The five jury members plus a secretary to the jury (that is me) were selected in March. Chairman of the jury is Ton Vermeij, who has an advertising bureau Meijson in Amsterdam. We had two ladies. Anneloes Jenneskens of Stap-1 in Amsterdam is an adviser and project manager, while Madelon Evers of Human Shareware in Utrecht is an advisor, but also instructor. Further we had Wim van der Plas, an instructor in Amersfoort and a member of the board of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts as well as Hennie van Velzen, a innovation consultant for Broadband Netherlands and manager of the demonstration centre Media Plaza in Utrecht.
The jury at work. In front Ton Vermeij, the chairman. Next is Madelon Evers. In the back is Hennie van Velzen with Wim van der Plas hiding behind Hennie. To the right is Anneloes Jenneskens.
The jury had to struggle through 63 entries. But we had much support from the student of the Junior College Hogeschool Rotterdam. It is a team of four smart people, three guys and a girl. They had taken care that all the entries had been properly installed. They also studied all the entries and wrote up their candidates for nomination and Seal of Quality. The team made the jury very efficient and the jury process very professional.
One of the students presenting the findings on behalf of the student team.
Not all entries are online products. We had in fact 20 entries on CD-ROM or DVD and five entries on mobiles, be it a smart phone or a PDA. It is funny to see that online start dominating the entries now. Last year the relationship between online and offline was still fifty/fifty. There was also an installation, a production which is not dependable on a screen. Last year we had also an installation as an entry Interactive Projection System by Anya Shapira. This one was nominated in the EUROPRIX.2004, but did not win the category award. When her project was entered into the EUROPRIX Top Talent Award (TTA), a European competition for young talent, she won the category award, which came as a surprise to her. Of course as her sponsors to the TTA we, the organisers of the EUROPRIX.nl 2004, were very proud of her.
What is going to happen next. By the end of the week the list of nominations and the company names will be published in a press release and on this blog, of course. On Thursday June 16th, 2005, we will have a public jury day in Rotterdam. All nominees will come and present their entry in front of the jurors and the audience, consisting of professionals and students. The nominees get 10 minutes for the presentation, followed by the interrogation of the jurors, while the members of the audience can put one or two questions to the nominee. By the end of the day all category winners are made known and the awards are handed out. At the same day every nominee can take one of the desks in the hall next to the auditorium and can show their work. Last year we had about 100 people visiting during the whole day. Having decided about the Seal of Quality, nominees and winners, the organisation team (Wim Ouwerker and myself) together with the student team start writing texts and scripts, editing movies, organising voice-overs for a booklet, a DVD and a web side in two languages, Dutch and English. You can still see the EUROPRIX.nl 2004 Award website of last year. With those tools in our hands we organise a road show throughout The Netherlands with special lectures at junior colleges and master classes by the nominees for the industry. The EUROPRIX is not just about an award: it is a process of evaluation, selection, recognition and dissemination.
It has been an update for me again. This is the state of art in The Netherlands. And without being chauvinistic, I think I can say that we have some nice and even exciting entries.
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