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The Cannes Young Lions Kenya contest has reached its most demanding phase, with young creatives spending Saturday, February 7, 2026, racing the clock to deliver their strongest work possible.

From early morning, participants convened at the EABL Microbrewery in Ruaraka, which has served as the base for the competition’s deep-work sessions throughout.

The venue quickly filled with laptops, notebooks and focused discussions as teams settled in for a long day of ideation, refinement and execution.

Safaricom is fronting this year’s competition as title sponsor, placing the telco at the centre of one of the country’s key platforms for emerging creative talent nationally.

Its involvement signals a wider push to support innovation, digital creativity and homegrown ideas with global potential.

Saturday, February 7: The Creative Sprint

The day began shortly before 9 am when teams across the Digital, Design and Film categories received their briefs simultaneously.

Between 8:50 am and 9:30 am, brief owners outlined the challenges facing each category.

Digital teams were briefed by Safaricom’s Zizwe Awuor, Design teams by Flavia Othim, while Keza Mpyisi from Tusker addressed the Film category.

At 10:00 am, the competition formally shifted into production mode, with teams beginning work under strict time limits.

A short break followed between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm, allowing participants to step away briefly before returning to their workstations.

From 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm, teams remained at the microbrewery, using the venue’s creative spaces to develop and polish ideas during the core deep-work phase intensively.

Competitors exited the venue at 6:00 pm, after which teams were allowed to continue working remotely.

Many were expected to spend the evening refining concepts and preparing final submissions ahead of Sunday’s deadline.

Sunday, February 8: Decision Day

Sunday opens with a firm submission cutoff at 10:00 am, requiring all teams to upload completed entries to the official Cannes platform online.

Judging and presentations are scheduled from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm, overseen by category jury presidents Max Ngari for Digital, Rizz Wangalachi for Design and Tosh Gitonga for Film, with their respective juries present.

The weekend concludes between 4:00 pm and 5:30 pm with an awards ceremony, where teams chosen to represent Kenya at the global Cannes Young Lions competition in France this June are announced officially to audiences.