Recap of the BAKE Awards 2015

This year, we switched up the BAKE Awards a notch higher. We started by adding the ‘Best Education Blog’ category to the already existing 17 categories. This was in a bid to incorporate the educational blogs that have cropped up during the year.

Over 1800 blogs were entered into the competition and over 150,000 votes were recorded. This was a clear indication of growth in the blogging space, considering that in 2014, we had 800 blogs submitted and over 50,000 votes cast. In 2013, we had 500 submissions and in 2012, we had 300 submissions and 10,000 votes.

The gala event was once again held at the Intercontinental Hotel on 2nd May 2015 and over 400 people attended. The BAKE Awards gala event was a big night that was a culmination of nifty organization and planning that stretched several months. It helped that the event was well attended mostly by the online community, the offline community as well as Members of the press. It was also streamed live on the KTN site.

The awards process usually starts in January of every year where readers submit their favorite blogs into the awards. Submitted blogs are then filtered into categories and handed over to judges who shortlist 5 blogs per category. Judges look at the relevance of content, consistency in posting, language use, writing style and marketing when coming up with the short list.

It is this shortlist of bloggers that is then released back to the public for voting in the different categories. This year, we had 18 categories and voting ran from 2nd March to 30th April.

The ambiance of the venue was lauded as it included among other attractions, a musical performance by Makadem. Winners in the various categories included Jane Mukami (Best Health Blog – janemukami.com), Chandni Solanki (Best Food Blog – Pikachakula.com), Jackson Biko (Best Creative Writing Blog – Bikozulu.com) and Sam Wakoba (Best Technology Blog – Techmoran.com). The Biggest winner of the night was Silvia Njoki who bagged the award for the Best Fashion Blog and the prestigious Blog of the year award for the blog SilviaNjoki.com

One of the judges, Ahmed Salim, expressed optimism in the future of blogging citing the large number of blog submissions as a clear indication of the earning power of the blogging industry.

BAKE Chairman, Kennedy Kachwanya observed that the local online content had improved immensely over the years both in quality and diversity.

Our sponsors this year included; Airtel, xpose, Hotel Intercontinental, Kenic, XNews, Coca Cola, Hivos, NIC Bank, Intel, Nation Media Group, and Transsion Group. The gala event was a big success and we look forward to a bigger and even better event in 2016.

[Read: The Kenyan Blog Awards 2015 Winners]
[Read: The Kenyan Blog Awards 2015 nominees]

You can catch some of the highlights of the night by watching this video;