‘Girl geeks’ lead nominees for Philly’s Geek of the Year

Award-winning geek.

That’s the title technologists in 14 categories will be gunning for at the second-annual Philadelphia Geek Awards Aug. 17.

The nominations were announced Thursday — and area “girl geeks” led the pack. Women took home all three nominations in the marquee Geek of the Year category.

“I’m just going to take it that it means it’s pretty freakin’ awesome,” said Tristin Hightower, Geek of the Year nominee and co-founder of Girl Geek Dinners, a networking group for women in tech. “[It shows] that women are making themselves more seen and that we’re actually doing things.”

Other Geek of the Year nominees agree.

“It’s very awesome,” said Roz Duffy, who was nominated for organizing BarCamp Philly. “I am mostly in awe that all three nominees are women. I think that’s just huge and great news for Philadelphia.”

Duffy, who has been active in the Philly tech community for about five years, says she used to feel like, “‘Oh, I’m the only girl here.’ Or, ‘I’m one of, like, three women that work in this company of all men.'”

Duffy says that has since changed.

“I like to call it the rising tide — and it just keeps going,” said Duffy.

More geeks, more awards

For the Geek Awards’ second year, event organizer Geekadelphia.com wanted to mix things up.

This year, local technologists and organizations are nominated in 14 categories.

“One of the major selling points for someone to be nominated was the fact that they didn’t just do something that was awesome,” said Geekadelphia.com co-founder Eric Smith, “but that they did something that benefited the community as well.”

Along with geek cred, winners will also get some serious hardware.

“You know in ‘Star Wars’ where you see the hologram of Obi Wan Kenobi?” Smith asked. “It’s going to look somewhat like that.”

The Geek Awards’ “black-tie, red-carpet event” will take place Aug. 17 at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

You can see full list of the nominees (including WHYY’s own “Fresh Air”) below:

Geek of the Year: Tristin Hightower, Gerri Trooskin, Roz Duffy

Geek Headline of the Year: Patrick Kerkstra, Faye Flam, Derrick Pitts

Startup of the Year: Curalate, SnipSnap, ElectNext

Hacker of the Year: Stephanie Alarcon, Georgia Guthrie

Scientist of the Year: Dr. Youngmoo Kim, Dr. Andrew Hicks, Paul R. Ehrlich

Web Development Team of the Year: P’unk Ave, Jarv.us, Bluecadet

Visual Artist of the Year: Yis “NoseGo” Goodwin, Jessie “Ishknits” Hemmons, Mike Smith

Social Media Campaign of the Year: Philadelphia Museum of Art for Zoe Strauss Foursquare Campaign, Red Tettemer & Partners’ Under Armour Finding Undeniable, Fresh Air

Indie Game Developer of the Year: Cipher Prime for Splice, Final Form Games for Jamestown, Flyclops for Domino!

Local Annual Event of the Year: Wordcamp, Women in Tech, Philly Tech Week, Philadelphia Science Festival, Barcamp Philly

Comic Book Writer of the Year: Rob Kelly (Ace Kilroy), Phil Kahn (Guilded Age), Bryan J.L. Glass (The Mice Templar)

Comic Book Artist of the Year: Brad Guigar (Evil Inc.), Nick Filardi (Powers, Takio), Dan O’Connor (Ace Kilroy)

Indie Film of the Year: Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (Jon Foy), Mancation (Frank Vain), Alpha Girls (Tony Trov, Johnny Zito), Maybe We Can Go to Hollywood (Isaac Williams)

Viral Project of the Year: Nick Murphy’s Angry Birds Trailer, Leah Kauffman’s Firewall music video, Philadelphia Opera Company’s Pop Up Opera