Empowering Entrepreneurs, Accelerating Enterprises
Monday, March 24, 2025
Performance Measurement & Impact
WDI sent two leaders with deep expertise in developing enterprises and understanding impact: Rajat Chabba, Senior Director of Innovation and Partnerships (pictured above), and Yaquta Fatehi, Program Manager for Performance Measurement & Impact.
At the recent Sankalp Africa Summit, WDI Leaders Explored the Evolving role of incubators and accelerators
The Sankalp Africa Summit, one of Africa’s largest convenings on entrepreneurship and sustainable development, has become a pivotal platform for visionary entrepreneurs, global investors, and thought leaders driving collaborative action through entrepreneurship. This year, the William Davidson Institute (WDI) joined as a strategic healthcare partner, along with Villgro Africa and other key healthcare stakeholders, for the Nairobi, Kenya gathering.
WDI sent two leaders with deep expertise in developing enterprises and understanding impact: Rajat Chabba, Senior Director of Innovation and Partnerships, and Yaquta Fatehi, Program Manager for Performance Measurement & Impact. They co-hosted an “unconference session” at the summit around the evolving role of incubators and accelerators in global health in emerging markets. The session served as the official launch of new WDI research focused on healthcare accelerators and incubators, in partnership with Villgro Africa. Fatehi described this new effort in the video below:
During the unconference session, WDI focused on better understanding the relevance of healthcare-focused incubators and accelerators in East Africa. The conversation included several enterprise support organizations (ESOs) and incubator and accelerator membership-led organizations focused on ways to support ESOs, grow entrepreneurial ecosystems and build knowledge that propels enterprises forward.
“As an enterprise accelerator and a systems catalyst, WDI believes in listening to the communities, empowering entrepreneurs and enabling systems that are responsive to the needs of the consumers in a sustainable manner,” Chabba said. “As a partner in Sankalp, it was rewarding to engage and advance the dialogue around these critical issues and contribute to the discussion around what is effective for enterprises and investors, and how both can innovate together.”
Chabba also moderated a panel with Maureen Chege with Viya Health, Anushree Banerji with Grand Challenges Canada, and Tyler Nelson of Business Solutions for Health. Chabba asked key questions related to critical challenges faced by enterprise support organizations, lack of catalytic capital within the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the need to address broader ecosystem bottlenecks that range from policy issues to financing to tech transfer challenges.
A major theme of the conference was an increased focus on localization of capital, specifically from African investors to African entrepreneurs, and how to drive and support the localization efforts.
“It is really important to have candid conversations to understand the available resources, data and research needs, power dynamics and strengths and challenges of entrepreneurs, incubators, and accelerators, all key stakeholders of WDI programming,” Fatehi said. “Sankalp Africa creates a safe space and gives us an opportunity to hear from such organizations in an informal setting.”
Since its launch in 2014, the platform has attracted thousands of participants each year, including visionary entrepreneurs, global investors and thought leaders from more than 65 countries.