Every four years, the ICA Commission on Cartography and Children is responsible for the selection of a theme for the next two Barbara Petchenik Competitions. In 2016, the decision was practically automatic: we opted for supporting the International Map Year using the motto “We love maps” in the competitions organized in 2017 and 2019.
This year the commission decided to organize a voting process to select a new theme. First, members and colleagues were asked to propose themes for the competitions. In almost three weeks, 69 proposals arrived from 17 countries. An online voting slip was created with Google Forms and all the commission members, colleagues from other ICA commissions and interested people in general participated in the voting process from May 15 to June 15, 2020. The voting process was announced not only by e-mail for all the ICA commissions, but also on the Facebook profile of the commission to ensure a wider participation. In four weeks, 132 colleagues gave their votes to max. five themes. The theme that finished in the first place was “A map of my future world” with 41 votes. This is one of the themes submitted by Liqiu Meng, current ICA Vice-president, from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Consequently, “The map of my future world” will be the theme for the next two competitions in 2021 and 2023.
The second place was occupied by “Mapping for Hope” (submitted by Alexander Kent, UK) with 29 votes and the third place by “The changing world” and “With a map I can…!” (sent by Giedré Beconyté, from Lithuania and the Argentine Center of Cartography respectively) with 26 votes.
The next step will be to officially open the Barbara Petchenik Competition 2021, sending the Call for the competition and other documents next September.
The Commission on Cartography and Children would like to express our deepest thanks to all the colleagues who submitted themes and to all who voted in the last four weeks.
José Jesús Reyes Nuñez
Commission on Cartography and Children, Vice-Chair
