Microsoft says Karya is transforming dataset creation in India and abroad to alleviate poverty and empower digital economy workers. The goal is to reach 100 million people by 2030, often targeting women in rural areas.
The Karya, an organization that started as a Microsoft Research project, is revolutionizing dataset creation in India and abroad, according to Microsoft. The aim is to help lift people out of poverty and provide them with tools to thrive in the digital economy. The organization pays workers $5 an hour and aims to reach 100 million people by 2030. Karya is partnering with over 200 nonprofits and seeks participants who need work and education, often women in rural areas.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken over the world within a couple of years and has been storming the world with its expansion and wide usage. In India, many startups have been impacted by creating dataset space in several Indian languages to train AI models and for research while creating jobs, majorly in the rural parts of the country.
The group’s goal is to lift as many people out of poverty as possible while giving them the tools to thrive in the modern digital economy. At the same time, Karya is building high-quality and ethical datasets with an unconventional workforce.
The tech giant said, “Those datasets are valuable. While about 80 million people speak Marathi, it’s not well-represented in the digital world. The fact that hundreds of millions of potential customers could benefit from those technologies is why Microsoft and others are in a race to make their products available in those ‘under-resourced’ languages.”
Karya got its start as a Microsoft Research project in Bengaluru in 2017. The project was spun off in 2021 as an organisation independent of Microsoft.
Its entire operation, including the app that workers use to record and write in their native languages is built on Microsoft Azure and uses Azure OpenAI Service, as well as Azure AI Cognitive Services to validate its data.
Microsoft is one of its major clients. Karya pays workers about $5 (over Rs 400) an hour and is partnering with more than 200 other nonprofits to reach 100 million people by 2030.
“We really think that rural India can be an excellent builder of AI, but also an excellent recipient of AI technologies,” Karya CEO Manu Chopra said.
“Let’s say the world is going to spend a trillion dollars on building AI. So over the next 20 years, what percentage of that can I bring directly into the wallets of people who need it the most?” he added.
AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot work well in English because of the abundance of written and audio material on the internet in the language.
“I think we want to rectify that most of the internet being in English is not a very good place to start,” said Kalika Bali, a language technologist and researcher at the Microsoft Research Lab in Bengaluru.
She uses data collected by Karya for her research.
“People need to be part of the growth in the digital economy that’s spreading everywhere. No one should be excluded from using technology because of their language,” she added.
Karya, which says it is on pace to engage with more than 100,000 workers by the end of 2024, seeks participants who need work and education the most – often women in rural areas. In addition to a premium wage, it offers training and other kinds of support when the work is done, said Microsoft.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a global phenomenon, with many startups in India creating dataset space in various Indian languages to train AI models and create jobs. Microsoft had launched Karya as a research project in 2017. It has now become an organization that aims to revolutionize dataset creation in India and abroad.
The group aims to lift as many people out of poverty while providing them with the tools to thrive in the modern digital economy. Karya, which started as a Microsoft Research project in Bengaluru in 2017, is built on Microsoft Azure and uses Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Cognitive Services to validate its data. Microsoft is one of its major clients. Karya pays workers about $5 an hour and is partnering with over 200 other nonprofits to reach 100 million people by 2030.
