Gocreate.co.za winners announced

The competition offers incentives to the creative industry from the fields of web, design, video and photography in that over 370 winners walk away with over R460 000 worth of prizes including Adobe software, Xbox 360 Kinect packages, Apple iPads and HP Workstations.

"It has a community building purpose that will probably become far stronger than the incentive element," says Leonard Rabotapi, PR and marketing manager for Adobe, Sub-Saharan Africa.

Equal opportunity platform

He calls it an equal opportunity platform that offers both new and established creatives a platform for creative showcase. "As a company, our commitment to education and young people has seen us involved in activities like the Loeries Student Portfolio Day, ADAA, even student pricing on our products in a drive to ensure young people can have access to the tools they need to thrive. This takes it one step further, by helping build a bridge between experienced and less experienced creatives across the industry. What's more it's a platform not limited to South Africa as it covers Africa and the world."

The competition is gaining support and traction as a creative community platform. "This year's submissions were phenomenal," says Rabotapi. "But the commentary and advice exchange was also phenomenal." It achieved a ranking within the top 40 Facebook pages in South Africa this year, another indication that the audience is starting to grow.

Heavily focused on social media

The community is heavily focused on social media, as entrants who upload their work onto the page could and did lobby for votes, using tools such as Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. Only entrants with 100 votes or more qualified for the Hall of Fame, securing their place in the competition. In addition, the public were encouraged to vote for their favourite entries in the four categories - resulting in over 370 clear winners.

"The competition element not only gives creatives the opportunity to compare work with their peers but also offers them the chance to be widely recognised for the innovative work that they do. It will reach even further to extend the concept of the equal opportunity platform, in 2012," he concludes.

Competition sponsors were Comztek, Dax Data, Digicape, Enjin Magazine, Flip Video, Friends of Design, Intersoft, Keyline, Labspace, Learning Curve, Loerie Awards, MSD, Nikon, Touchvision, TypeDNA & Workgroup. For more, go to www.gocreate.co.za.

Winners