Stephen Kiprono and Njagi Mutwiri of Team “Koko Iko” were the winners of the Kenya Creative Hackathon held at Nairobi Garage on Friday and Saturday.
Angela Njagi and Nevile Hawala of Team “Please Find Attached” and Josephine Ng’ang’a and Martin Sasia of Team “Spirit” were placed second and third respectively.
The Creative Hackathon was a joint initiative of the Association of Practitioners in Advertising – Kenya, Creative LIAisons and East African Breweries Limited (EABL).
Sponsored by EABL’s Tusker brand, its objective is to mentor young creatives to reach their potential and the contestants worked on a brief on Tusker Lager. Contestants received mentoring from creative directors from agencies in Kenya.
Kiprono is a motion designer while Njagi is a copywriter at KoKo Networks, and they will attend the Creative LIAisons programme in Las Vegas, US, which runs from 5th – 8th October, 2019.
The programme is designed to provide young creatives with expertise, insight, professional relationships and networking opportunities.
The duo will be among 100 young creatives from around the world participating at this year’s programme and will get to attend free masterclasses and talks.
EABL’s Head of Media Futures and Digital, Waithera Kabiru, said: “The hackathon demonstrated the amazing creative capability of the youth in Kenya which is testament to why corporates should tap into their skills. As EABL, we are proud to support young talent and hence our support of this hackathon.”
“A hackathon is a brilliant way for young creatives to pit themselves against each other and we have seen here that the pressure, and the fact that they are working on their ideas on site and must come up with a product makes them come up with some exceptional work. This is like a microcosm of the real world of work,” she added.
APA’s Vice Chairman Sammy Thuo said the competition was exciting.
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“We have had a good two days and our wish is to see more corporates taking part in hackathons like this. This is a good approach to work and we should consider doing this more often, and with support from the industry we can certainly have more work like this being done,” said Thuo.
