Research Specialist - Skilling

About Karya:

Why was Karya on the cover of the Time Magazine , highlighted by Satya Nadella , and chosen by Google as its partner for Project Vaani? 

In part, because Karya is on a mission to provide AI enabled earning and learning opportunities to economically underserved communities, thereby building a pathway out of poverty for them. Karya achieves this while also delivering high quality, timely, and price competitive data to its clients.

Karya’s workers make at least 20 times the Indian minimum wage and through our one-of-a-kind digital work platform, we have delivered over 40 million digital tasks and are poised to positively impact over 100 thousand workers by the end of the year. In the coming years, our goal is to rapidly scale our impact by bringing economic opportunities to millions of underserved users in India.

The Research Specialist - Skilling position offers an exciting opportunity for an experienced skill development or education researcher to lead evidence generation around the future of skilling in the world of AI and global digitisation. This is a Senior Leadership position within the Karya Institute. The Karya Institute is an internal research think tank with the core aim of understanding what the ethical future of work looks like for low-income people. As we see AI being poised to take over even the most technical of jobs, we must also ask the important question of what does this mean for those who are currently un-or under-employed? To address this, it is key to unlock three things: 

1. How are digital markets growing and what are the potential employment opportunities within these areas? 
2. What are the skills individuals need to develop to serve these markets?
3. How must the labour landscape transform to ensure digital work is ethical?

The Research Specialist - Skilling will lead the development and management of a portfolio of research studies addressing Karya Institute’s core skilling related research questions. This specialist will also have the opportunity to work with the Program Lead of our skilling intervention as the evidence generated from this portfolio will directly affect our skilling strategy. This position offers the opportunity for a researcher to design, lead and manage a variety of research studies, partnerships and evidence products. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Designing, maintaining and overseeing the roadmap for Skilling Research at Karya Institute in close collaboration with the Karya Learn Program Lead. 
• Building and managing a team of Research Fellows.
• Designing, leading and conducting a variety of research studies addressing Karya Institutes core research questions around digital skilling and career growth through skilling interventions.
• Leading the communication of critical research evidence through: publishing papers, presenting at conferences, and developing tools, frameworks and Digital Public Goods.
• Working closely with the CIO and CEO to develop policy briefs and evidence communications products to deliver strategic input on Karya’s scale, impact and sales strategies with a focused lens on how skilling will evolve within both the constraint of automation and the opportunity of AI. . 
• Supporting the Co-Founders in fundraising activities

Required Qualification:

• A self-motivated individual who takes full ownership of tasks, and doesn’t require hand-holding. This role will come with a lot of responsibility and autonomy and we’re keen on self-starters who are eager to learn and contribute. 
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience in leading market research studies, preferably in the domain of gig-labour or digital markets. Experience at the intersection of gender and markets is an asset.
• Extensive qualitative design and analysis experience required, with knowledge of social science research or anthropological methods preferred.
• Knowledge of statistics and basic quantitative analysis is required.
• Exceptional communication and presentation abilities, both written and verbal.
• Proficiency in GSuite, R/Python/STATA/Tableau, NVIVO/MaxQDA
• A role model of Karya values with the ability to inspire action and motivate team members to act on organisational priorities and in-line with our values and ethos. 

This position is based in India and all applicants must have valid work authorisation. 

Karya is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to their race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. 

Karya invites all qualified interested applicants to apply for career opportunities. If you are a person with a disability and need a reasonable accommodation to use our search to apply for a career opportunity, reach out at hr@karya.in.