ACT collaborates with Karya to empower marginalised communities

ACT, a non-profit venture philanthropy platform, has offered a grant of Rs 4 crore to Karya, a startup that provides technology-enabled digital work to people from marginalised communities.

The grant aims to support Karya in bringing 100 million people out of poverty by building ethical data collection methods that offer decent compensation to its workers from rural India. 

“We are thrilled about this partnership with ACT. Their investment will enable Karya to dramatically accelerate our work and create an even more meaningful impact. As an organisation committed to using technology to bring dignified, digital work opportunities to our communities, we are heartened to be a part of the ACT community and are deeply grateful for their support," said Manu Chopra, Co-founder, of Karya. 

This is the first joint grant from ACT For Education and ACT For Women verticals. 

Aakanksha Gulati, Director of ACT said, “We’re excited to support Karya in their journey to onboard and help accelerate national as well as international demand for their data work and generate insights on the impact of this model on capacity building and income generation for individuals across rural India, with an emphasis on gender-specific nuances.”

She says that Karya has witnessed significant growth in the past two years by using its technological expertise to produce Indian-language datasets for training Large Language Models (LLMs) in various AI applications. 

Karya provides simplified data work to rural Indians through its micro-tasking platform, the Karya App. This can generate up to $1500 in supplementary income for data collectors from underserved communities within a year, the company says. 

Additionally, the startup follows an ‘earn then learn model’ for which it has–Karya Learn and Karya Grow.

“Karya Learn aims to be a versatile and inclusive smartphone-based skilling platform that amplifies existent skilling content and initiatives across India. Karya Grow will be a career guidance and support platform,” Chief Impact Officer Safiya Hussain earlier told SocialStory. 

Since starting in 2021, Karya has helped over 32,000 people (including 60% women) in over 25 states and union territories. They've earned Rs 4.5 crore by completing over 35 million digital tasks.