Case Study: Akilah Institute achieves improved project management and global collaboration with Asana

Akilah Institute - Customer Case Study

The Akilah Institute is Rwanda’s only college for women, offering market‑relevant two‑year diplomas in Entrepreneurship, Hospitality, and Information Systems to prepare graduates for careers and leadership. Facing a regional gender gap in tertiary education and the logistical challenges of a dispersed team across Rwanda, the U.S., Hong Kong, and remote locations, Akilah needed a way to scale programs, coordinate work across time zones, and keep outreach and recruitment aligned with employer needs.

Akilah adopted Asana to bring organizational transparency and turn big initiatives into trackable tasks—using shared calendars, agendas, campaign workflows, and recruitment tracking to keep teams aligned and calls efficient. The result: stronger cross‑team coordination that supports rapid growth and impact, with 88% of alumnae employed within six months and average incomes 12× the national per‑capita median; Akilah is expanding enrollment (400 new students in 2017), opening a Kenya campus, and planning a network of eight campuses to serve 54,000 women by 2031.

Akilah Institute

Elizabeth Dearborn Hughes

Co-Founder and CEO