News

Digital Animation students won first prize in a contest sponsored by the International Disaster Information Center

May 3, 2010
Florentina Pérez Ferrando and Sebastián Pérez Traverso, students in the Digital Animation Technician program, were part of the winning team in the Broadcast category of the PSAid Contest, a nationwide U.S. competition for public service announcements sponsored by the Center for International Disaster Information. They presented the short film *Helping Hands* alongside Rika Endo, Riyoko Iwamoto, and Jamie McElrath. Participating groups were tasked with developing poster and video campaigns explaining the importance of efforts to mitigate the consequences of international disasters.

Both students were selected to participate in courses at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) from January 16 to February 28 of this year, as part of a collaborative program between that institution and ORT University, which was supported by the U.S. Embassy in Uruguay.

The theme of this year’s contest was “To help more, cash is better,” with the aim of conveying that cash is a more efficient way to help victims than in-kind donations. The winners were selected based on an online public vote and a panel of judges. First and second place in the Broadcast category went to teams from CalArts, out of the 70 teams that participated from across the United States. The winning team received a prize of $12,000.