The growth of artificial intelligence technology in the Indian state of Kerala has brought new job opportunities for women. One of these women, Roshanay M, has achieved financial independence by working in data annotation for AI systems and continues to support her family.
Roshanay M's Experience
After her father's death, Roshanay M decided to work to help her family. She is now one of the hundreds of employees at Infolks, collecting and annotating the data needed to train AI systems. Roshanay says: "I feel like an independent person. I have income now, I am self-sufficient, and I have freedom. Financial freedom has a different meaning."
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Job Opportunities for Women
Infolks, founded in 2016 by Mujib Klasar, is part of a growing technology industry in this state that helps create new jobs beyond traditional tech hubs in major cities. Data annotation work is a key part of developing AI systems, especially in areas like self-driving cars that require identifying roads, vehicles, and pedestrians. Employees help machines learn and recognize by labeling and annotating these objects in images and data.
This field has also provided new opportunities for women, especially educated women who may have fewer options for entering the tech job market. Roshanay says: "When we look at the stories of mothers or any other women in our family and friends, we see that they have worked very hard to learn or enter the job market. But the infrastructure and people's mindset have changed significantly."
However, for women in rural areas, opportunities and working conditions are still limited. Some workers may refrain from expressing dissatisfaction about their wages or working conditions because they fear losing their jobs and have few options. Roshanay, however, has a different experience and points to benefits such as better wages and health insurance.
She says: "The value of this job for me goes beyond the workplace. We can earn income for ourselves and provide a better life for our families."
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