The Ghana Blogging & Social Media Awards 2016 Judging Panel is comprised of six African digital pioneers and content producers who are pushing the envelope on storytelling in their various fields and countries. Each judge will review three categories and their combined scores will represent 60-70% of the final review (the public online vote constitutes the remaining 30-40%).

 

Nana Kofi Acquah, Ghana

Nana Kofi, popularly known as AFRICASHOWBOY, is a torchbearer in the re-positioning of Africa through new imagery. He’s been featured on BBC, CCTV and Reuters as an African Male Feminist and on CNN’s African Voices and PBS for challenging perceptions on Africa through his photographs and writings. He is a member of the Instagram group @everydayafrica. To see his personal work, follow @africashowboy on Instagram.

 

Kathleen Bomani, Tanzania

 

Kathleen is a Tanzanian cultural activist and consultant. Her interests lie in creating space for nuanced in-depth African stories. She works at the intersection of art, governance and homegrown innovation, with a special focus on the politics of identity. Ms. Bomani can be found sharing her personal and sometimes political views on art, governance and human rights on social media channels, mainly Twitter.

 

Edith Brou, Ivory Coast

Edith BROU is the President of the Association of Ivorian Bloggers and founder of leading Ivorian technology and business blog L’Actu Web d’Edith which she started in 2009. She is a web activist who combines her passion for ICT, social media and Africa in service of positive and innovative web use in Francophone Africa. A founding member of Akendewa Web, she led the organization of the first BarCamp Abidjan in 2010. Currently, Edith is the Country Manager of digital agency People Input Côte d’Ivoire where she oversees business development, web design projects, among others.

 

Kennedy Kachwanya, Kenya

Kennedy is a writer, blogger, change agent and new media specialist. He has a passion for business and technology which is evident in his blog www.kachwanya.com. He is the Chairman of BAKE (Bloggers Association of Kenya), the Founder of Finwebhost.com, and a Director at Kenya Copyright Board. Kachwanya has great interest in exploring the digital marketing world, web design and has a passion for citizen journalism. If you ever need to have a long and informative debate surrounding new and old media, Kachwanya is the go-to- guy.

 

Ndambaw Kama, Senegal

Ndambaw is a 28-year old woman from Dakar, Senegal who is an evaluation specialist by day and a blogger the rest of the time. You can find her analyzing Senegalese culture at WorldofNK.com and strategizing to make writing her sole activity. She is very intrigued by the jollof rice debate as jollof is basically Senegalese, and believes in a United States of Africa. Ndambaw obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics at Mills College, California and wrote her thesis on the Brain Drain in Africa. She has since worked with various organizations including USAID, the World Bank, and microfinance NGO FDEA.

 

Emeka Okoye, Nigeria

Emeka is the CEO and Chief Architect of CYMANTIKS, a company that makes people, government and machines smarter using linked data and cognitive computing. Over the last 18 years, Emeka has been at the forefront of technology and innovation in Nigeria from co-founding the earliest startup to designing the first framework for publishing election data in structured formats. His experience has embraced a breadth of technologies culminating today in the Enterprise, Mobile and Semantic Web world with his primary focus being solution design, engineering and product development in Africa and Europe. He has been listed among the top 20 most influential Technology people in Africa (2013) by South Africa IT News blog.

 

 

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All queries about the awards should be sent to the Awards Committee at [email protected].