In order for a car to be able to control itself, an artificial intelligence must be trained. It is a labor-intensive job that is often outsourced to low-wage countries. In Uganda, the employees of the startup Sama do this. Some of them have never seen a computer before.
The inside of a department store can be seen on the computer screen. The mouse pointer is used to operate a robot’s gripper arm, which pulls a box from a shelf and places it on a trolley. On the screen next to it you can see an orchard, filmed with a drone. The apples that are ripe must now be marked with a mouse click. Click by click, the drone is taught to only pick the ripe apples.
The computer screens are lined up close together in a dark, stuffy open-plan office on the ground floor of a glass office building in the center of Uganda’s capital Kampala. The curtains are drawn so that the sun doesn’t blind you. The air conditioning hums, but the room remains stuffy.
150 young Ugandans sit in front of the screens. There is hardly any talking. Concentration is required. Every mouse click must be precise. The orders come from large tech companies such as Meta, which includes Facebook and WhatsApp, retail groups such as Walmart and Amazon, and from the American car manufacturer Tesla. All of these companies are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to automate processes in warehouses, drones or cars. But until such an AI knows which road sign the self-driving car has to give way to, or which apple is ripe, it is trained here in Uganda.
Sama is the name of the company that is now taking on these labor-intensive AI training jobs in Africa. It is one of numerous startups in this industry sprouting up across the continent. Their customers are listed on the Sama website: These are Google, Ford, Walmart, Sony, BMW, Ebay, Microsoft, Meta and even the US space agency NASA.
Right next to it you can read the note “Career” on the website. There you can submit your application documents online: “Become part of our team and help change the world,” it says. It is rare for a Ugandan company to even put application forms online. Given one of the highest birth rates in the world and the resulting enormous youth unemployment, most companies are flooded with applications. But this is part of the concept, explains Sama managing director Joshua Okello. Because he wants to expand and needs hardworking hands to do so.
Startup chic with bottle plants and colorful lollipops
Okello is a trained software engineer. He used to program software as a freelance consultant for western companies for little money. Today he runs one of Africa’s leading AI training companies. The tall, 34-year-old man sits down at the oval table in the small conference room. The company headquarters in Kampala is casually decorated, with colorful fabrics on the walls, old glass bottles dangling from the ceiling and plants climbing everywhere. In the company’s own canteen there is a large container full of colorful lollipops on the counter from which everyone can freely help themselves. Startup chic reminiscent of Silicon Valley.
Almost all customers have their headquarters in North America, Europe, but also in Israel, where drone technology is primarily developed. Because legal minimum wages are higher in the Western world, corporations have long been outsourcing labor-intensive jobs abroad. In the past, companies in India or Bangladesh were hired. But wages are now also rising in Asia. In Africa, the hourly wage is significantly lower in comparison. In Uganda, the legal minimum wage is the equivalent of around two euros per day. Uganda is therefore “an excellent location for outsourcing,” says Okello.
The founder of Sama was the young American businesswoman Leila Janah, who died in 2020 at the age of 37. As the daughter of Indian immigrants and a student of African studies, the startup entrepreneur opened her first branches in India and later in Kenya in 2008 to outsource labor-intensive programming work to low-wage countries and thus create jobs for young people.
In Uganda, the company initially started in cooperation with the aid organization Oxfam after the end of the civil war in the north of the country in 2012. This led to the creation of today’s company Sama in 2017. “Bring jobs instead of aid” is Sama’s ideology, says Okello. Around 400 young Ugandans now work in the up-and-coming city of Gulu in northern Uganda. In 2019, Sama opened the Kampala branch and hired an additional 150 people. After Kenya, Uganda is now the second most important mainstay on the African continent. “We can actually teach people digital skills and create jobs,” says Okello. This is much better than delivering aid supplies.
“You don’t even need a high school diploma for that.”
The good thing, according to the Uganda managing director, is that “we do all of our training ourselves within our company”. So to train the AI of a car, a drone or a robot at Sama, “you don’t need any skills, you don’t even need to have a high school diploma,” says Okello. “Most people here had never seen a computer in their lives before they came to work with us.”
One of the young workers that Sama specifically selected for an interview in advance is 30-year-old Bruno Kayiza, a model candidate. After graduating from Gulu University with a degree in economics, he said he didn’t know where to apply. The Sama company branch is located right next to the university campus. “I was curious about what was happening there and one day I introduced myself there,” says Kayiza. With success: For four years he taught robots at Sama how to pick only ripe apples, then he rose to become team leader. He is now responsible for 418 people in Gulu who have to work the same clicks in two shifts, day and night, over and over again. For Kayza, however, this is “really good work” compared to other entry-level jobs.
Companies like Sama praise their activities as an “African Silicon Savannah” with lots of good jobs for young people. But for analyst Nanjira Sambuli, this all sounds a little too good to be true. The Kenyan researches how developments in high technology affect African society. Sama is a good example, she says. “Of course there is an immense need for jobs across the entire continent,” says Sambuli. “But are these meaningful jobs? Are they secure jobs with future prospects?” she poses the question.
Earlier this year, four Sama employees in Kenya sued the company, as well as clients Meta and Facebook, and asked the government to investigate what the lawsuit said were “exploitative” working conditions. According to Sambuli, this example shows “that politicians in Africa and the entire international community have to think about the price at which all these work processes are being outsourced to Africa at dumping prices.”