The Armenian project ‘CityBugs’ was named among the winners of Europe’s unique “Digital Creativity for Social Good” contest. Prof. Peter A. Bruck, honorary chairman of the International Center for New Media and initiator of the European Youth Award (EYA), has announced the EYA winners 2014 selected by an international expert jury.

‘CityBugs’ stood out of 130 submissions from 49 European countries. The project was developed by young and smart social entrepreneurs from Armenia who bundled their forces to set new creativity and innovation standards in the digital world. ‘CityBugs’ is a social platform to enable solutions for critical issues affecting the environment, health, education, public services and more. Committed citizens can access CityBugs using the web platform or a mobile application, reporting any relevant issue (whether garbage removal, health care problems, missing zebras and street lighting, or infrastructure for the disabled) to municipal authorities.

This year’s competition focused on European challenges and priorities as defined by the EU strategy 2020 and the Council of Europe. How these can be achieved by the creative use of IT and Mobiles, has been demonstrated by Europe’s cunning digital natives. “To know that there are so many young people who are caring to change the future, is awesome! They really inspired me with their innovative projects!” says juror Dušica Birovljević, founder and owner of Nomcentar in Serbia.

The winning projects origin from eleven different countries – Armenia, Austria (2),the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany (2), Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The young bright minds behind the projects are invited to the EYA Festival in Graz, Austria, from November 19-22, as reward for their great achievements. There they will participate in an interactive conference with international creative thinkers, ICT experts, business and opinion leaders. During this three-days knowledge-event they will present their inspiring high-impact projects in front of a high-level audience. Based on their presentations, the EYA Festival Grand Jury will select one overall winner.

Called into life by Prof. Peter A. Bruck, honorary chairman of the International Center for New Media, in 2012, the European Youth Award (EYA) is a leading European competition honoring excellence in the use of Internet and mobile applications for social empowerment. Conducted under the patronage of the Council of Europe, UNESCO and Unido, EYA as annual contest seeks to motivate young people under the age of thirty to produce socially-valuable digital projects that address the goals defined by the Council of Europe and Europe 2020.