Sama helps customers train AI models for better and more accurate performance through high-quality data annotation, validation, and curation services.  

The AI infrastructure company was founded on the idea that talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. 

Sama is a pioneer in the field of impact sourcing, whereby people living in low-income areas are offered free vocational training in digital basics and employed as “Sama Agents” in Sama Delivery Centers in Kenya and Uganda. Here they earn a living wage working on data projects carried out for international clients such as Google, Walmart, Ford, and Microsoft.

Sama’s impact hiring model has a verified positive effect on long-term employment rates and earnings. To date, Sama has helped +65’000 people out of poverty through dignified digital employment, trained +5’800 in vocational upskilling, and pushed diversity and inclusion by on average hiring ~50% women.

Our engagement

We invested in Sama back in 2017 as one of the first investors. Since then, we have been proud to have partnered with Sama on their impressive journey from a not-for-profit to a full-fledged, for-profit AI technology company – while continuing to deliver remarkable social impact, now comprising of an agent workforce of +2’500 agents.

We are looking forward to increasing capacity in the Delivery Centers to scale the delivery of an ethical AI supply chain that provide meaningful employment for those with the greatest barriers to work.

Read more about Sama here.