TOKYO: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic) held the Kid Witness News (KWN) Global Summit 2020 online from Nov 21 to Nov 22.
A total of 26 children from six schools in four countries, as well as teachers and other participants attended this two-day event. Malaysia was represented by Terengganu’s Kuala Besut Secondary School.
KWN is a programme in which Panasonic, as part of its activities to support the development of future generations, loans the company’s professional video equipment to support children’s video production.
The programme aims to boost the children’s creativity and communication skills and foster teamwork through video production.
In the past 31 years since the programme began in 1989 in the United States, over 180,000 participants including teachers have taken part. The videos which cover such themes as Communication, Sports and the Environment, have been sending a message in problem-solving from the children’s perspective.
“Each year a global contest had been held by gathering the winning school of each country but starting this year, in an effort to make a greater contribution to the children’s development, the contest has been replaced by the KWN Global Summit, which was planned as a place to learn about different cultures and deepen exchanges, and to take a deep dive into global social issues.
“Furthermore, while this Global Summit had originally been planned to be held during the Tokyo Paralympics in August, due to the impact of Covid-19 it was held online by connecting the various countries,” the company said in a statement recently.
The Global Summit was held by connecting Panasonic’s overseas bases and certain schools online with the Panasonic Centre Tokyo serving as the key station. As well as learning sessions on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the United Nations (UN), a special workshop was held featuring a lecture by Yuichi Ito, a well-known clay animator and a professor at the Graduate School of Film and New Media Tokyo University of the Arts, Animation Department.
At the workshop, children from each country tackled themes which they perceived to be social issues and tried their hands at animation production. These animations will be uploaded onto the KWN Global Summit 2020 website at a later date.
The Kids’ Award Selection was also held where entry videos with outstanding content were selected from the entry videos representing each country through a vote by the children themselves.
The winners of the Primary Category (age 12 and under) were Morimura Gakuen Elementary School from Japan with their project title ‘The Starting Line’, and Ban Mai Primary School from Vietnam with “The Other Kids”.
The winner of the Secondary Category (age 13-18) was Kuala Besut Secondary School from Malaysia with project title ‘Mark Roso The Island Boy’.
The videos that received the Kids’ Award and other detailed information may be viewed on the following website of KWN Global Summit 2020 at https://www.panasonic.com/global/corporate/kwn/summit2020.html.
