Shefik Returns As Official Judge For 5th Annual Shorty Social Good Awards

Media personality and technology maven Shefik (https://shefik.info) returns as an official judge for the 5th Annual Shorty Social Good Awards (https://shortyawards.com), where he served alongside a panel of esteemed judges. This is the third consecutive year that Shefik has been named a judge for the competition.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing, this year's ceremony was held online on Thursday, November 19, 2020. In order to preserve the feel of a live event, the ceremony took place on Accelevents, a platform that allowed the Shorty Social Good Awards to create a fun and interactive event alongside the main show. It was a night filled with networking, activities, and tons of whale tail trophies.

Shorty Social Good Awards recognize excellence in the professional social media community. Winners and honorees were selected by members of the Real Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences, a diverse group of luminaries in the Internet, advertising, media, and entertainment industries, of which Shefik is also an official member of the Academy (https://rtacademy.org/member/shefik/). The Academy plays a vital role in recognizing the top content creators, influencers, and organizations on social media, and the Academy is responsible for shaping the criteria and rules of the Shorty Social Good Awards.

Shorty Social Good Awards celebrate the work that brands, agencies, organizations, and nonprofits are doing to make the world a better place. This year's winners include The Walt Disney Company, ViacomCBS, HBO, IBM Originals, United Nations Foundation, National Geographic, PayPal, Amgen, Global Citizen, WWE, AARP Studios, YouTube Originals, and Univision Communications. The complete list of winners can be viewed at https://shortyawards.com/5th-socialgood/winners/.

In addition to the incredible brands, organizations, agencies, and nonprofits that won throughout the night, the ceremony also awarded two outstanding individuals. The first impact honoree went to celebrity investor and CEO of VaynerMedia and VaynerSports, Gary Vaynerchuk. Outside of being an extremely successful businessman, this year he also put efforts into fundraising. Vaynerchuk participated in the all-in challenge, a social media fundraiser providing food to those in need: children, elderly, and frontline heroes. For the challenge, Vaynerchuk took time out of his busy schedule to go live on TikTok for 12 hours, raising over two million dollars.

The second impact award went to social media influencer and comedic creator Adam Waheed. He has been involved in many philanthropic projects in 2020. He launched and raised over $30,000 for a school in Bali to help pay for new supplies and support students' escape from poverty through education. Additionally, he has been extremely involved in racial injustice protests as well as educating his audience on the importance of voting. He even took to the street throughout the covid pandemic and protests to hand out $10,000 worth of pizza to dedicated Black Lives Matter protestors.

Actor Arturo Castro served as host for this year's ceremony. He is best known for his portrayal of Jaimé Castro on the Comedy Central series "Broad City", and David Rodriguez on the Netflix series "Narcos". Castro had hosted his own show on Guatemala's national network called "Conexion", a year before moving to New York City, where he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He currently stars in Comedy Central's "Alternatino with Arturo Castro", a sketch comedy show centering on life as a modern Latino man.

Shefik continues to be very active in the community. Earlier this year, he announced that his team recently won a challenge hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (https://covid19challenge.mit.edu) intended to empower participants to take action on the COVID-19 crisis. Shefik's team, including participants from seven countries (Algeria, Canada, India, Italy, Kenya, South Africa, United States), developed a project titled CoWell Solutions (https://cowell.solutions), which was named a winner. The project is currently in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and will be fully launched in early 2021.

"I am once again honored to be selected as a judge for the 5th Annual Shorty Social Good Awards," says Shefik. "Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing, we were not able to present this year's ceremony in-person. However, we were all together in spirit."