10 Data labeling companies with a social impact

Data is the crucial infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence and model performance depends directly on its quality. The need for enormous amounts of manually curated and annotated data opens up a myriad of new possibilities for creating jobs for the people who need them the most.

The easy and accessible nature of data labeling tasks makes them especially appropriate for lower-skilled groups or communities which are facing higher barriers to employment. Examples of such communities are people with disabilities, urban slum dwellers, refugees, underprivileged women, and many more.

Choosing a data labeling provider who channels annotation work to vulnerable groups is a great way to make a social impact while obtaining high-quality data.

Here are 10 labeling companies that you can’t go wrong with!

1. Humans in the Loop

Humans in the Loop is an award-winning social enterprise based in Bulgaria, providing ethical and bias-free model training and validation services for Machine Learning. We focus on continuous model improvement through human input and, being one of the very few EU-based labeling companies, we are GDPR-compliant and a great near-sourcing choice for European AI companies. Our services include 2D and 3D image and video annotation, dataset collection, output verification, and error analysis.

Our vision to connect conflict-affected communities such as refugees to digital work. We provide them with work opportunities, training, and upskilling in order to make a long-lasting impact on their livelihoods. Currently, we have partnerships with various organizations in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq where we work with internally displaced people, asylum-seekers, and locals.

2. DignifAI

DignifAI is an AI data services company with a social impact based in Colombia. The operational backbone of DignifAI is the recruitment, training, and distribution of AI annotation tasks to the migrant population and their vulnerable host communities. They specialize in Spanish language NLP labeling, as well as computer vision dataset curation and annotation.

In terms of social impact, DignifAI works with Venezuelan refugees at the border city of Cucuta as a way to respond to the Venezuelan refugee crisis. In 2017, the project began with a successful pilot in a refugee camp in Greece, after which in 2019 they tested the solution in Boa Vista, Brazil, with a group of immigrant and refugee women.

3. Isahit

Isahit is a socially responsible outsourcing platform based in France through which companies can source digital tasks for artificial intelligence and data processing. The platform divides projects into micro-tasks and also offers integrated quality control mechanisms and a secure API. They offer data annotation for computer vision as well as for NLP, including in French and other languages.

The company has more than 1000 HITers who are all women, primarily based in Africa, as well as Latin America and Asia across a total of 32 countries. They all work on the platform in order to finance their higher education or to earn a supplementary income for a maximum of 100 hours of work per month.

4. Daivergent

Daivergent is a Public Benefit Corporation based in the United States which focuses on data services such as labeling and annotation. One considerable benefit is that their workers are US-based and their services are coupled with end-to-end project management.

Daivergent has found a perfect fit between the intensively focused, complex, repetitive processes required for data labeling and the unique aptitudes of people on the autism spectrum. The company collaborates with community, governmental and educational partners in order to match their employees with learning and work opportunities.

5. Sama

Sama (previously Samasource) is a B-corporation which was founded by the late entrepreneur Leila Janah in Kenya in 2008. They started off as a data entry BPO company and since 2012 have been working on a variety of labeling tasks for computer vision. Through their SamaHub annotation platform, they offer additional functionalities like data selection and filtering, model optimization, and detailed reports.

Sama is one of the proponents of the “Give work” idea and one of the Steering Committee members of the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition. They have provided dignified jobs to vulnerable communities in Kenya, Uganda, India, Haiti, Pakistan, Ghana and South Africa.

6. AcmeAI

AcmeAI is the image labeling arm of ACME Technologies Ltd, a company based in Bangladesh. They are an on-demand image annotation service provider supporting the development of AI systems with a focus on computer vision-based labelling operations. They are able to handle sensitive data in secure environments and they apply sophisticated project management techniques.

The social impact of the company consists of hiring and training disadvantaged youths, college dropouts, minority groups, and orphans. AcmeAI regularly holds labeling workshops and is working with local rehabilitation centers in order to integrate individuals with disabilities into their workforce.

7. iMerit

Imerit is a technology services company based in India. They are currently working with annotators based in the United States, Europe and Bhutan as well. They offer data enrichment and annotation services in computer vision and natural language processing in various industries, including Medical AI, AgriTech, Aerial imagery, and others.

Their impact is an important part of their work and they want to develop an inclusive workforce where they help train individuals in skills which help them start their careers and be role models in their communities. iMerit’s main workforce comprises youth and women from rural East India.

8. Taqadam

Taqadam is a US-based company that offers a platform for image annotation and geospatial imagery analysis. They offer an end-to-end platform to manage training data for computer vision models, which includes active learning tools and an API. In addition, they offer satellite and drone imagery analysis such as monitoring and asset performance management.

In Arabic, their name means “progress” and their social impact is currently taking place in Lebanon and Iraq where they have dedicated teams of underprivileged youth acquired through partnerships with NGOs. Their workers work through a proprietary mobile app offered by Taqadam, including access to mobile wallet payments and e-learning trainings.

9. Digital Divide Data

Digital Divide Data was founded in 2001 and is one of the pioneers of the Impact sourcing industry. They were originally founded in Cambodia and have since then expended to their services to Laos, Kenya and the US, where they train veterans and military spouses. Their primary specialization are content, data, and research services, including content structuring, transcription, OCR, and preparing high-quality datasets for ML.

Their goal is to make a social impact in Cambodia who sought to bring tech skills and a living-wage work to people with limited career prospects. In addition, Digital Divide Data is one of the leading impact sourcing companies in Asia and is compliant with GISC’s Impact Sourcing Standard.

10. CloudFactory

CloudFactory is a UK company with offices in the US, Nepal and Kenya, which offers scalable human-powered data processing for AI, automation, and business operations optimization. Their professionally managed and trained teams work with high accuracy using virtually any labeling tool through their proprietary workforce management tool.

CloudFactory is on a mission to connect one million people in the developing world to digital-age work, while raising them up as leaders to address poverty in their own communities. They seek to raise each cloud worker as a leader in their community through a combination or character and capacity building. Through their data processing work, they can earn, learn, and serve their way to become leaders worth following.