Social Design Network announced today that John McArthur, new CEO of Millennium Promise, will serve on the final judging panel for the DESIGN 21 Millennium Promise Competition. The competition tasks designers to join the fight against extreme poverty by creating a web-based campaign to advocate for the eight Millennium Development Goals.

McArthur has been centrally involved with Millennium Promise since its inception in 2000 and has worked to promote Millennium Development Goals throughout rural Africa. He also served as the Policy Director at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and co-director of the Millennium Villages Project, a partnership between the Earth Institute, Millennium Promise, and the UN Development Program. Prior to this, he worked as the Deputy Director and Manager of the UN Millennium Project. There, he coordinated a global network of nearly 300 experts who served on 10 thematic Task Forces and was the lead editor of the Project’s final report to the Secretary-General, “Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals.” McArthur’s professional experiences and global expertise make him an ideal choice to evaluate submissions for DESIGN 21’s Millennium Promise Competition.

The competition calls for a new, web-based media campaign that reaches as many people as possible to increase public awareness of the Millennium Development Goals. Each entry should include an overall compelling and clear message discussing one or more of the eight Goals and the mission of Millennium Promise.

The submission deadline is Tuesday, June 17, 2008 and the winning design will receive $5,000. Another $5,000 will be divided between multiple prizes from the DESIGN 21 Judges’ Picks and the Most Popular winners. Official rules and background on Millennium Promise and the Millennium Development Goals are found at http://www.design21sdn.com/competitions/13.

About DESIGN 21: Social Design Network: DESIGN 21: Social Design Network is a joint venture of Felissimo and UNESCO. Functioning as an online community that brings together socially-conscious designers, non-profits, individuals and organizations, DESIGN 21 promotes better design for the greater good. To date, the network includes over 11,000 members from around the world and over 230 organizations: www.design21sdn.com