They're talking about how kids want to become doctors and lawyers due to ER and Ally McBeal - and they need the same thing for techies. Wasn't it just a year ago that people were saying that geeks were the heroes of the day simply by nature of the fact that they were becoming billionaires at age 23. I guess that doesn't apply any more. Maybe it's time to look into having a Techdirt TV show. I don't see the point of turning them into heros of the general public.
Geeks tend to be quite private people who like to rock things behind the scenes.
In the UK, Hewlett Packard are running a series of adverts doing a similar job to the aforementioned. They take the piss out of even chefs being celebrities, then point to some dignified anonymous person who then goes on to explain how they are changing the world. This site was built on the slashdot code.