SurveyAuto is Machine Learning and AI based startup to revolutionize market research industry of the country which has recently received investment from Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation and is the first Pakistani startup to receive this funding
SurveyAuto is a Pakistani startup that is fundamentally an Artificial Intelligence-based data collection application that will revolutionize the market research industry of the country by implementing advanced research and survey techniques in their research. As a promising startup, Survey Auto has recently received the approval and investment from Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation.
The company is launched by Dr Umar Saif, who is the former chairman of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB). Dr. Umar Saif’s company has become the first Pakistani startup to receive direct investment from the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation. Market experts and people who are currently employed in this company have referred to this startup it as an “uber” for field data collection, where SurveyAuto relies on local community members with smartphones to report data rather than relying on expensive dedicated teams. According to experts, “What Uber has done to taxi services, they are aiming to do the same to traditional market research companies like Neilsen and Gallup”.
Dr. Umar Saif spoke on the success and development of the startup and went on to thank Bill Gates for his interest in the startup and said that the company will reduce the cost and chances of human error during the data collection process. He stated: “SurveyAuto uses a crowdsourcing model and relies on machine learning to decide who reports data, where it is collected, and when and how often it is reported. This reduces cost and minimizes human errors”.
He stressed that the startup primarily uses machine learning on satellite imagery, open street maps, and google places to accurately identify survey targets and monitors enumerators in real-time using smartphone applications. The startup uses this technology to automatically analyse the quality of the collected data by using speech and image analysis. SurveyAuto has been working with leading global organizations, including the World Bank, Innovations in Poverty Action (IPA), ITA, and UNESCO.
