BAKE Awards 2019: Kenyan Wall Street, Magunga.com headline bloggers nominees

For the 8th year in a row, the best blogs in Kenya will be feted by the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) Awards after netizens cast their votes for the nominees who were announced on May 7.

A blogpost appearing on the BAKE website on Tuesday saw a total of 115 blogs, video blogs (vlog) or podcasts nominated in 24 categories.

Gunning for the top prize of Kenya’s top blog are business blog Kenyan Wall Street, creative writing platform Magunga.com, corporate blog Brighter Monday, wellness scribe TiziTalks and fashion setter Just Joy Kendi.

“The nominees’ announcement also coincides with the launch of the voting phase,” BAKE Partnerships Director James Wamathai said in the blogpost.

The full list of nominees for the BAKE 2019 Awards can be found here.

Missing out on this year’s nominations list is Business Today Kenya, which clinched the Business Blog category in 2018.

Business Today will therefore have to cede its title at this year’s gala, with Kenyan Wall Street, Rookie Manager, Soko Directory, Bizna Kenya and Her Business lining up to be 2019’s winner.

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Other categories where the 2018 winners will not defend the crown include the Technology, Photography, Food, Environment, Fashion and Style, Agricultural, Sports, Entertainment, Education, Travel, County, Public Health and Vlog categories.

For some of these categories such as in the Sports category, last year’s winners were ruled out of nomination on the basis of a BAKE rule that stipulates that three times winners cannot participate.

In 2019, the bloggers association introduced a new category for podcasts, with the inaugural nominees being Omenerds, Otherwise Podcast, James Murua’s African Literary Podcast, Moringa School and Amani Maranga (Living Truthfully).

Perennial nominees such as This Is Ess, Wandia Njoya, Potentash, Owaah, Brainstorm, OSBKE and Ernest Wamboye’s Penstrokes also got BAKE nods.

The awards, which began with a submission phase on February 12, will be held during a gala event on June 8.

Voting phase takes place between May 6 and May 30.

Wamathai said, “Voting will be limited to one vote per person and an SMS verification code will be sent once a vote has been completed.”

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