Karya

Karya was recently showcased at the Google I/O Connect, where we demonstrated how Karya’s tech team used Gemini to design a no-code chatbot that enables our partners across the globe to create custom workflows in their languages. Owing to powerful use cases of GenAI tools, the Karya Platform - a digital work platform that allows our participants to build AI datasets from the comfort of their homes - will reach 10 countries this year. For instance, a partner based in Ethiopia may require users to respond to an image and construct a multimodal dataset. Gemini comprehends the prompt and generates the config file—which is notably extensive and intricate—within seconds. This year, Karya will also bring AI jobs to 100,000 people across rural India and the Karya Platform is at the core of this. We are thrilled to use the Karya Platform to continue expanding our scale of impact and enabling low-income communities across the world to build truly ethical and inclusive AI.

Team Karya wins Best Paper Award at the ACM FAccT Conference 🎉 🎉🎉 ACM, Association for Computing Machinery FAccT is the pivotal computer science conference uniting researchers and practitioners who are dedicated to advancing fairness, accountability, and transparency within socio-technical systems. We are thrilled to share that we won the Best Paper Award at ACM FAccT 2024. Led by our incredible partners at Microsoft Research (the always-phenomenal Dr. Kalika Bali, Rishav Hada, Varun Gumma, Aditya Vashistha, Harshita Diddee, Agrima Seth, Ujwal Gadiraju), members of Team Karya (Safiya Husain, Aditya Yadavalli, Nidhi Kulkarni, Vivek Seshadri) worked together to conduct research on involving rural and low-income community women in uncovering diverse perceptions of gender bias. Addressing gender bias in technology is crucial to bridge the digital gender gap and promote a more inclusive and equitable digital society. Due to increasing adoption of language technologies in various languages, it is imperative to understand the biases these models can propagate not only in English but also in different languages and cultures. Unfortunately, however, much of the research in measuring and mitigating gender bias is in the context of the English and the Global North. This paper presents the first comprehensive study delving into the nuanced landscape of gender bias in Hindi, the third most spoken language globally, and this recognition helps us further make the case that low-income communities globally are both excellent builders and excellent beneficiaries of AI. This research was supported by the Gates Foundation, and I am eternally grateful to Janet Zhou, Jamie Zimmerman, Suhel Bidani, Arjun Venkatraman, Micah Sivitz Gellman, Diva Dhar, and everyone at Team BMGF for their support.

Today, we are thrilled to announce that we are hiring across board for new roles in Technology, Fundraising, Senior Leadership, Culture and Operations. These new roles are based in Delhi, Bangalore and the Bay Area. Our phenomenal team at Karya has doubled in size, since the start of the year. If you want to join a fast-growing, ambitious team working on tackling a huge societal problem, apply here: https://lnkd.in/dCH44fKA #hiring

Karya had the privilege of being featured in Satya Nadella's Microsoft AI Tour Keynote a few months ago - https://lnkd.in/gQnEdFfH As Karya continues on its mission to bring AI-enabled earning and learning opportunities to low income communities, it's heartwarming to get the recognition from inspirational leaders and companies for the same! If you are looking for high quality data, that is ethically sourced, pays fair wages, and helps your models perform better - reach out on LinkedIn or email at [email protected] - let's talk!

We are announcing two new (exciting) open positions at Karya today :) We are looking for a rockstar Chief of Staff to head our Founder's Office, and work with the Founders to drive key org priorities. Great candidates for this role would typically have minimum 2-3 years of past top-tier experience in management consulting, finance or strategy/ project management roles in the corporate or social impact sector. We are also looking for a new Head of HR to join our Leadership team. An ideal candidate would have relevant experience in the corporate or social impact sector. Culture is critical to our success, and as Head of HR, you will be driving our work in this space. Both positions are based in our lovely new Bengaluru office. You can read both the JDs in detail here: https://bit.ly/3T9jqDf and here: https://bit.ly/48O68Sr, and apply directly by emailing me at [email protected] with your resume and cover letter describing why you are a good fit for this role.

The most rewarding jobs help you learn new and fulfilling skills. 💡 Indian social impact organization, Karya, uses Microsoft AI to provide their employees with educational tools to earn and learn: https://msft.it/6044c3no2

Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella talked about our financial literacy project during his Microsoft Keynote earlier this week! This project was led and designed by our incredible researchers Nidhi Kulkarni and Advait Bhat; with endless support from Monali Shelar and Anurag Shukla! The study offered financial knowledge and skilling as a side effect of completing digital tasks for pay on our platform. The results showed there was a significant increase in people's financial knowledge and comfort, even months after they had completed the work! Check out this post and video to learn more about our education vertical, Karya Learn and the financial literacy project in Pune! To go even more in-depth, take a look at Microsoft's article: https://shorturl.at/fgPR6

It was an incredible privilege to have Satya Nadella present our latest work in building Karya Learn at the Microsoft Keynote today. This video, shot so beautifully by the incredible folks at Microsoft, describes the reason we exist. To leverage the power of AI to enable our communities to earn, learn and grow. Karya Learn was devised by my co-founders, Safiya Husain and Vivek Seshadri, as a way to ensure we were contributing to our workers, beyond just giving them money. Research has shown us that combating generational poverty is not a problem to only be solved through finances alone, solutions must actively include supportive and growth structures if we are to truly create sustainable impact. The goal for Karya Learn is to be a catalyst for skilling across rural India. Through a mixture of research and partnerships, Karya Learn will bring multi-lingual, smartphone-based skilling opportunities to all Karya workers. I am also so deeply grateful to the incredible work happening in the "AI for Good" ecosystem in India. At the Microsoft event today, we were surrounded by such inspiring work. A special shoutout to the team at BHASHINI that has genuinely spearheaded the sector's march towards inclusive AI.

It was an absolute honour to have Satya speak about our work at the Microsoft Keynote today. At Karya, we are on a mission to leverage AI to help low-income communities globally earn, learn and grow.  Microsoft has always been one of the most incredible supporters of our work. Most excitingly, Baby Tai, one of our workers from Pune, joined us today and she presented her Karya experience to Satya. It is critical to ensure that the future of AI is ethical and inclusive. We can dramatically change the status quo and in the process, build new pathways out of poverty for rural Indians. We are genuinely thrilled to have Microsoft’s support in our journey towards building a truly ethical and inclusive AI ecosystem.

Welcoming Karya to the ACT Collective with our first Education x Women grant ⭐️ Karya’s innovative micro-tasking app enables underserved communities to complete simplified AI/ML data tasks and generate supplementary income, while providing them with upskilling opportunities and career guidance. We’re excited to fuel Karya’s vision to bring 100M individuals out of poverty by building ethical ways of data collection that fairly compensates its workers, most of whom are from rural India. Manu Chopra I Safiya Husain #CoFoundersOfSocialChange #ACTForEducation #ACTForWomen