Romanian Students Win Microsoft’s ‘Surf the Net – Think Privacy’ Competition

Ilinca Razvan Alexandru, Coman Cosmin Bogdan, Cretu Andreea, Spinu Dragos, and Chisca Raluca Elena are the winners of a Microsoft video competition focused on online privacy. Microsoft’s ‘Surf the Net – Think Privacy’ competition designed to raise awareness of the risks associated with online privacy was among the Redmond company's efforts associated with the EU Data Protection Day, January 28, 2009. The initiative was open to no less than 27 countries, with the student team from "Mihail Sadoveanu" High School (Romania) taking the first prize.

The software giant indicated that the privacy video competition aimed exclusively at European teenagers was designed to allow students to share their perspective over online privacy. The video authored by the "Mihail Sadoveanu" High School students, which is available for viewing via this link, is a metaphor of the repercussions that the loss of identity can have in real life. The short film dealing with the effects of stolen identities via the Internet has been selected as the winner out of more than 7,000 seconds of video submitted.

"The finalists were all invited to attend a prize ceremony in Brussels, where the overall winners of the competition were announced as pupils from Mihail Sadoveanu High School in Romania, whose video ‘ID’ provided a visual representation of the dangers of uploading personal data and identity theft," Microsoft revealed.

The second prize was awarded to "The Great Cyber Robbery" by Manuel Guerra (Portugal), with the bronze going to Little "Betsy" Georgi Koemdzhiev – Stoyan Totin from "Dimitar Talev" High School (Goce Delchev, Bulgaria). There was also a Special Prize Twin Video, "Unprotected Data" for Andromachi Mavrogianni, Genetic Lyceum, (Katerini, Greece) and Mantas Kasputis, (Lithuania).

"This is no small feat as a total of 27 countries were represented in the competition, which featured a total of over 7000 seconds worth of video, recorded in 24 different languages. Seven out of the top ten entries also came from the CEE region, with entries from Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic all making it through to the final stages," the company said.