Voting begins today in the Deutsche Welle International Blog Awards – the BOBs. Our international jury of bloggers and media experts waded through the more than 3,200 submissions you made and whittled the list down to just 187 candidates in 17 categories and 11 languages.

Now it’s up to Internet users like you to pore over the candidates and vote for the ones you find best. Your votes will decide the winner of the User Prize in all 17 categories. All the details on how to take part In the poll in our Rules.

We’d like to thank our jury for putting together such an impressive list of candidates and creating a snapshot of the international blogosphere.

In all 11 languages, there are some really great blogs, video channels and inspiring social activism campaigns and educational projects that run the gamut of online political and social responsibility and are certainly worth reading about.

On May 1, jury members will get locked into a conference room in Berlin to decide on the winners of this year’s Jury Awards in the BOBs’ six multilingual categories. Whether it’s the best blog, video channel, social activism campaign, use of technology, educational project or stand for freedom of expression, the sites in six top categories are language-independent, so candidates from all 11 languages vie for a single prize.

Curious about the candidates yet! Go to the Voting page and get the lowdown on all of them and find out what some of the bravest, most creative and inventive bloggers are up to – whether you speak their language or not.

All the winners of the 2012 BOBs will be announced right here at thebobs.com on May 2. Jury winners will also be invited to an award ceremony to pick up their BOB in Bonn, Germany, on June 26 as part of the annual Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum.

Thanks to JosephGilbert.org for the CC photo.