Zimbabwean photographer wins African award

By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |

A Zimbabwean photographer, Henry Oliver Hakulandaba, was among the winners of a high profile photography contest announced on Thursday by Agility, a leading logistics provider and sponsor of the awards.

The competition featured a series of photographs showcasing Africa’s development.

The contest is now in its second year and is a Pan-African competition focusing on Africa’s growth.

More than 2,500 pictures from professional and amateur photographers from 30 countries entered the 2016 competition.

Hakulandaba won in the cities category with his image depicting the skyline of Harare.

The other winning category entries were a fisherman in a canoe on Lake Victoria on a laptop and a solar farm in Rwanda that is powering 15,000 homes.

Stephen Simiyu of Kenya won with his Lake Victoria depiction in the technology category and Hakizimana, a machine operator from Kigali in Rwanda, won in the industry after showcasing his solar panel photograph.

Each winner walked away with $2,000.

The winning photographs and the runners-ups were featured at a session at the United Nations General Assembly in New York earlier in September 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.

Said Hakulandaba after he was announced as one of the winners:

“Whenever I exhibit images of Harare or any other African city, there is always someone who says they never thought Africa has such development.

“This competition is a platform to reach a wider audience about African development. It will help change perspectives of the continent’s potential.”

The competition was judged by an independent panel that consisted of Sneha Shah, managing director at Thomson Reuters Africa, Bronwyn Nielsen, editor-in-chief at CNBC Africa and Salim Amin, chairman of CameraPix and co-founder of Africa24 Media. Nehanda Radio