Ken Jennings prepares for a Jeopardy show-down with Watson, the robot. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The 15th Annual Webby Awards announced its special achievement honourees today. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences chose Watson, the Jeopardy playing robot, as the Webby Person of the Year. The awards celebrate internet excellence in over 100 categories.
IBM invented Watson, the comprehensive question-answering computer system. Watson debuted on the Jeopardy trivia game show and beat Ken Jennings, who holds the show's longest winning streak title, and Brad Rutter, who is the show's biggest money winner. Watson surprised audiences by answering one final round question incorrectly; he wrongly classified Toronto as a U.S. city.
Other honourees included Dan Savage and Martin Cooper. Savage won a Special Achievement Award for his It Gets Better project. His multimedia work gives hope to LGBT youth. Cooper received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in creating the first portable cellular phone.
Watson is the sole non-human honoured by the academy. Does it belong amongst the ranks of outstanding people because it is a technology based award? Do you think it deserves the title of Webby Person of the Year?
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, author of the sex  '''', has won a  for his work on the . He started the project in 2010 to address a series of incidents of . 

 in 2005 Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, co-edited a book featuring selections from the It Gets Better Project. The book, '''', includes a piece from  Barack Obama – who also filmed a video for the online project. In both the book and the online project itself, individuals submitted contributions with messages of hope and optimism directed towards LGBT teenagers.


In an interview published Thursday with '''', Savage commented on his initial response when contacted by the  to receive a video contribution from the President for the It Gets Better Project: "You could have knocked me over with a feather when the White House called and said the President would record a video. And they not only recorded a video, they were calling ''me'' to let me know and they were giving it to us first to release on the 'It Gets Better' website."

The Webby Award is presented anually by the , for excellence on the Internet. Savage was selected for recognition with a Special Achievement Award for his work on the It Gets Better Project. His project focuses on combatting bullying directed against teenagers who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.