The Reading Changed My Life Photo and Video Contest, organized by the Global Partnership for Education along with 100+ co-sponsors has come to an end! This contest, launched on September 7, 2012, encouraged individuals to show the importance of reading and education through a photo or video. For 8 weeks, participants submitted wonderful photos and videos showing how reading has the power to change lives. We received nearly 1,000 photos and videos from 93 countries! Then you were invited to vote for your favorite photos and videos. Over 7,400 votes were cast and we announced the winners of the public vote. On December 5, 2012, we revealed the winners selected by our panel of judges and the Grand Prize winners in a virtual awards ceremony. Each of our 20 winners received a Kindle e-reader stocked with books. Congratulations to the grand prize winners! The stunning photos and videos shown below are the 4 Grand Prize winners selected by our panel of judges. Were these your favorites? Tell us what you think by leaving a comment on this blog! The winning entries came from Pakistan, Uganda and 2 from the United States (these 2 entries were taken in India and Guinea). In addition to the Kindle e-reader, the winners of the photo category have won a Nikon photo camera, and the winners of the video category have won a Canon video camera. What’s next? Starting next week, every Friday, we will post a blog featuring one of the photos and videos that were submitted to the contest. All of the entries have such inspiring and powerful stories behind them that we want to share them with you. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the contest! We really appreciate that you shared your stories with us, and helped us raise awareness about the importance of reading and education. We hope that you enjoyed this contest as much as we did, and please stay tuned for our next campaign!