Why 27-Year-Old Manu Chopra Is Important For India’s AI Revolution (Image: LinkedIn/manuchopra)
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) will be a game-changer for India. However, there are concerns regarding the data used to train AI models, as it will affect the types of results they create. It is a fact that the country has not explored the numerous opportunities that AI offers. AI services are not available in most parts of India. The significant reason behind this is that there are thousands of languages, and in every state, people communicate in their native language. So how does the world of artificial intelligence incorporate these regional languages? Here comes the importance of Karya, a Bengaluru-based social impact startup launched by 27-year-old social entrepreneur Manu Chopra.
Karya, launched in 2021, describes itself as “the world’s first ethical data company.” Like other firms in the same sector, Karya sells data to tech giants and various other clients. However, with this data collection, Karya is empowering rural communities across the nation and providing fair compensation for their contributions. The goal of this social startup is to use digital work to economically impact 100 million rural Indians by 2030.
Manu Chopra, who completed his graduation from Stanford with a degree in computer science, grew up in Shakur Basti in West Delhi. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, was the inspiration for Manu Chopra. Mr Chopra landed at Stanford with a scholarship, and after graduating in 2017, he returned to India and joined Microsoft Research. During the field visits, Mr Chopra understood that the data annotation workers in India are underpaid. Mr. Chopra, along with his colleague Vivek Seshadri, started doing intense research on this matter. In 2021, Chopra and Seshadri left Microsoft to make “Karya” a reality. Both were also joined by a third cofounder, Safiya Husain.
Karya mainly offers four different tasks. It includes speech/text collection, validation, image/video data collection, and annotation. Notably, almost 95 percent of the workers in Karya belong to marginalized communities, and 60 percent of its workers are women. The platform has completed more than thirty million digital tasks so far. The main highlight is that the app developed by Karya can work without internet access, and it provides voice support for those with limited literacy. This initiative has also partnered with more than 200 NGOs to identify the workers.
Manu Chopra strongly believes that this initiative can help move millions of people out of poverty by redistributing wealth to the marginalized communities in Indian society. Karya pays its workers at least $5.00 per hour for their work, with the promise of delivering better-quality Indian-language data that tech giants will pay more to obtain. Reports reveal that the amount offered by Karya is 20 times more than the prevailing minimum wage. Karya also pays its workers again every time a company licenses the data to build a new AI. Microsoft and Google have already recognized the potential of Karya’s approach. These tech conglomerates have also formed partnerships with Karya. They have also collaborated with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to address gender biases in data-feeding large language models.
