Lusaka — Countless books have been written and countless speeches given that try to explain democracy: what it is and what it means. For a videographer from Zambia, democracy could be boiled down to two words: "fruit smoothie."

Those two words led to a video contest victory for Chansa Tembo, who will travel to the United States in September as the Africa region's winner of the "Democracy Video Challenge."

The Democracy Video Challenge, launched in September 2008, is a worldwide online competition that asked videographers to complete the phrase "Democracy is..." in a three-minute video posted on the competition's YouTube site. The challenge was created by the Department of State and 10 partners -- the Center for International Private Enterprise, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the International Youth Foundation, the Directors Guild of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, NBC Universal, TakingITGLobal, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, with help from William Morris Endeavor Entertainment and YouTube.

The competition attracted more than 900 entries from 95 countries. An independent jury chaired by Hernando de Soto (president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy) and Michael Apted (president of the Directors Guild of America) selected 18 finalists, and the online voting public chose six winners, one from each region of the world.

Tembo was born in Zambia and raised in both Zambia and the United Kingdom. In 2004, he returned to his birth country, where he works as a videographer and lives on a farm on the outskirts of the capital, Lusaka. The farm provided him with the inspiration for his winning short video.

"One day I was thinking about the different fruits we have on the farm ... things like bananas, oranges and tomatoes. They all come in different shapes and sizes and they have different attributes, but you can blend them into something different, but tolerant of all the flavors," said Tembo. "To me, that seemed to be a metaphor for the elements of democracy. People come in different sizes, they have different creeds and beliefs, but if you put them together in a country and they can learn to tolerate and complement each other, you can have a democracy."

Tembo's dialogue-free video, only 46 seconds long, brought the image to life: The camera focuses on a plate, onto which various fruits are placed. A blender can be heard in the background and then a fruit smoothie comes into view.

The metaphor seemed to be appreciated by the panel judging Zambia's nine contest entries, as Tembo's video was selected as one of the country's three semi-finalists. Two months later, a jury selected it as a worldwide finalist before the public ultimately voted on the final winners.

The public affairs section of the U.S. Embassy in Zambia helped Tembo gain voters' support. Taking advantage of digital technology, the embassy used Twitter and Facebook to encourage people to vote for Tembo's video. Tiny "How to" signs on the computers at the embassy's American Center directed Internet users to YouTube to participate. The front page of the embassy's newsletter featured a banner ad with voting instructions. Embassy staff also accompanied Tembo on multiple appearances on Zambian TV.

On June 16, Tembo joined staff members at the embassy to await the announcement of the results. Tembo received the good news in a phone call from Washington and the gathering turned into a victory party -- complete with fruit smoothies.

"It hasn't really sunk in. I'm just excited, humbled and honored to be selected as one of the top six," said Tembo.

Tembo's prize includes a trip to the United States. "I'm excited to share my definition of democracy, but I'll really be representing all of Africa. I want to explain and showcase Africa's diversity of beliefs and cultures for the rest of the world."

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale congratulated the six winners, saying, "The State Department and our partners created the Democracy Video Challenge as an experiment to generate a global conversation. In doing so, we learned from and heard a global array of impassioned and personalized voices and saw differing visions about the meaning of democracy."

The winning videos are available on YouTube.