ankit Bhattacharya, Delhi Public School, Kolkata 

Doodle Title: Learning with Fun

Grades place students in predefined categories like A, B, C which compel them to run after marks rather than to acquire real knowledge. So when I grow up, I hope there is no fear of exams. Learning is more fun and students expand their horizons, improve creativity and skill without any stress.

Class Group 7-8:

Pyla Vijay Kumar, Sri Prakash Vidyaniketan, Visakhapatnam

Doodle Title: Khadi, an evergreen Indian pride 

“When I grow up, I hope to spread the significance and genuinity of KHADI material in order to increase its production and utilisation, thereby restoring the Indian Culture.”

Class Group 9-10:

Sidagam Sai Sathvik, Sri Prakash Vidya Niketan, Visakhapatnam

Doodle Title: Everlasting Impact -- Indian Folk Art

“When I grow up, I hope the world recognises the magnificent treasure of India -- Indian Folk Art -- and passes it on to the next generations leaving an everlasting impact.”

With the Doodle for Google competition, we aim to celebrate and promote creativity, passion, and imagination in young people across the country, and we continue to be overwhelmed by the participation from the talented and creative young artists each year. 

A heartfelt thanks from the Doodle for Google team and the jury to all who voted and helped us select this year's winners. Most importantly, we thank the students who submitted their wonderful entries this year, and our partner schools and guest judges -- it was incredibly challenging to select the winning doodles from the amazing entries we had the honor of reviewing. 

Keep on doodling, and looking forward to seeing you next year!