Over the summer, I worked with Ilara Health, a Nairobi-based health company. Ilara’s mission is to deliver accurate and affordable diagnostics to rural Africans through miniature, AI-powered diagnostic devices that are integrated via a proprietary technology platform and distributed directly to primary care doctors. Today, the main issue for rural and peri-urban Africans is that they cannot access basic diagnostics. Despite the presence of doctors, in fact, most of the clinics cannot offer the vast majority of diagnostics, so doctors have to refer patients to labs. Yet, given the infrastructure challenges in rural Africa, labs are far away and patients often do not go. Ilara Health aims to solve this bottleneck problem by offering to doctors new, portable, and lower cost diagnostics that then are available to patients in a more affordable way.

During my experience, I had the chance to work on three strategic projects:
- Financing strategy: The current Ilara business model is capital intensive (as devices are purchased upfront by manufacturers and later leased to clinics) and this could prevent the company from scaling up. To this extent, I was in charge of mapping alternative financing opportunities to release financial pressure from Ilara Health and accelerate its growth and come up with a recommended source of financing and a strategy to approach it.
- Expansion strategy to different countries: Ilara is growing fast and is looking to expand to other countries in Eastern Africa. To this extent, I was in charge of analyzing opportunities and challenges of these countries and come up with a prioritization of those for the future expansion, taking into account several relevant dimensions, such as the economy and health care system, but also ongoing market dynamics and trends and investment opportunities.
- Expansion of the product offering: Corporate health check-up is a rising opportunity in Kenya. To this extent, I was in charge of mapping out the current players in the space and their business model to provide my recommendation about the best strategy to pursue for Ilara to enter in the sector.

This experience allowed me to put into practice the education received from Columbia Business School in a real world context with the higher purpose of leaving an impact. The CBS courses I have taken about social impact and nonprofits allowed me to learn how different the dynamics and strategies in the space are compared to the traditional companies that are driven by profits only. Additionally, I was able to provide an outside perspective to the founders, leveraging on my experience that turned out to be relevant for the founders who have been in the space for a long time. Finally, the knowledge acquired during core courses, like Strategy Formulation and Corporate Finance, was very relevant for a structured approach to the projects related to geographic and product portfolio expansion.

Given the current COVID situation, my internship took place entirely virtual, which had certain logistical challenges. A daily in-person interaction was missing, yet both Emilian and Maximilian (the two founders) did their best to make the experience as human as possible. We have had structured video calls every other day and they were available at any time for clarifications and questions. They made me feel part of Ilara since the very first moment and gave me a strong connection to the company’s mission and goal. Without this, the virtual internship could have been isolating and my commitment could have faded after a while.

When I was looking for a social internship back in May, my goal was to give back. Starting with a full-time role in a major consulting company in September, I wanted to dedicate my summer to helping a social enterprise to scale up and further address the specific goals in their mission. Since the first contacts with Ilara Health, I realised how I felt aligned with its goal and my choice of joining them for the summer was a natural one: I wanted to leave an impact in a currently developing country whilst leveraging my consulting skills and competences — and this is what Ilara allowed me to do.

These seven weeks represented a great — and unexpected — learning opportunity. First, the possibility to interact directly with the two founders, professionals that have been in the sector for years, allowed me to develop knowledge about social enterprises in developing countries that I did not have when I started. I believe I will be able to leverage this expertise when I have the chance to do additional projects in the space. Secondly, the three projects I had the chance to work on were strategic for Ilara. and I was not constrained in the way I decided to develop them. This allowed me to further enhance my independence in working, while at the same time, ensuring timely, accurate results and recommendations. Moreover, through this experience, I confirmed how important is to give back and what it means leaving a real impact. Often, when dealing with big corporates, implementation times are long and strategic recommendations might end up taking some time to be realized. This is completely different in smaller realities where crucial decisions are taken on a daily basis and initiatives are realized right after they have been defined. Finally, I managed to develop a double expertise in health care and SME lending in developing countries that otherwise I would not have the chance to explore.

In conclusion, I am extremely satisfied with my experience at Ilara, and I strongly suggest students interested in health care in developing countries to think about Ilara Health as a company to work for.