Working at the intersection of design thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurship in emerging markets, Karina Fassbender exudes a passion for developing and implementing needs-driven solutions that contribute to sustainable development. The focus of her work is to design and facilitate workshops, pieces of training, and processes and pursue innovations through participatory research and co-creation. Her interest in participatory human-centered methods and entrepreneurship led her to conduct her master thesis researching the impact of human-centered design training on social enterprises in East Africa. During her studies, she supported the launch of an open-innovation, technology transfer platform for Fraunhofer, one of Germany’s largest research and technology organizations, focusing on sustainable development. Before joining Fraunhofer, Karina supported multinational corporations in exploiting their innovation potential by applying Design Thinking to the development of new products, services, and business models. Serving as the head of Merck’s three-month-long, Africa-based digital health accelerator program allotted the opportunity to assist entrepreneurs by providing funds and technical support, crafting a brand, and identifying their product’s market fit before launching their innovations into the market. Additionally, she jumpstarted and scaled a digital healthcare network of professionals, researchers, and business owners across four regions on the African continent and organized monthly eHealth Meetups for the community to meet, learn, inspire and connect. Her Nairobi-based consulting firm works with entrepreneurs and organizations to design, develop, and implement innovation projects from end-to-end.