KoboToolbox is the leading open source data collection platform for nonprofits operating in the world’s most challenging environments. Our mission is to empower frontline organizations to generate insights and make informed decisions that drive positive change globally. Over 16,000 nonprofit organizations rely on data collected with KoboToolbox for humanitarian response, development, peacebuilding, human rights, environmental protection, education, and health. In 220 countries worldwide, more than 45,000 active monthly users collect over 20 million surveys per month.

To support humanitarian organizations to deliver timely and responsive aid to vulnerable communities, KoboToolbox’s innovative AI-powered features for transcription and translation enable users to capture detailed and accurate qualitative data directly from affected populations, in their own languages. With transcription for 72 languages and translation for 106 languages, these tools are critical to advancing inclusive data collection, generating crucial insights, and delivering targeted assistance.

Across North Africa and the Middle East, organizations have been using KoboToolbox’s AI transcription and translation tools to collect and analyze vital information from communities in Arabic and other languages. Insights from the data help to deliver essential services and lifesaving humanitarian support where it is needed most.

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• International

• Youth
• Older persons
• Women
• People with disabilities
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Migrants
• Refugees and internally displaced people
• Remote and rural communities

Demonstrating the potential scalability of these features, KoboToolbox is used in 220 countries worldwide to collect over 20 million surveys monthly, with some projects handling over 1 million submissions daily. Large international organizations such as UNHCR rely on KoboToolbox for complex and high volume data collection across multiple languages and locations, demonstrating the scalability and adaptability of our platform to meet the demands of large-scale, global projects.
With over 700,000 KoboToolbox users worldwide, including over 16,000 nonprofit organizations, these features can significantly advance data inclusivity and support more impactful assistance during humanitarian emergencies. Integrated directly with the KoboToolbox platform, these innovative AI-driven features for transcription and translation are available to nonprofits for free and as open source software, empowering humanitarian efforts with more inclusive and nuanced data to deliver better outcomes for communities across the globe.
The potential for further scalability and replication is significant, as the current tools can be expanded to include more languages, especially marginalized and under-served languages in high priority humanitarian regions like the Democratic Republic of Congo where effective tools for collecting data in Congolese Swahili and Nande are critically needed.

KoboToolbox is a self-sustaining software and platform. As a nonprofit organization, Kobo’s funding and operating revenue are generated from service contracts and subscription plans for users with advanced and high volume data collection needs. Since 2021, revenue from services has steadily increased, alongside conditional and unconditional grant funding and private donations. Notably, the introduction of subscription plans for high volume KoboToolbox users in September 2023 has emerged as a vital new and growing revenue stream.

KoboToolbox’s AI-powered transcription and translation features are self-sustaining. As a nonprofit organization, Kobo’s funding and operating revenue are generated from service contracts and subscription plans for users with advanced and high volume data collection needs.

While the automated tools for qualitative data are available to nonprofits for free on the KoboToolbox platform, revenue from high volume users and institutional partners are allocated for ongoing hosting and maintenance costs.To ensure future improvements and expansions of the new tools, such as additional languages, Kobo will also seek new funding from grants and private donors.

KoboToolbox’s innovative AI-driven tools for qualitative data transcription and translation are crucial to empowering frontline organizations with the lifesaving data they need to provide aid for communities affected by conflict, famine, disease, and climate disasters and to deliver inclusive programming that improves quality of life for the world’s most vulnerable. Over 16,000 nonprofit organizations worldwide have access to KoboToolbox’s automated transcription and translation enabling them to more effectively and efficiently collect, transcribe, and translate detailed open-ended responses from affected communities, program beneficiaries, and key stakeholders to inform decision-making and interventions that promote freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, shared responsibility, and respect for nature. Collecting over 20 million surveys per month in more than 220 countries, our users can leverage these features to maximize their impact with vital data for peacebuilding, protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, advancing equality through sustainable and inclusive development initiatives, environmental protection, and critical biodiversity conservation efforts.