After five years honoring the city’s best and brightest, the Philadelphia Geek Awards announced Saturday night at its 2015 ceremony the launch of a $2,000 “Geek Grant” fund to go towards a local individual or organization.
The announcement was made by Geek Awards founder Eric Smith near the end of an energetic ceremony featuring opera-singing presenters, Spider-Man cufflinks, magic tricks and a steady clip of awkward, funny acceptance speeches.
Smith told Technical.ly that the grant was possible because the volunteer-run organization ran a surplus this year. The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture & Creative Economy is also providing half of the funding.
Apply for a PHL Geek GrantSee the full list of 2015 winners below:
- Story of the Year: Analog Watch Co.’s (hoax) Ant Farm Watch
- Scientist of the Year: Penn research team using Twitter to predict heart disease
- Visual Artist of the Year: Cory J. Popp
- Comic Creator of the Year: Kelly Phillips & Claire Folkman, creators of Dirty Diamonds: An All-Girl Comic Anthology
- Game of the Year: Jason Tagmire’s Pretense
- Streaming Media Project of the Year: Book Fight podcast
- IRL Project of the Year: The White Mountains, a play
- Social Media Project of the Year: “?Wife ?Mother ?Human Dissector” Nicole Angemi
- Web Project of the Year: Relaunch of OpenDataPhilly
- Startup of the Year: Billy Penn
- Feature Length Indie Film of the Year: “I Am Santa Claus”
- Event of the Year: City Council Candidate Convention, organized by Young Involved Philadelphia (YIP) and the Committee of Seventy
- Geek of the Year: Ather Sharif
Find more coverage at NewsWorks.
Ather Sharif named Geek of the Year at 2015 @PHLGeekAwards – More pics for @NewsWorksWHYY :https://t.co/y4CY0xyMN9 pic.twitter.com/O4uvP8GK1f
— Bastiaan Slabbers (@BasSlabbers) August 16, 2015