Ivone B.

Key Skills

Software

Sama

Appen

Top Subject Matter

Natural language processing

RLHF feedback

dataset quality assurance

Top Data Types

Text

Audio

Image

Top Task Types

RLHF

Classification

Entity (NER) Classification

Freelancer Overview

Senior AI Data Annotation Specialist | Sama (formerly Samasource). Core strengths include Sama, Appen, and Internal. Education includes Master of Science, University of Nairobi (2015) and Bachelor of Science, Kenyatta University (2013). AI-training focus includes data types such as Text and Audio and labeling workflows including RLHF, Entity (NER), and Classification.

Labeling Experience

Senior AI Data Annotation Specialist | Sama (formerly Samasource)

SamaTextRLHF

Lead a team of annotators delivering large-scale NLP labeling and model-training data for Fortune 500 AI clients. Conduct RLHF by evaluating and ranking LLM response pairs for accuracy, safety, and helpfulness. Produce and QA high-volume labeled datasets using company-wide guidelines and rubrics.• Specialized text classification, entity-focused NLP annotations, and audio transcription labeling within multi-modal projects.• Implemented annotation guidelines and quality rubrics that reduced error rates by 34%.• Mentored junior annotators and facilitated onboarding training across Nairobi offices.• Collaborated with remote AI researchers to deliver labeled batches on strict SLA timelines.

2021 - Present

AI Training Data Specialist | Appen (Kenya Operations)

AppenAudio

Perform large-scale data collection and annotation across voice, image, text, and video modalities for AI model training. Specialize in intent labeling, dialogue annotation, and conversational AI datasets for virtual assistant models. Apply systematic quality checks using inter-annotator agreement metrics (Cohen's Kappa).• Labeled intent, dialogue turns, and conversational context to support virtual assistant training.• Supported multilingual annotation projects in Swahili, English, and Kikuyu for regional NLP models.• Flagged edge cases and ambiguous outputs as part of model feedback loops for further review.• Coordinated with global project managers to maintain annotation consistency across distributed teams.

2018 - 2021

Data Labeling Analyst | Micro Enterprises Support Programme Trust (MESPT)

TextClassification

Manage data digitization and structured labeling of financial and agricultural datasets for AI-powered analytics tools. Build and maintain data entry templates and annotation workflows to produce clean training-ready datasets. Support machine learning engineers with well-labeled data for predictive modeling. • Designed annotation workflows and maintained structured templates for consistent labeling.• Prepared weekly data quality reports submitted to the ICT and Analytics department.• Supported ML engineers by ensuring labeled datasets for predictive models used in rural financing.

2017 - 2018

Research Assistant – NLP & Data Science | University of Nairobi – School of Computing and Infromatics

TextEntity (NER) Classification

Assist an NLP and data science research project on Swahili language processing and corpus development. Annotate Swahili text samples with POS tags, named entities, and syntactic structures. Support dataset versioning and documentation for research use across internal systems. • Annotated 500,000+ Swahili text samples with POS tags and named entities.• Co-authored a paper on low-resource language modeling for East African languages.• Managed dataset versioning and documentation using GitHub and university servers.• Contributed to corpus development for supervised NLP modeling.

2015 - 2016

Education

Work History