Gayatri Datar has dedicated her career to addressing global housing challenges through innovative solutions. After earning a BA in economics from Harvard University and an MPA/ID from Harvard Kennedy School, she worked in international development with organizations like Dalberg, the World Bank, and the Gates Foundation, gaining expertise in social entrepreneurship, agriculture, and energy access. A pivotal moment in Gayatri’s career came in 2014 during her MBA studies at Stanford GSB when, working in Rwanda as part of the Design for Extreme Affordability course, she met a single mother of three living in a home with no windows, dirt floors, and cracking walls. This encounter inspired Gayatri to co-found EarthEnable, which aims to revolutionize the rural housing industry in Africa by providing a variety of innovative, affordable, and sustainable home solutions.
EarthEnable’s “earthen” floors, for example, are made of natural materials like gravel, laterite, sand, clay, and water. These floors significantly reduce the infectious diseases and respiratory illnesses associated with dirt floors and are also more cost-effective than concrete floors. “Every single one of us deserves to live in a home where we feel proud, safe, where we feel we belong, and where we are home,” Gayatri explains. By using locally sourced materials and training community masons, EarthEnable has also created more than 1,000 jobs in East Africa.
Gayatri’s vision and leadership have earned significant recognition, including the 2025 Skoll Award for Social Innovation and Stanford’s 2025 President’s Award for the Advancement of the Common Good. In recognizing her accomplishments, Stanford President Jonathan Levin says that Gayatri has “created real and lasting change in communities around the world.” Beyond EarthEnable, Gayatri co-operates The Creativity Fund Rwanda and serves on the board of Unlock Impact and Water Access Rwanda. A Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, she credits much of her success to her time at the GSB. “Studying at Stanford absolutely changed my life,” Gayatri says. “None of this would have happened had I not gone there. There’s just something in the water at Stanford, and the entrepreneurship bug bit.”
