June 2026

Last month, the global development and tech community gathered in Nairobi for the ICT4D Conference (May 20–22, 2026), and TolaData was thrilled to be part of the conversation. Representing our team were Yazeed Sheqem, TolaData’s Chief Growth Officer, alongside Anupama Ramaswamy, Director of MERL at our parent company, Athena Infonomics.

The energy in Nairobi was incredible, and if there was one overarching theme at our booth this year, it was this: AI adoption, done deliberately.

As we shared our vision for the future of impact management, we had countless conversations with organizations that want AI-augmented tools but lack the capacity to adopt them confidently. Everyone sees the potential, but nobody wants AI features simply bolted onto old tools.

At TolaData, now backed by the deep analytics, data science, and advisory expertise of Athena Infonomics (who we officially joined in October 2025), we believe in a human-led approach grounded in real programme data. To help organizations bridge the gap, we spent our three days in Nairobi sharing our four-step approach to AI:

• Assess: Evaluating data readiness and identifying AI-ready indicators.
• Build: Developing the internal capacity to adopt these tools with confidence.
• Experiment: Utilizing safe sandboxes to test what actually works.
• Scale: Moving to production deployment with the right guardrails in place.

A Sneak Peek into TolaData’s Future

ICT4D gave us the perfect opportunity to preview what’s next for the platform. We offered attendees a sneak peek at our updated user interface, designed to make managing MEL data more intuitive than ever.

Crucially, we also previewed our upcoming AI capabilities, including an AI Assistant trained on our extensive knowledge base. Rather than launching outright, we wanted to hear directly from you. We loved gathering your insights, particularly through our 60-second booth survey, which highlighted some of the biggest MEL headaches organizations are currently facing—from data quality and donor compliance to figuring out exactly where AI actually fits into the equation.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth to say hi, view our previews, or share their MERL challenges with Yazeed and Anu. We’ve included a few photos from the event throughout this post to capture the spirit of the week and to highlight the incredible community of innovators we got to stand alongside.

If we missed you in Nairobi, or if you’re ready to explore how TolaData and Athena Infonomics can help your organization measure impact more effectively, reach out to us today!

TolaData — An Athena Infonomics Group company.