Celebrity Computer Geeks
Once upon a time, computers were cool. And then the dot-com bubble burst, and technology became a bad word. Now the industry is making a comeback, with Hollywood and celebrity entrepreneurs leading the way in their glamorous portrayal of the tech world. Check out some tech icons – real and fictional – who are making computer science cool again.
Mark Zuckerberg 
As if being co-founder, CEO, and president of Facebook weren’t enough, entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg is now immortalized in film. (Yes, we’re talking about “The Social Network.”) The programming prodigy began writing software in middle school, well before his Harvard dorm room days. We’re guessing that the billionaire’s real-life story is not as sensational as the movie makes it seem – but we’re certainly paying attention to computer geeks now.
Chloe Sullivan 
She wasn’t in the original Superman comics, but on the WB’s “Smallville,” which just finished its 10-year run, Chloe Sullivan (played by Allison Mack) won over even the most hard-core comic book geeks. Chloe was always something of a computer whiz, but once she launched Watchtower as the heroes’ base of operations, she truly became a force to be reckoned with. The erstwhile best-friend-in-the-shadows was transformed by her own techie talents and tenacity. So go ahead and let your geek flag fly.
Stevie Richards 
Wrestling fans know him as Stevie Richards, but the former ECW, WCW, WWE, and TNA wrestler has been getting his real name – Michael Manna – out there as a tech guru. He founded the T4 Show (Tech Today Tech Tomorrow) to cover the world of technology in a way that’s fun and easy to understand. He became “chief technology evangelist” for PhoneFusion to help the company with phone upgrades and updates. And this past March, the pro wrestler scored some serious geek cred by being the first person to pitch a perfect game in Major League Baseball 2K11. Looks like computer geeks come in all shapes and sizes.
Chuck Bartowski 
Chuck Bartowski (played by Zachary Levi) is just your average computer whiz – until he opens an encoded e-mail and all the government’s secret info (a neural supercomputer called the Intersect) is embedded into his brain. NBC’s action-comedy series “Chuck” hasn’t necessarily changed the image of the computer geek – the title character is the head of the Nerd Herd at an electronics retail chain, after all – but it does open up lots of inspiring tech career possibilities. Who wouldn’t want to use their IT know-how to become a smokin’ secret agent with a sexy theme song?
Dennis Crowley 
Lest you think geeks are out of your league, consider the case of Dennis Crowley, co-founder and CEO of Foursquare, the super-successful location-based mobile platform. Back in his days at Syracuse University in the late ‘90s, the wunderkind couldn’t even get into a computer science course. He says he was bad at math, so he ended up teaching himself programming later on – out of a book. So even if you didn’t catch the computer science wave in college, it’s not too late to get started. For Crowley, all it took was a great idea and passion to persevere.
If you’re interested in a tech career, sign up for a few computer science courses to hone your skills. There’s a lot more to learn than just programming languages – you can take courses in computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and gaming, to name just a few. And with technology jobs growing at twice the rate of job growth overall, there’s never been a better time to get your geek on.
