Sesame Workshop’s Cooney Center to Award Digital Media Prizes

NEW YORK: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop has announced the inaugural Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation in Children’s Learning, a competition recognizing innovative ideas in children’s digital media and learning.

The program will annually award cash prizes and development- and business-planning support from The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. The Breakthroughs in Mobile Learning prize category is open to projects aimed at 3- to 11-year-olds that push the boundaries of learning while using handheld technologies. The Breakthroughs in Literacy Learning: Innovate with The Electric Company category is for projects that promote literacy skills using Sesame Workshop’s The Electric Company, a multimedia campaign that fosters literacy skills for the 6-to-9 set.

This year’s prizes are $50,000 towards prototype development in the Mobile Learning category and $10,000 in the Literacy Learning category, along with providing winners the opportunity to work with Sesame Workshop to turn their idea into a product. Up to five finalists in each category will be invited to pitch their ideas to industry and educational leaders at an event held at this year’s E3 Expo. The deadline for submissions is April 1.

Dr. Michael H. Levine, the executive director of the The Cooney Center, said, “Billions of dollars are spent every year by parents on the growing plethora of digital games, toys, mobile devices and online experiences for children. However, research demonstrates that the vast majority of these products have only tapped a minimal amount of educational value. The new prizes are intended to offer real incentives to digital media entrepreneurs who would like to do well by creating new ways to help children learn.”