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Vote! NPR & Stations On The Ballot For 2015 Webby Awards

By Caitlin Sanders

Published April 9, 2015 at 8:55 AM CDT

Now that March Madness is wrapped up - and you've finally trimmed your beard, washed your lucky underwear, etc. - we've got another competition for you to follow. One that public radio has a stake in: the Webby Awards.

This week, we learned that two video projects from the NPR Science Desk as well as a selection of work by NPR Member Stations KCRW and WNYC were selected as nominees for the 19^th annual Webby Awards. The Village Way, an NPR music video about food in a South Indian village, is a nominee in the First Person category, and The Blind Woman Who Saw Rain, our story on the science and the power of sight, is up to win Science & Education.

In The Village Way, YouTube star Wilbur Sargunaraj takes NPR's Goats & Soda reporting team on a tour of cuisine in Tamil Nadu, his father's home village. It's a showcase of traditional foods and drinks such as pepper water, Goli soda, unbearably hot chilis and old rice with pickles. See for yourself:

While Lulu Miller was reporting stories for the Invisibilia episode "How To Become A Batman," she teamed up with NPR's resident fun-lover-of-science Adam Cole to produce a video that portrayed one woman's experience with sight after a stroke destroyed her primary visual cortex, the part of the brain responsible for processing information from the eyes. Watch the video to understand what seeing looks like for her today:

KCRW.com, which relaunched with a new design last summer, vies for the People's Voice Award in the Radio & Podcasts category. And WNYC has two projects to tout: The Discover feature in its mobile app is facing off in the Best Streaming Audio category, and Bodega Cats in Their Own Words, a whimsical look into the minds of cats from all five New York City boroughs, is nominated in the Experimental & Weird category.

Each category in the Webby Awards has two types of winners: "The Webby Award," bestowed by members of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, and "The People's Voice" award, which is determined by a public vote. To vote:

Visit one of the appropriate category page: First Person for NPR's The Village Way / Science & Education for NPR's "The Blind Woman Who Saw Rain" / Radio & Podcasts for KCRW.com / Experimental & Weird for WNYC's Bodega Cats / Best Streaming Audio for WNYC's Discover

Select the video you think should win (we unabashedly recommend the NPR videos).

At this point, you'll be asked to sign in using one of the options provided (quick and simple, promise).

Cast your vote for your favorite of the nominees.

Voting begins today and continues through April 27, 2015 at 11:59PM ET. Members of the public can vote multiple times during the submission period. Just saying.

Wilbur worked with Goats & Soda to together produce a whole set of first class (his words, not ours) videos in his family's ancestral region. Wilbur told NPR that a barber he knows in town once said he "is just superthrilled with his work." We know the feeling. At NPR, we are truly excited - and fortunate, too - to bring you stories from across this globe through projects like those on this page. And we're superthrilled to know others, the Webby team included, are enjoying it too.

There's more to Wilbur's series with Goats & Soda. Curious? Watch here. And follow the Skunk Bear Tumblr for more of Adam's creative science reporting.

This post has been updated as of Monday, April 13, 2015.