Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs has been nominated for Time’s 2011 Person of the Year. If he is awarded the title, he will become the first person to receive the distinction after having died.
The nominations are made by a 6 member panel that changes year to year. This year the committee is made up of NBC News anchor Brian Williams, Saturday Night Live writer Seth Meyers, actor Jesse Eisenberd, Chef Mario Batali, attorney Anita Hill and conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist.
In his nomination of Steve Jobs, Brian had this to say:
One guy, who changed our world, and I said to Seth Meyers as we walked across 6th Ave, Just look with me on this one block walk at how he changed the world around us. Look at how he changed the world. Not only did he change the world, but he gave us that spirit again that something was possible that you could look at a piece of plastic or glass and move your finger — that’s outlandish. You could make things bigger or smaller like that. Oh the places you’ll go and oh the way you will change forever the music and television industries. So may he rest in peace, Steve Jobs, and the spirit he represents, are my nominee for Person of the Year.
Steve Jobs is up against U.S. senate candidate Elizabeth Warren; the Tunisian fruit vendor who sparked the Arab Spring, Mohamed Bouazizi; American journalist Michael Pollen; Egyptian activist Esraa Abdel; and “angry people.”
Time will announce the winner of the 2011 Person of the Year title in December as the person who “for better or for worse, has done the most to influence the events of the year.” Former Persons of the Year include Charles Lindbergh, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and most recently Mark Zuckerberg.