Said Donald Morrison, editor of Time: `Whoever said Asian schools don't promote creative thought is dead wrong. Considering the large amount of entries we received, thousands of them, it's gratifying that Time was able to inspire such interest in an important subject among Asian students.'

He said that he was greatly impressed by the quality of entries, in terms of creativity, thoughtfulness and use of English language. `In a subject as wide-ranging as the person of the century,' there is no right or wrong answer. What was important to us was that the students communicated their choice ofcandidate effectively,' he added. The nominations ranged from Einstein, Gandhi, Bill Gates and Mother Teresa to ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwel, Oprah Winfrey, the student's own parents and friends and `Kermit the Frog'.

Time had divided the competition into three age categories of 10-12 years, 13-15 years and 16-18 years, asking students to nominate the person they thought was most important in the century. The students had to write an essay of more than 250 words explaining their choice.

The panel of judges included Maximo V Soliven, publisher of The Phillipine Star; Dr Kapil Singh, lecturer at the National Institute of Education, Singapore; Simon Tham of the English unit of the Hong Kong Education Department; Desmond Sim, a Singapore-based playwright, painter and poet and Gita Hariharan, India-based novelist and Time's editorial staff including associate editor Aprism Ghosh, senior writer Anthony Spaeth and Time's publisher, Andrew Butcher.

Commenting on Jacob's style ofwriting, the judges had said that he `adopts a sophisticated and mature style in describing Hitler' and his essay was a `good balance of human interest detail and argument.... (with an original twist to the idea of important person'.

The full list of the winners is to be announced in Time's August 23 Influential Asians of the Century edition - a special double issue dedicated to the most influential Asian men and women of the past 100 years.