The night lay in a glaze of silence, almost harmonious with the glitter of the pale moonlight reflecting off of the fountains melodious waters. After having seeing such raw beauty, one would think that anything manmade could never hope to equal it, but that was soon to become an arguable statement. The building that the awards ceremony was held in was magnificent. The moonlight augmented this, using shadows to create a sense of mystery and age. It had the look of a building of immense beauty, strength, and dignity. This immense structure is known throughout the world as the Sala del Consiglio. Built by the great Mussolini, the building has been Rome's city hall for almost a century. Inside marble and stone walls laced the walls and floors. Leaving the feeling of awe in every one that passed through its halls.

December 4th 2000 was the date of which people from all over the world would gather together; to take part in a contest called the Global Junior Challenge. A contest that revealed to the world the most innovative and educational projects, that are technology oriented, focused around children. HarlemLive wanted to get to know their competition so we scoured the audience in search for those with projects.

Fred Baggio, of the Pioneer project, agreed to let us interview him and answer questions about his project and it's purpose. When we asked what was the object of his project he replied, "To integrate long distance, with students in Brazil and New York. The main purpose of the project is to build a Mars colony online. The students come up with technical solutions and hypothesis in hydroponics, waste solutions and new types of energy resources." Basic online resources such as chats, mail lists and a variety of websites were used as well as programs such as Flash, Power Point Presentation and a 3-D animator made this project possible. There was a similar project called Mars Millennium. Cristian Assumpcao, explained the differences to us. "Students were challenged to be scientists and build a colony on Mars. The object of this was to get students to examine the world around the and identify and rectify the problems found on Earth and prevent them from happening on Mars." Flash was one of the main programs used to make this project.

We also spoke to Andraiena Marcelli and Laura Properfl. Their project was called "Crudelta di una querra: il diaro di Anna Frank." They also had another project called "Pieeno: uba Terra sa scopriire." Both projects were for children 6-10 years of age. It was a mentoring program, which teaches children the Italian language, history and math using the Internet." Stefano Vittori, another competitor, explained his schools project to us. The project, H.S.C.R. (High School Center of Rome) s' purpose was to lone Roman schools and Roman Lyceum for research purposes. The project used mostly basic computer programs like, Microsoft Word and Power Point as well as Internet Resources.

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