Two Kenya Designers Get Rare Package For Winning Kenya Creative Hackathon

Two Kenya designers, Stephen Kiprono and Brian Njagi will be in Las Vegas later this year courtesy of their Creative Hackathon win. The Kenya Creative Hackathon held was held in June at Nairobi Garage. The initiative is a joint collaboration between the East African Breweries Limited (EABL), Creative LIAisons, and the Association of Practitioners in Advertising—Kenya (APA).

The aim of the Kenya Creative Hackathon is to mentor creative young people to reach their full potential. Consequently, the two Kenya designers will join 100 young creatives from around the globe in this year’s Creative LIAisons programme in Las Vegas, United States, from October 5th to 8th, 2019. Speaking about the Hackathon, Waithera Kabiru, the Head of Media Futures and Digitals at EABL said,

“We are excited to see the talent from this programme and we have picked up a few lessons here that can be replicated elsewhere. [Consequently] The winner will get to work on a project under the Tusker brand and we hope some stellar work will come out of that.”

The Kenya Creative Hackathon

The Kenya Creative Hackathon is designed to provide young creatives insights, expertise, and networking opportunities. The two Kenya designers, Kiprono and Njagi availed themselves the opportunity. Njagi is a copywriter while Kiprono is a motion designer. However, the two work at KoKo Networks. EABL’s Tusker brand is the main sponsor of the event.

The Kenya Creative Hackathon pitch young creative among each other. However, they work on ideas and try to come up with products. According to Ms. Kabiru, the scenario depicts the real world work environment and experience. Further explaining the Hackathon, Ms. Kabiru said,

“A hackathon is a brilliant way for young creatives to pit themselves against each other. 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.”

Reactions trailing the hackathon and the emergence of the two Kenya designers

The organizers and partners of the Kenya Creative Hackathon were positive about the program and the emergence of the two Kenya designers as winners. Hence, one of the reactions was from the President of LIA, Barbara Levy. Levy described the hackathon as a success. She said,

“This was like a condensed version of a pitch and there was a real sense of the energy and urgency in the same way that creative agencies go about the process of creating concepts. We are really excited to work with APA Kenya and EABL on this Hackathon and we are happy with what has come out of it. The pay-off is worth the sleepless nights.”

The second reaction was from Sammy Thuo, the Vice Chairman of APA. Like Ley, Mr. Thuo was impressed with the hackathon and the two Kenya designers. However, he is calling for more corporate involvement. According to him, this will help the hackathon to run more frequently. In his words Mr. Thuo said,

“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 of this being done.”