A new series of photographs show how quickly Africa is modernising, growing and even leading the way in new technology.
Logistics provider Agility has announced the winners of the Africa 2016 Photo Competition, which this year drew more than 2 500 photographs from professional and amateur photographers in 30 countries.
The winning images depict a fisherman in a canoe on Lake Victoria on his laptop (pictured here), a solar farm in Rwanda powering 15 000 homes, and the skyline of Harare, Zimbabwe.
A cash prize of $2 000 was awarded for each competition category.
The winners were Stephen Simiyu, a photographer from Nairobi, Kenya (technology category); Henry Oliver Hakulandaba, an environmental consultant and photographer from Harare (cities category); and Esdore Hakizimana, a machine operator from Kigali, Rwanda (industry category). Simiyu also won the Grand Prize of $2 000 for his photograph of a fisherman using a laptop in a canoe on Lake Victoria, Uganda.
The winning photographs and the runners-ups were featured at a session at the United Nations General Assembly in New York earlier this month and will be shown at the Thomson Reuters Africa Summit 2016 in Cape Town in October. They will also be showcased in Forbes Africa, on CNBC Africa, and in Agility’s corporate magazine, Tradelanes.
Simiyu comments: “I know Africa is developing, and to show this, I needed an image that could tell that story in one picture. The competition really made me think about Africa – there’s nowhere like it.”
Hakulandaba, winner in the Cities category, says non-Africans are continually surprised by the pace of change in Africa. “Whenever I exhibit images of Harare or any other African city, there is always someone who says they never thought Africa has such development,” he says. “This competition is a platform to reach a wider audience about African development. It will help change perspectives of the continent’s potential.”
“The winning images speak eloquently about the historic change underway in Africa and the opportunities for Africans, African businesses and the world,” says Geoffrey White, CEO of Agility Africa. “As a company investing in the logistics infrastructure of the continent, we are proud to show the world powerful images that capture a more positive view of Africa and demonstrate the progress that has already been made, hopefully changing the perceptions of Africa in 2016.”
The competition was judged by an independent panel that consisted of Sneha Shah, MD of Thomson Reuters Africa; Bronwyn Nielsen, editor-in-chief of CNBC Africa; and Salim Amin, chairman of CameraPix and co-founder of Africa24 Media.
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