New CEO Enlabeler

Cape Town AI
Nov 5 · 3 min read

We are happy to announce that Enlabeler (www.enlabeler.co.za) found a CEO/ Co-founder: Esther Hoogstad.

After completing her MSc. in Business Administration and an MBA at ESADE in Barcelona, Esther worked at several multinational companies like British Petroleum (BP), Nike Inc., Naspers & Media 24. Within these companies, she possessed a variety of roles — focusing on (digital) transformation with the aim to service consumers in an easy and seamless way. At Nike she worked on the new nike.com/fcb affiliate model in partnership with F.C. Barcelona and helped shape, and execute, the OmniChannel Strategy for Nike EMEA. In her last role at Naspers (Media 24/ Spree) Esther was Head of Marketing & Customer Interaction and part of the Executive Team.

After taking some time off, she decided to focus her efforts on technologically led (social) impact initiatives in South-Africa. She’s currently a consultant and mentor to tech start-ups in the Cape, and wishes to make a difference by building digital capabilities and tech-led opportunities for (unemployed) youth.

“With her drive and relevant work experience, Esther can grow Enlabeler to become a big player in the world of data labeling and more importantly, help change people’s lives in South Africa. ”- Pieter Boon (Founder Cape Town AI & Initiator Enlabeler)

Esther Hoogstad explains: “South-Africa’s youth unemployment figures are rising, and it’s very hard to see that a lot of kids with a metric degree in their hands (high school certificate), often followed by relevant tertiary education, are not able to find a relevant job. Either by lack of social capital, experience or life circumstances — they find themselves in a “catch 22 situation” which is hard to get out of”. She explains further “Enlabeler is aiming to create low-entry data-labeling jobs to (unemployed) young professionals in the Khayelitsha area (township outside of Cape Town). It’s important we make the effort to move out of the city, taking away the existing barriers and invite young professionals into our space.

The team has laid out a training plan for them, ensuring they get experience with first-hand data-labeling projects.. They’re able to select their areas of affinity and grow to the next level of data labeling complexity, maybe even get to create AI models themselves in the future. We’re here to enable them to grow. The Enlabeler team will work closely together with the Cape Town AI colleagues in Woodstock, and hence the aim is to create cross-fertilization between the two teams — ensuring we learn from each other, and grow the next generation of data scientists in the Cape Town area.”

Data labeling is a crucial factor in optimizing machine learning models (Koen Bonenkamp, Founder Cape Town AI & Initiator Enlabeler) and high volumes of data-labeling work will be needed for corporates and smaller companies to get the most out of their data science and ML efforts.

Over the coming months, the team will be fine tuning the Enlabeler data-labeling application and secure the second round of funding (locally raised) to make an impact on the local economy. It’s important to note, Enlabeler will serve commercial goals and is not a non-for-profit organisation. The team is planning to bring a variety of projects from different international, and South-African clients into the data labeling app — in order to 1) bring new financial wealth to SA and 2) keep the work interesting and challenging for the teams involved.

For more questions/comments about Enlabeler please contact Esther Hoogstad at esther@enlabeler.co.za

Visit us at www.enlabeler.co.za

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