Geek Life Awards 2011: Geek of the Year
As we draw near to the end of the 2nd Annual Geek Life Awards, we come to our winner for Geek of the Year. There were a lot of worthy candidates this year: Jonathan Coulton, who is everyone’s favorite geeky songwriter; Steven Moffat (all hail the Moff), the genius behind the last two seasons of Doctor Who, producer of the reimagined modern day Sherlock, and main writer of the Adventures of Tintin movie; Simon Pegg, beloved geek actor and zombie slayer; and Wil Wheaton, geek, gamer, advocate of Internet freedom, and writer.
In the end, however, there can be only one, and so it gives me quite a bit of delight to announce that the winner of Geek of the Year for 2011 is none other than Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs, who sadly passed away this last year, was an amazing man, definitely worthy of the title of Geek of the Year. Mr. Jobs was co-founder, chairman, and chief exectuve officer of Apple Inc., as well as co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, later becoming a member of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disneey Company in 2006 when Pixar was acquired by Disney.
Jobs’ illustrious career began in the late 1970s, as he and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak created one of the very first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. I personally remember playing Oregon Trail for several hours on my Apple II C+. I think that any geek with even a modicum of pop culture history knows the rest; over the years Jobs and Apple developed personal computers, music players (even getting entangled in a long and drawn-out lawsuit battle over the iPod and iTunes with Apple Corps, the Beatles’ music label), laptops, and tablets.
Jobs was also a philanthropist, donating money privately, and later assigning Apple to participate in Product Red, a project founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver in order to raise awareness and help eliminate AIDS in Africa.
Through the years, Apple fans have waited with baited breath and utter delight to see Steve, his jeans, and his infamous black turtle neck on stage as he shared with us new goodies and updates. His lost battle with pancreatic cancer leaves us with a void that is still hard to fill. We will definitely miss you, Steve.
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