Nitin Jerath, head of design at Karya, an ethical data company, sheds light on using technology to help bring people out of poverty
Karya, a non-profit launched in 2021 in Bengaluru, founded by Manu Chopra and Vivek Seshadri calls itself ‘the world’s first ethical data company’. It sells datasets that it collects from rural India to big tech players. Unlike a for-profit entity, Karya uses the money earned from selling the data to simply cover its costs and uses the remainder to support the rural poor in India. By partnering with and providing jobs to rural India, Karya is able to provide them with de-facto ownership of the data that they provide. Whenever this data is sold, the providers (people categorically below the poverty line) receive a generous compensation that is over and above the minimum wage that they anyways receive. It’s a model that doesn’t exist anywhere else in this industry.