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Google Invites Kids to Become Inventor-Dreamers in 'Doodle' Contest The tech giant will award one winner a $30,000 college scholarship for designing a Google Doodle that finishes this sentence: 'If I could invent one thing to make the world a better place…'

By Catherine Clifford

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Entrepreneurship is very much about having a vision of what could be. In some ways, kids -- with their boundless creativity, energy and imagination -- already have that ground covered.

Which is why we're intrigued by Google's Doodle competition. The tech giant has invited children from kindergarten to 12th grade to create an artistic rendering to finish the following sentence: "If I could invent one thing to make the world a better place..."

Related: Pass It On: Encourage Your Kids to Become Entrepreneurs With These 5 Lessons

The winning selection will be featured on Google's homepage in the U.S. on June 9. The Doodle team, the staff at Google responsible for the rotating image above the Google search box, will animate the winning image. Google has been featuring Doodles on its homepage since 1998.

The winner will get $30,000 to put towards college and his or her school will get a $50,000 grant for technology for the school. The deadline for submissions is March 20.

Related: Kid Inventor Whose Marshmallow Launcher Impressed Obama Gets VIP Ticket to State of the Union

While there will only be one grand-prize winner, Google will pick one winner for each grade level grouping in every state (grades K-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-12), and then narrow it down to one winner from every state. The state winners get a trip to the Google headquarters for the final awards ceremony, an Android tablet, and t-shirts with their Doodles printed on them. From the final 50, there will be four national finalists who will each win $5,000 in scholarship money.

Winners will be selected based on artistic skill scaled for grade level, creative use of the Google logo, and how clearly the theme is communicated in the image and the required written statement to go with the submission.

For teachers and parents who want to get their kids doodling away, the application details are here.

Related: Teaching Kids to Code With Youth Digital

Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.

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