Six films, six winners, and six different views of democracy

In perhaps no other time in human history have there been so many different views of what the word democracy means. And that’s what makes our second Democracy Video Challenge so fascinating: over 700 people around the world submitted videos to the contest, answering the prompt “Democracy is...” And last week, the six winners of the contest -- selected by a panel of judges and then voted on by the YouTube community -- were honored at an awards ceremony with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C.

The six winners came from all over the world: Juan Pablo Patiño is from Colombia, Yared Shumete is from Ethiopia, Anup Poudel is from Nepal, Joel Marsden is from Spain, Farbod Khoshtinat is from Iran, and Adhyatmika is from Indonesia. Click here for some footage from the winners meeting with Secretary Clinton, and here’s a playlist of their winning videos (which are also spotlighted on our homepage today):