Kiwi designer wins Google Innovator award

Photo / AP

A New Zealand designer has won an international competition for a project where charities benefit from advertisements posted on computers.

Nelson Rayner, from Auckland, was named the winner of the Google Young Innovator Award by the Advertising Club of New York.

The contest asked creatives under 30 to post their ideas using Google tools to share with the Google+ community who, in turn, responded to their favourites, creativity-online.com reported.

The projects with the most +1s were made finalists and a winner was selected by a panel of members of the marketing communications industry.

The 28-year-old from Mt Eden beat out the competition with his Donate Your Desktop application.

When users downloaded the app onto their computers, they effectively rented out their desktop background to advertisers, with 75 per cent of revenue from ad placements going to charities of their choice.

Those charities included Amnesty International, Oxfam New Zealand and NZ Breast Cancer Foundation, the website said.

Mr Rayner conceived the idea in 2006 and launched it last year.

The $5000 prize money would help with plans to expand the organisation to Australia, the UK and US, Mr Rayner told the website.