Google Doodles is one of those fun Google experiments where they alter their famous logo to celebrate famous people, their birthdays & achievements and specific holidays . The first Google Doodle was designed on August 30th 1998 by Google’s co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page less than a week before they incorporated Google as a privately held company. That first Google Doodle was the Burning Man logo, in reference to the Burning Man festival, a week long event held in US.
According to Google, the Doodle team has created over 2000 doodles for their homepages all over the world. Kenya has not been left behind, with personalities and special events being sculpted to make the Google’s logo. These are some of the events and personalities that Google decide to celebrate them by creating doodles:
1. 12th December 2011
Google celebrated with Kenyans in marking the 48th anniversary of the country’s independence with a doodle. The doodle featured the coat of arms with the shield acting as an “O” in the Google logo
2. 12th December 2012
Google celebrated Kenya’s independence once again by posting a doodle that celebrated the country’s 49th independence anniversary. It features a stamp (which I think it is based on the 1964 50 cent stamp)
3. April 1st 2013
Google celebrated the late Prof. Wangari Maathai’s birthday by creating a doodle in her honour. On the background, you can see trees due to her reputation as a fierce environmentalist and the founder of the Green Belt Movement.
4. 20th October 2013:
Google Kenya celebrated Kenya’s 50th independence anniversary by displaying a Google Doodle named “Feet of Gold” which was designed by Esther Wambui Githinji, the winner of the Doodle 4 Google competition. This doodle of an athlete crossing the finishing line with the flag as the crossing ribbon is brilliant because Kenya’s prowess in the track events is known worldwide.
4. 12th December 2013
Not surprising, Google outed a doodle celebrating Kenya’s Golden Jubilee independence celebrations. It features people celebrating against a backdrop of the raised Kenyan flag, the sun and a mountain, which presumably is Mt. Kenya.
5. December 12 2014:
Google created a doodle celebrating Kenya’s 51st Independence Day. The doodle has a graphic of the famous monument in Uhuru Gardens where the first Kenyan flag was raised on 12th December 1063.
6. January 12th 2015
This year, Google commemorated the 11th Anniversary of the late Kimani Maruge’s first day of school. If you don’t know about him, he holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest person to start primary school, aged 84 at the time. He even addressed the U.N on the importance of free primary school.
As you can see from the list, doodles about our independence celebrations are the most in this list, with a few notable celebrities here and there. Its about time Google released more doodles about other Kenyans who have achieved great things that are known worldwide, don’t you think?
