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UAN Leadership Summit 3.0 addresses Enterprise and moves to Commitment and Accountability

United Asian Network Limited
2 days ago
5 min read

Updated: 8 hours ago

Nairobi, Kenya, 19 September 2026 – The United Asian Network (UAN) closed Leadership Summit 3.0 with a communiqué in which delegates resolved to “move from commitment to accountability.” The one-day forum was held at the Jaffery Islamic Centre in Nairobi under the theme Building Tomorrow: Community, Commerce & Artificial Intelligence. It brought together 500 entrepreneurs, professionals and civic leaders. One hundred delegates have signed the communiqué so far.


Keynotes: community as capital

Chief guest Rajan Nazran, founder of the Global Indian Network (GIN), told delegates that conversations create familiarity, confidence creates trust, and commerce turns relationships into opportunity. GIN describes itself as a membership network covering more than 49 countries. Nazran, for whom Kenya was the 76th country visited, asked whether diaspora communities “mean anything to each other.” Rajan also stressed that "conversations create familiarity, confidence creates trust, and commerce turns relationships into opportunity."

Professor Bitange Ndemo, CBS, the former ICT Permanent Secretary credited with bringing the undersea fibre-optic cable to Kenya, said Kenya “does not begin from zero.” He described five shifts in commerce, including from intuition to data-assisted decisions, and stressed trust, networks and mentorship. He called for sovereign AI and local-language models: “If we only consume intelligence built elsewhere, we export our data and import our future.” He set out a five-point agenda for the next 24 months: map problems, build skills, pilot, scale and measure. He urged that African enterprises should build local technological capability: "If we only consume intelligence built elsewhere, we export our data and import our future."


A Growing National Platform: From Event to Permanent Infrastructure

Highlighting UAN’s trajectory since its founding on 1 September 2022, Chairman Dr. Bimal Kantaria framed the Summit journey from foundational dialogue to actionable outcomes:   

  • Leadership Summit 1.0 (2024): Focused on national cohesion, peace, and economic stability (440 delegates, 20+ speakers).   

  • Leadership Summit 2.0 (2025): Focused on strengthening Kenyan Asian engagement, unity, and representation.   

  • Leadership Summit 3.0 (2026): Addresses enterprise transformation at the intersection of community, commerce, and AI.   

"Events are the visible part; the network is the real infrastructure," stated Dr. Kantaria. "Guided by our four pillars—National Engagement, Economic Connector, Social Harmony, and Asian Identity—our purpose is simple: a stronger community contributing to a stronger Kenya. We don't just organise events; we build platforms that outlast them."   

Dr. Kantaria also highlighted key milestone initiatives under the UAN umbrella, including the launch of the UAN Mombasa Chapter, the community micro-lending UAN SACCO, partnerships with the Asian Women Network (AWN), and bringing the Festival of Friendship (FOF) into UAN's institutional framework.   


Strategic Framework: Objectives & Keynote Highlights

UAN Vice Chairman Dr. Amit Thakker, EBS detailed five core objectives shaping the day's agenda: Learning, Sharing, Networking, Collaboration, and Growth.   

"The Summit is a platform where ideas meet action, relationships create opportunity, and future-focused leadership is explored," noted Dr. Thakker. "The question has evolved from 'Where are we?' to 'What are we building next?'"   

The Future of Enterprise panel

Moderated by Seema D’Souza, the panel featured Sakina Hassanali of Hass Consult, Akshay Shah of Silfrica, Riaz of Angani and Adarsh Gudka of Nairobi Central Hardware.

•      Scaling. Shah said he scaled across Africa with a single operating “playbook” and by benchmarking against the world’s best. He urged leaders to use AI to “10x their business” rather than cut their workforce by 10x. He named four growth obstacles AI can address: lack of demand, thin margins, throughput limits and leaders’ time.

•      Generations. Hassanali said second-generation leaders should hold to a business’s founding principles while widening their exposure to other markets and ways of thinking. She also urged families to instil belief and confidence in daughters, and financial institutions to fund women’s growth. Shah said preserving entrepreneurial spirit matters more than preserving any one business.

•      Practical AI. Gudka described equipping his team with AI tools, including sales staff producing multi-item quotations in minutes, after realising he was working in rather than on the business. Riaz said AI helped Angani deliver in a month a customer-communications platform that had been stalled for about three years. He stressed data structure, governance and access controls.

Their advice: connect business data to AI, be honest with yourself, approach change with curiosity and courage, and write down your biggest growth challenges and ask AI to design experiments against them.


The Intelligent Enterprise panel

Moderated by Snehar Shah, CEO of IX Africa Data, the panel included leaders from Digital Realty, AWS, Zoho and McKinsey, and a 25-year Microsoft.

•      Infrastructure. AWS’s Robin noted that Africa holds about 18% of the world’s population but roughly 1% of data-centre capacity. Digital Realty described its Kenyan facilities, including the newly launched Nairobi 2.

•      Growth. Zoho said local-currency pricing helped it grow 45–50% a year in Kenya over five years. McKinsey’s Kunal said the sector aims to grow Kenya’s roughly $7 billion tech industry 10 to 15 times over 15–20 years.

•      Agents. Panelists described the shift from chatbots to autonomous “agentic” AI.

•      Data. Panelists recommended a hybrid model: sensitive data kept in-country, less sensitive data in the cloud. They urged compliance with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and called on Kenyan entrepreneurs to invest in data centres.


Partners, expansion and Meet the Experts

Victoria Commercial Bank, returning as anchor sponsor for a second year, said: “If you do something once, it could be an experiment. If you come back and do it again, it becomes a strategy.” Its CEO, Dr. Yogesh Pattni added that “technology is becoming more intelligent, but businesses must remain human.” Elgon Kenya and Jubilee Asset Management were also anchor sponsors.


The Communiqué

The communiqué reaffirms commitments made at Summits 1.0 and 2.0 and sets seven action points:

1.     Report and renew: account for progress on Summits 1.0–3.0 before making new commitments.

2.     Expand regionally: set a defined process for opening new chapters beyond Nairobi and Mombasa.

3.     Grow the UAN SACCO: publish annual membership and capital targets.

4.     Build a youth pathway: create a named mentorship programme and a route to pillar and board roles.

5.     Commerce and technology: have the Economic Connector pillar deliver AI and technology-adoption programming.

6.     Strengthen engagement: name specific national and county forums for community representation.

7.     Publish progress yearly: issue an annual public report against every commitment before each Summit.


Meet the Experts Session

After lunch, delegates chose three 20-minute sessions at ten sector tables run by volunteer experts. Sectors included manufacturing, agriculture, energy, banking, insurance and healthcare. Moringa School students acted as rapporteurs. UAN will use delegates’ choices to plan dedicated sector sessions over the next 12 months.



Associate Sponsor: Mitsumi Distribution  and ARISE IIP KENYA

Event partner: SFA Events

Food partners: RAZCO- Lyons Maid, Enigma

Venue partner: SAAJ, Jaffery Islamic Centre, Trademark Hotel

Hydration partner: BIDCO


About the United Asian Network

UAN is a not-for-profit, non-religious and non-political pan-Asian platform for connection, leadership and national participation, with heritage rooted in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.



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