Women impress at this year’s BAKE Awards

Women impress at this year’s BAKE Awards

Women impressed at this year’s BAKE Awards by winning in eight categories during the awarding ceremony held over the weekend. The awards are organized by the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE).

Over 400 guests attended the awards gala dinner that was at Nairobi’s Crowne Plaza which also saw creative writing blog, Magunga.com, voted as the best blog in the country.

Speaking at the event, BAKE Chairman Kennedy Kachwanya said “We are so happy to see the increase in representation of women among nominees and winners. This year, we are happy that out of the 23 categories, at least eight awards went to ladies, which is a clear indication that women are also venturing and taking blogging seriously.”

Some of the blogs by women that were awarded include:  potentash.com, wandianjoya.com, mummytales.com, healthkenya.com, lifeinmombasa.com, kaluhiskitchen.com, curveswithstyle.com and Safari254.com.

Bake Awards Winners 2017

In 2012, the representation was 68 percent men versus 32 percent women but last year it improved to 41 percent women versus 59 percent male. This year, over 10,000 blogs were submitted to the judging panel for the 23 categories.

Among the winners were first timers like owaahh.com, biznews.co.ke, healthkenya.co.ke and potentash.com who won in best topical, business, health and lifestyle categories respectively. Veterans techweez.com, niaje.com and mutuamatheka.co.ke bagged technology, entertainment and photography blogs awards respectively.

“As part of this year’s BAKE agenda, we are encouraging more youth to come forth and embrace blogging as a way of creating employment. It has become serious business and people are doing it full time and earning good money from it,” said Kachwanya.

Some of the key sponsors of the awards this year included Safaricom, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Motors, ShowMax, Xpose, EatOut, Vivienne Taa and Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC). The awards continue to grow with submissions increasing every year. During inception in 2012, competition has grown 300 submissions and 10,000 votes to 4800 submissions and 540,000 votes in 2016.