Changing Media Means Changing Minds

Changing Media Means Changing Minds

The yMedia Challenge is a new youth-driven media initiative matching media students with non-profit organizations (NPOs) in a competition later this year.

The yMedia group will host a kick-off conference at the Heritage Hotel in Auckland's CBD from October 27th to 28th, including motivational speeches from industry leaders and educational sessions for both students and NPOs. Topics will include the changing face of communications, namely the shift towards digital media.

Media Design School graduate Pamela Minett and Adele Barlow started the yMedia group in early 2007 to teach students important real-life traits like effective communication, self-discipline, integrity and vision. The group also aims to bridge the digital divide between community and corporate organizations.

"Media is the nervous system of society and technology isn't a good or bad thing, it's a social force. It's what we make it," says Adele Barlow.

Students have two weeks from the conference to complete a digital marketing solution for a NPO of their choice. Options include a website, a mobile phone advertisement or a viral computer game.

"It's only over the past few years, having lived and breathed it, that I've realized the power of digital media," says Pamela Minett.

A panel of industry leaders will judge the final entries and students win cash prizes. The judges will choose winners based not only on the entry itself but the skills that the student has managed to teach their chosen NPO.

Registrations close this month and interested students and NPOs can read more on www.ymediagroup.org or e-mail ymediagroup@gmail.com.

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changing media | changing minds
www.ymediagroup.org

"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
- Charles DuBois

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