Mitigating bias in artificial intelligence

(AI) by creating work opportunities for

displaced persons
TELUS International partnered with YICF, an Indonesian not-for-profit organization, to
expand its global workforce in order to accurately represent the voices of displaced
persons and refugees in Southeast Asia.

The challenge
As the world begins to rely more on AI
to deliver robust technological solutions,
data bias has become a real concern.
Ensuring that the training data that is fed
into AI models is diverse and inclusive of
the collective, rather than one dominant
group’s opinions and judgments, is of
utmost importance.
According to the United Nations, in
2021 there were more than 84 million
refugees worldwide. This figure has
nearly doubled in the past decade.
These populations have typically
been marginalized when it comes to
recruitment opportunities. For this
reason, TELUS International sought out
a partner who could help us add this
integral population to our AI Community
workforce.
Recruiting data annotators from across
Southeast Asia allows us to draw on the
vast life experiences of a wide range of
individuals for more inclusive AI models
that effectively combat bias.
 The TELUS International approach
To ensure accurate data representation,
TELUS International selected YICF as a
partner because of their commitment to
creating opportunities for Indonesians
and refugees in transit to the country.
YICF is a locally rooted and globally
connected organization focused on
transforming lives in greater Jakarta
through education, vocation and
community. Our team worked with
YICF to expand our global workforce
by engaging with refugees from
throughout Southeast Asia. As part
of the partnership, we participated in
The results
Our participation in YICF’s Bersama
program has led to the development
of a roster of 60-90 workers,
delivering more than 2,700 hours of
work per week, across more than 50
projects. Bersama provided a diverse
workforce that spanned across seven
unique nationalities with a variety of
ages, backgrounds and languages
represented.
The team has also expanded their
support of simple collection and
categorization tasks to include more
complex image annotation, audio and
image transcription, categorization and
quality assurance capabilities.
the organization’s recently launched • Learning - Improving their
Bersama program, with its mission language and professional skills
to provide a life-changing, vocational through continuous education
learning experience for unemployed activities
Indonesian youth and refugees.
• Belonging - Enjoying membership
Our collaboration focused on three main within a diverse, supportive coworking
objectives for the refugee population community
in Indonesia, who are without legal
rights to employment while they await
resettlement to a third country:
• Working - Gaining work experience
through data annotation
Project highlights include:
High retention rate of 80%
75-80% of workforce tackling multiple tasks concurrently
Greater than 80% pass rate across all optical character recognition
projects
351,949 images labeled
5,200+ image and video files collected
Speech-to-text audio transcription in English, Persian, Indonesian and
Arabic
459,968 files reviewed (quality assurance)
Tackle potential data bias with a diverse and inclusive global
workforce
Contact us to learn more about how our AI Community can help with your unique
machine learning projects, and our impact sourcing initiatives.
telusinternational.com/contact