Monday 05 / October / 2026
KOCHI: For Roshni M, a job annotating data for artificial intelligence systems has brought something she says she values as much as a salary — financial independence.
After her father died, Roshni took up work to help support her family. She is now among hundreds of employees at Infolks, a Kerala-based technology company that collects and labels data used to train AI systems.
“I feel like an individual. I’m earning now, I’m self-dependent, and I have freedom,” Roshni said. “Financial freedom is something different.”
Founded by Mujeeb Kolasseri in 2016, Infolks is part of a growing technology sector in the southern Indian state, where companies are creating jobs beyond the traditional urban technology hubs.
Data annotation is a key part of developing AI systems. For example, autonomous vehicles need to identify roads, vehicles, pedestrians and other objects. Workers label and annotate such objects in images and other data, helping machines learn to recognise them.
The sector has also opened opportunities for women, particularly educated women who might otherwise have fewer options to enter the technology workforce.
“When we look at the stories of our mothers or any women related to our family and friends, we can see that they have struggled a lot just to learn or to go to work,” Roshni said. “But the infrastructure has changed a lot and people’s mentality has also changed.”
For women in rural areas, however, opportunities and working conditions can still be limited. Some workers may be reluctant to complain about pay or workplace conditions because they fear losing their jobs and have few alternatives.
Roshni said her experience had been different, pointing to benefits such as better pay and health insurance.
For her, the value of the job goes beyond the workplace.
“We can earn for ourselves and we can give a better life for our family also,” she said.
