iMerit Expands By Opening a New Center of Excellence for AI Training Data in Hubballi

- Expert workforce delivers high-quality training data to power machine learning and artificial intelligence

KOLKATA, India, July 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- iMerit, a leading data labeling solutions company, announced the opening of a new Center of Excellence for AI training data in Hubballi, Karnataka. In partnership with the Deshpande Foundation, a social and economic impact nonprofit organization, iMerit will expand their expert workforce for delivering high-quality training data and solutions for machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. iMerit's deep commitment to developing talent and technical skills within underserved communities brings new economic opportunities to the southwestern region of India. 

"We are excited to expand to Hubballi. The skills and expertise of our workforce are in high demand within Fortune 500 companies because of our ability to help them solve complex data challenges in their AI. Hubballi is the perfect city to continue developing our highly-skilled technical talent of the future," said Radha Ramaswami Basu, iMerit CEO and Founder. "The Deshpande Foundation is an invaluable partner in our mission to create the most talented and skilled workforce for AI in the industry." 

Deshpande Foundation was founded in 2007 to equip rural youth with education ranging from primary school to college degrees, with essential hands-on technical skills currently in demand in the digital economy.

"We are looking at Hubballi beyond the lens of Bengaluru, Karnataka. Hubballi was yearning for high-tech jobs for many years and the launch of iMerit is one of the best opportunities the under-resourced community can get. This partnership of iMerit and Deshpande Foundation is an encouraging initiative that an opportunity in Hubballi itself has been created for the youth of rural and semi-urban areas to work on data content used for applications of artificial intelligence, a demanding domain with worldwide scope," said Dr. Desh Deshpande, Co-founder, Deshpande Foundation. 

"We will extend the best possible support to make iMerit successful in Hubballi. This initiative will encourage more high-tech companies to see Hubballi as their workplace. This partnership will post new challenges and raise the execution excellence on both sides. It is definitely going to set a benchmark in the north-Karnataka region," added Dr. Desh. 

iMerit employs more than 4,000 employees across 10 centers in India, Bhutan and the U.S. 

About iMerit: 

iMerit is a leading data labeling solutions company providing high-quality data across computer vision, natural language processing and content services that powers machine learning and artificial intelligence applications for large enterprises. iMerit provides end-to-end data labeling services to Fortune 500 companies in a wide array of industries including agricultural AI, autonomous vehicles, commerce, geospatial, government, financial services, medical AI and technology. iMerit employs more than 4,000 full-time data annotation experts in Bhutan, Europe, India and the United States. Raising $23.5 million in funding to date, iMerit investors are CDC Group, Khosla Impact, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Omidyar Network. 

For more information visit: imerit.net

About Deshpande Foundation:

Deshpande Foundation was established in 2007 to bring about a sustainable change by economically empowering rural and semi-urban communities in India. The journey started as a grant-making and skilling organization in Hubballi district of Karnataka state. Over the years, with community trust and increased connection at the ground level, Deshpande Foundation has transitioned to an implementing organization. With the vision to "Create an ecosystem that nurtures entrepreneurial mind-sets to impact grassroots problems through innovation, collaboration and sustainability", the foundation is implementing programmes that focus on Micro-Entrepreneurship, Agriculture, Edu-Skilling, and Startups (MASS) that it believes are four critical areas among many for catalyzing and anchoring holistic rural and semi-urban impact. During the 14-year journey, the foundation has impacted 1,25,000+ farmers, trained 10000+ students, and supported 4200+ micro-entrepreneurs and 210+ start-ups.

The Deshpande Foundation, founded by Jaishree and Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande, has supported sustainable, scalable social and economic impact through innovation and entrepreneurship in the United States, Canada, and India. 

For more information, visit: deshpandefoundationindia.org

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