Reshaping economic opportunity for the excluded
For too long, access to economic opportunity has been determined by privilege. Language, gender, geography, and societal norms dictate who gets to participate in the modern economy.
Entire communities remain locked out of fair work — not because they lack capability, but because the system was never built for them.
Karya is changing that.

Our vision
Creating accelerated, transformative, dignified earning and learning opportunities for our communities
What we've done
What we've done

120+
Language datasets created
20x
the Indian Minimum Wage paid to our workers
100,000+
Workers employed
28 states
in India, where Karya has worked
3 Countries
Where operations are currently active
Key areas of focus
The Digital Language Divide
India has over 19,000 dialects, yet fewer than 100 languages are digitally documented. With 197 endangered languages, the highest globally, many must abandon their mother tongues to access education, jobs, and even basic digital services.
Economic Exclusion
Over 204 million Indian women do not leave their homes daily —more than the total population of 190 countries. Societal restrictions, mobility constraints, and unpaid domestic labour prevent them from earning a dignified income.
Work Designed for the Few
Traditional job models exclude those in remote areas with low digital literacy, further widening economic disparities. The lack of accessible work opportunities forces many to migrate to urban centers in search of a livelihood, further straining resources and uprooting communities.
AI companies are spending billions on building datasets, often excluding the very communities they are building for.

Karya is here to change that.
A decentralized, inclusive model
Work in your language
Our platform supports 50+ Indian languages, ensuring AI and digital technologies reflect the people they serve.
Work from anywhere
Karya enables remote, low-digital-literacy users to access meaningful work without the need to migrate, commute, or step outside restrictive environments.
Fair & safe work
Karya upholds a strong ethical data chain. Workers own their data & earn royalties whenever it is used, ensuring that those historically excluded from economic opportunities retain a lasting stake in the value they create.
Karya is a smartphone-based, flexible data work platform designed for those historically excluded from economic opportunities. By shifting where work happens and who benefits from it, we are proving that economic participation can—and must—be redesigned.
Our work so far
Karya has brought dignified digital work to 100,000 people, many accessing fair wages for the first time. From every Indian state to Kenya and Ethiopia, we’ve seen lives change—women gaining independence, communities preserving their languages, and workers shaping AI. This is just the beginning, and we’re determined to do more.
Find out more in our 2024 report.
Worker Experiences
“With the money I earned [through Karya], I was able to pay my children’s school fees and even fulfil their wishes. If I get such an opportunity again in the future I will do the work very happily. I’m very thankful for this opportunity.”
Moumita Saha Das, 32, Kolkata
“I currently don’t have a job. I really benefited a lot due to this work. I was able to pay the bills for my home. I can use this money to pay for all the things I need this month, I don’t need to borrow money from anyone else. This work takes less time and energy than manual work, and the pay is much better. I now feel that I am capable of doing any new work. I didn’t feel like that before”
Anonymous
This is your Testimonial quote. Give your customers the stage to tell the world how great you are!
Jamie L.
Case studies & Research papers
Speaking in terms of Money
Two-week financial literacy program with low-income individuals in Wagholi, Pune
Authors collected labelled speech data in the Marathi language from different low-income user groups
JPAL Case Study
In a field experiment with 1,670 households in West Bengal, short-term data entry job were offered to women through Karya’s app with flexible work arrangements.
Akal Badi ya Bias
Through field studies involving rural and low-income community women, we uncover diverse perceptions of gender bias, underscoring the necessity for context-specific approaches.
Researchers explored the inclusivity of paid crowdsourcing for rural Indians with limited digital experience and literacy in local languages.
Partners, donors, and supporters
Founding Advisors
Foundational Funders

Sundar Pichai | CEO Google

Satya Nadella | Microsoft

Shannon Farley | Fast Forward

Shannon Farley | Fast Forward

Kumar Garg | Schmidt Futures

Emily Miller | Twilio

Arjun Venkatraman | Bill Gates Foundation

Rikin Gandhi | Digital Green

Subhashree Dutta | Nudge Institute

Raffi Krikorian | Emerson Collective

Gayatri Vasudevan | Labournet

Sherry Lachman | Open AI

Nell Lemaistre | 100x

Sherry Lachman | Open AI
Everyone deserves the chance to earn with dignity and learn with purpose.
Connect with us to make that happen.
Or schedule a call with our founders!
Accelerators







