The panel of judges selected the best 5 nominees from each category as well as the best top 5 for the Kenyan Blog of the year in 23 categories.
BAKE Awards 2018 judges
1. Ahmed Salim is a passionate marketer and a social media enthusiast with a particular interest in community management and digital marketing.
Mr Salim is the General Manager of Qube Ltd, a digital marketing agency.
He was named was named Philanthropist of the Year (2011), after coming up with the #FeedKe initiative. He was also among the brains behind the PAMOJA campaign.
2. Sam Wakoba is the founder, CEO, author at Techmoran.com and a Public Speaker. He believes building tech companies in Africa needs on-ground market insights and fast-hand experiential knowledge of the people, their wishes and dreams, their history and culture, the state of governance and politics and the available infrastructure added to their responsiveness to new ideas and change. He is also an avid reader and keen on global economic shifts and how they affect local ecosystems.
3. Muthoni Maingi is an award-winning African, Digital Strategist and currently the Head of Digital Campaigns at Oxfam International. In her past life, she was the Digital Manager overseeing Enterprise and Consumer Business Unit at Safaricom and has also led Airtel Kenya’s digital team. Muthoni is a firm and passionate believer in the power of the internet and the mobile phone to transform lives, provide true points of meaning and change; she has worked on several projects to spearhead this in Kenya. Including being a Founding Director of the civil society group Bloggers Association of Kenya and acting on an advisory basis for the conceptualization of the Kenyan Social Media Awards.
4. Josephine Mwangi is the head of Communication, Marketing and Stakeholder Engagements at Nailab Ltd, a Kenyan based business accelerator. She has 11 years experience and expertise in Corporate Communications, Brand/ Consumer PR, Event Management, Campaigns and Strategy formulation, Marketing and Media Management and Advertising gained from working with companies that range from startups to blue-chip companies. She prides herself on being a critical interface in promoting awareness on Nailab and the startups within its network and creating links with individuals and companies that are keen on working with the growing startup community.
5. Mbugua Njihia is an entrepreneur with over 14 yrs experience in the web and mobile industry, instrumental in the setup and operations of some of the regions inaugural and most visible value-added services. His current role is to implement the strategic goals and objectives of Symbiotic and seek out new business and partnerships. He provides business and technology consulting to companies, governments, non-governmental organizations, SME’s and individuals looking to realize the full benefit of mobile.
6. Martin Muli is passionate about events marketing in the Digital World. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Eyeballs Africa Ltd and the founder of Kenya Social Media Awards ( SOMA Awards) that has been in existence since 2013. He also founded SOMA connect, an outreach program involved in social media knowledge sharing in Kenya. He is involved in other digital initiatives that positively impact the society.www.martinmuli.com.
7. Samuel Majani is an entrepreneur and the founder of Ghafla, one of the biggest Entertainment news blogs in East Africa. He believes that Nairobi has big niches online that are untapped. For young entrepreneurs, this is a goldmine.
8. Samuel Mbugua is an errant blogger at large. While relatively short in stature, he has a larger than life personality. By day, he works with a local Cloud Service provider, working hard to ensure your cloud 9 experience includes high-speed data. He literally wants to build a castle off the cloud. By night, he is a man of mystery, proven by the volume of “Uko?” texts received. He knows TaeKwondo, Kungfu, Jujitsu, and 18 other martial art words. He has been known to aggressively cuddle kittens.
9. Dr. Martin Mburu is an Assistant Professor of English at USIU-Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. He has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Linguistics and a Masters in English and linguistics. He has an interest in creative writing and writing for the web. He is the author of Mama’s Boardroom. Dr. Mburu is currently working on a couple of short stories, his first novel, and content for his blog.
