AI-Powered Accelerator Ops

​AI is changing how small accelerator/incubator teams work: from cohort sourcing and selection to evaluation dashboards and interview analysis.

In this session, Darya Kamkalova walks through the stack and workflows she built for WHU's cohort selection process, including the unexpected insights along the way, including the telling gap between human judgement and AI evaluation.

​Building blocks
A scoring system, a custom evaluation portal for the selection committee, interview prep and analysis workflows, and a dashboard that visualised all findings for final decision-making.

​Stack
Claude Code, Vercel, Notion, Resend, Tally, Granola

​Agenda
15:00 – 15:45 — Presentation & walkthrough
15:45 – 16:30 — Mastermind: bring your challenges, leave with ideas (or even solutions!)
16:30 – 17:00 — Networking

​Who this is for
Ecosystem builders only: incubator, accelerator, venture studios - everyone who runs programs for startups, not just consults or coaches individual founders or teams. 

​We will be a group of 15 max to keep the conversation intimate and candid.

​Recording
The event will be neither broadcast nor recorded.

​Registration
Please only register if you can attend, and let us know if your plans change BEFORE the event. No-shows mean someone else won't be allowed to attend.

​Host
Darya Kamkalova is an entrepreneur, angel investor, speaker, and program lead of the first female founders incubator at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Business. Her Venturing Women community brings together 1000+ emerging and early-stage female founders and investors who back them in 28 countries. Darya won the Global Startup Award, Western Europe, in the Ecosystem Hero category in 2026.

​​Co-host and venue partner
Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute is a leading research institution based in Berlin that creates innovations for the digital society of the future. The institute’s work focuses on the development of mobile and optical communication networks, fiber optical sensor systems as well as the processing and coding of video signals.