CloudFactory gets Kshs 180 million from Rockefeller Foundation to tap skilled Kenya workforce

CloudFactory, an online work platform, recently announced it has received a US $2 million (Kshs 180 million) Program Related Investment from the Rockefeller Foundation to help it enhance employment opportunities for previously unemployed Kenyan youth.

The Foundation’s investment will help CloudFactory expand its SpeakerText service, for fast, accurate video and audio transcription within the country.

CloudFactory acquired SpeakerText in late 2012. At the time the service relied on crowdsourced labor through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk marketplace.

In order to enable the quality control and rapid scaling that crowdsourcing can’t provide, in 2014 CloudFactory moved the service to its own professionally managed cloud workforce.

“After we bought SpeakerText and upgraded the technology, we searched the world to find the best untapped talent,” said CloudFactory Founder and CEO Mark Sears. “We identified Kenya as the hottest up-and-coming location in the world to build a transcription team, because of Kenya’s abundant supply of talented workers with strong English skills.”

CloudFactory’s SpeakerText service combines human and machine intelligence to provide high-speed, high-accuracy video and audio transcription.

SpeakerText splits video and audio recordings into 10-second clips and dispatches them to large groups of workers for quick transcription.

The growing CloudFactory workforce in Kenya already provides captioning for media companies like ESPN, large enterprises like Deloitte and educational institutions like the University of North Carolina.

In addition, CloudFactory has successfully engineered its platform to integrate with leading video platforms such as Ooyala, Brightcove, Kaltura and YouTube.

“Using CloudFactory’s leading-edge technology to tap into Kenya’s highly-skilled workforce creates a win-win scenario that will greatly improve the lives of Kenyan youth who have limited access to alternative employment,” said Mamadou Biteye, Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Africa Regional Office. “CloudFactory is gaining reliable, high-performing workers to meet its customer demand, while Kenya’s workers are joining the global digital economy.”

The Foundation made the investment under its Digital Jobs Africa initiative, a seven-year, $100 million effort to improve a million lives by connecting high-potential but disadvantaged youth in Africa to sustainable digital employment opportunities and skills training.

“The Rockefeller Foundation’s Digital Jobs Africa initiative aligns with CloudFactory’s own social mission of connecting 1 million people to online work,” Sears added. “This investment gives us the resources and flexibility we need to continue connecting the world’s best workers with the world’s most innovative software companies.”

The Foundation’s investment comes shortly after CloudFactory received US $3 million in Series A venture funding.