Sama To Train 2000 Youth & Women With AI Skills

Sama, a provider of data annotation and model validation solutions, has announced plans to hire and train 2,000 youth and women to work on computer visioning projects for leading Fortune 500 companies.

In a press release to newsrooms, the company said the 2,000 new employees will be trained in computer vision and data labelling services, a field that is in high demand by AI developers and Machine Learning (ML) engineers globally. They will work on various projects, including labelling images and videos for machine learning algorithms as part of upstream AI data building.

Speaking during the training commissioning, Sama Vice President, Global Service Delivery Annepeace Alwala said the digital economy has emerged as a transformative force globally, and Kenya is well positioned to contribute to creating a more inclusive AI ecosystem where everyone has a chance to make a meaningful impact.

According to recent research by the McKinsey Global Institute on generative AI and productivity, the AI value chain can generate value equivalent to $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in global corporate profits annually.

Sama says the first 600 participants in Nairobi have already been hired and are currently undergoing training. The remaining 1,500 participants will be hired in the coming weeks. The new cohort will join Sama’s dynamic team of over 3,000 staff in Nairobi to work on computer vision AI projects for some of the leading global companies.

“The government is keen to turn Kenya into a digital economy by creating a conducive operating environment for the private sector. We congratulate Sama for their commitment to nurturing Kenyan youths on the AI Value chain. Through their latest effort of employing 2,000 Kenyan youths, they are paving the way for a brighter future where talent meets technology, creating opportunities for our nation’s brightest minds,” State Department of ICT and the Digital Economy Principal Secretary Eng. John Kipchumba Tanui said.

The global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market is estimated to be valued at more than US$ 262 billion, with African countries continuing to emerge as the next BPO growth frontiers. The BPO sector is crucial in developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that power the automotive, retail, agricultural, and food technology sectors.

According to a recently released UNCTAD report titled: The Economic Development in Africa Report 2023: The Potential of Africa to Capture Technology-intensive Global Supply Chains, as technology-intensive industries tend to offer higher wages and can have a positive job-multiplier effect, the potential of generating more employment in those sectors will have undeniable benefits for the workforce and foster sustainable development in Africa. Facilitating a conducive environment for firms in those industries to establish or build new supplier relationships in African countries can help raise wages in Africa, which are set at a minimum of $220 per month, compared with an average of $668 in the Americas.