Newsletter September 2019

More and more companies are using crowdsourcing, particularly to perform the micro-tasks essential to the development of big data and artificial intelligence algorithms. How does it work? How can it be used in the most effective and optimized way? We tell you everything.

The term crowdsourcing was first coined in 2006 by Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson, editors of Wired magazine, in an article entitled:" The rise of Crowdsourcing ». The authors explained that technological leaps and the spread of cheap computer tools have greatly reduced the gap between professionals and amateurs, so companies can take advantage of the public's skills. This concept has been embodied in different ways. We think in particular:

• to the project stardust@home NASA, which sought the public's help in searching for space dust impacts in an aerogel block using a virtual microscope;
• to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia,
• or to the browser Waze.

More recently, the advent of big data and the rise of artificial intelligence have contributed to making this phenomenon essential to the development of algorithms and the proper use of data. For companies and organizations, this represents both an opportunity and a challenge. Focus on study published by Cloud Factory:" Scaling Quality training Data, Optimize your workforce and avoid the cost of the crowd. »

Talent, data and agility

Companies face two main problems in the processing and exploitation of their data:

• 54% of managers believe that the skills shortage is the biggest challenge they face (source: Gartner);
• dirty data, or erroneous data, is the number one challenge for data scientists.

Indeed, for the development of artificial intelligence, for the autonomous car for example, it is necessary to learn to "see" by machine, by annotating each image: this is a tree, a fire, a pedestrian... A tedious task, since it is estimated that it takes 800 hours of annotations for one hour of video. Crowdsourcing unlocks this barrier to innovation, while allowing the company's top talent to focus on higher value-added tasks.

3 hidden costs of the crowd

However, crowdsourcing is not a miracle solution in itself. If the concept is not properly applied, it can be costly for the company, in terms of both:

• data quality: if the work done is not satisfactory or the methods to measure its quality are too cumbersome, costs can explode;
• lack of agility: since workers are constantly changing, they cannot improve over time, get used to the specificities of the processes, evolve at the same time as AI... ;
• or managerial weight, since it is necessary to attract, train and train each new worker.

The right way to crowdsourcer

For Cloud Factory, it is essential to have a dedicated team (Managed cloud workers) that follows the companies' project over time and familiarizes itself with its specificities for a more accurate, agile and relevant work. It will also be necessary to design a clear data production line, from raw data to AI deployment, that distributes roles well between technology and people (see graph below) or choose a transparent provider on quality assessment.

Isahit: from crowdsourcing to impact sourcing

Isahit adapts to the needs of each client and the specificities of each project thanks to :

• the personalized training of our hairy on each new mission, combined with integrated intelligent quality control,
• the agility of its teams and its intelligent platform and APIs that can be adapted to each project in a few hours and a few clicks,
• its back office which allows the client to follow the progress of his project at each step, while keeping control over the confidentiality of his data.

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But isahit goes even further, by putting this crowdsourcing in the service of the socio-economic development of disadvantaged populationsand more particularly women from developing countries.

“L’économie de plateforme est le pilier d’une nouvelle révolution industrielle. Pour prospérer, elle s’appuie sur la foule (crowd) qui offre une plus grande flexibilité à des prix imbattables. Un business model qui pose parfois question, notamment au regard de la rémunération et du traitement de ses travailleurs. Chez isahit, nous y répondons par l’impact sourcing : ou comment mettre les atouts incontestables de cette révolution au service de chacun.” Isabelle Mashola, CEO et co-fondatrice d’isahit.

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