Bloggers Association Of Kenya (BAKE) Launches Submission Phase Of 2016 #BAKEAwards

Today the Bloggers Association of Kenya has officially launched the submission phase of the annual Kenyan Blog Awards. The launch event which was attended by bloggers and media personalities was held at the iHub.

BAKE revealed that over the years, more men than women are getting nominated for the awards and this carries on to more men than women eventually winning. The Chairman of the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) Mr. Kennedy Kachwanya attributed this to the fact that women bloggers are more concentrated in few categories like fashion, creative writing, poetry and food. Not many are in fields like business, science, sports and tech.

Some concerns were raised by members of the audience about recurring winners. One blogger felt that if one has won two or three times, they have proven themselves and should pave the way for other good bloggers. This problem is mostly in the categories of tech, creative writing, food blog and sports. It stands out more in the creative writing category. Other categories mostly have a variety of winners at every awards. I’ve seen a bit of opinions on that on twitter.

@theMagunga I find myself agreeing with that. Exposes other blogs/good content to public and helps such blogs grow @Shiko_Msa

— Esco (@DonPablo254) January 19, 2016

@Shiko_Msa @theMagunga The rest should UP their game. Excellence should not be punished

— Kelvin Mutuma (@kelvinmutuma) January 19, 2016

#BAKEAwards is mostly a public driven venture and I doubt the association can simply step in and remove someone who has been nominated by the public. It will be interesting to see discussions and additional input around this. There was also a suggestion that the creative writing category should be split into sub categories so as to allow writers of creative fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry for example to shine. This is something that BAKE says it can look into.

Readers are encouraged to visit the submission website and nominate blogs that they feel deserve to be in the competition. The nomination stage will be running throughout between January 8^th 2016 and February 10^th 2016. After the submission phase, a team of judges will come in and select the top 5 blogs in every category. These finalist blogs are the ones to be handed over to the public again for voting. The voting process will run from March 2^nd to April 30^th, after which there will be a gala night on May 7^th where the winners will be announced.

Judges usually comprise of renowned bloggers and media personalities and among the submitted blogs, they’re usually looking for quality of writing, consistency, relevance and how well the blogger promotes his/her work. A well put together blog with good ‘look ad feel’ wouldn’t hurt either.

It is very important to follow the submission rules and regulations. Ensure that the blogs you’re submitting qualify and that you submit them into the right category. Here are the rules and regulations as provided by the Bloggers Association of Kenya:

1. Only blogs run by people and brands of Kenyan origin, descent or are based in Kenya can be submitted.
2. Only blogs in English and Kiswahili can be admitted into the competition.
3. You may submit your own blog in the submission phase.
4. Blogs submitted must be accessible to the public.
5. Blogs run by the awards organizing team, judges and sponsors will not be allowed in the competition.
6. Blogs that contravene the Kenyan Constitution, contain or link to any form of insulting, racist, sexist or in any other way discriminatory or obscene content will not be permitted.
7. To participate in the contest a blog need only be submitted once. The number of times a site is submitted to the contest does not influence its chances of advancing to the next round or its chances of winning.
8. The Blog of the Year nominees will be decided by the judges who will pick the top 5 blogs from the submissions in all the categories.
9. Any blog which does not suit the category it was submitted in may be removed from the competition or placed in another category without consultation.
10. Any submission or vote made outside of the allocated time frames will be discarded.
11. Previous winners can still participate.
12. The judges’ decision is final.
13. The voting phase begins when the judges name the nominees in each of the contest’s categories.
14. Voting is allowed only once per category. Nominated bloggers may vote for themselves.
15. Voting results will decide the winners in all 19 categories.

In an indication of clear growth in the space, submissions and votes have increased impressively over the years. BAKE has received over 3,000 submissions in the few days that the platform has been open.

To keep up with the launch event as well as any matters related to the awards, check the Twitter hashtag #BAKEAwards.