Brandon Anderson (entrepreneur)

Brandon D. Anderson is an American sociologist and entrepreneur. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Raheem.ai, a chatbot which helps the public monitor police interactions. He was the 2018 Echoing Green Black Male Achievement Fellow and is a 2019 TED fellow.

Brandon Anderson
Born	Oklahoma
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Georgetown University
Known for	Entrepreneurship

Early life

Anderson was born in Oklahoma.[1] His mother is a rental car clerk and his father a forklift truck driver.[2][3] He has described his childhood as being "characterised by violence".[4] He was kicked out of his grandparents house as a teenager and made homeless.[5] Anderson ran away with his best friend, with whom he later fell in love.[5] Anderson enlisted in the Army in 2003, where he worked as a satellite engineer.[1][6] In 2007, while Anderson was serving as an engineer in the army overseas, his partner was shot and killed by a police officer during a routine traffic stop.[5][7]

Education and career

Anderson became a community activist and organiser, earning a degree at Georgetown University in 2015.[5] At Georgetown he studied sociology and philosophy.[8] He served as a Racial Equity Fellow at the Washington, D.C. Center for the Study of Social Policy.[4] Anderson learned that the majority of people don't report negative interactions with police officers because they "do not trust the system".[9]

In 2014 Anderson was awarded money from Fast ForWord and the My Brother's Keeper Challenge to build Raheem.ai, a Facebook messenger chatbot that eliminates barriers to reporting police misconduct.[1][10][11] The chatbot allows the public to evaluate police interactions and offers follow-on support for users.[12][13] Raheem.ai was inspired by Waze, who, alongside offering navigation information, use user-generated information to inform local government about fill potholes.[14] The chatbot asks questions about recent interactions with the police, anonymises the data that is collected and shares them in real-time to a public dashboard on police performance.[15][16][17] Raheem.ai publishes reports about where police are working well and where they are failing communities.[1][18] It aims to reach all fifty states by 2020.[19] With Raheem.ai Anderson looks to build the first crowdsourced database of police interactions.[20][21][22]

In 2016 Anderson delivered a TED talk at Georgetown, where he discussed what it means to be vulnerable.[23] He was named as one of the National Black Justice Coalition 100 Black LGBTQ/SGL Emerging Leaders.[24] Anderson was made an Echoing Green Fellow in 2018.[25][26]

References

1. Kolodny, Lora (2017-09-13). "Raheem.ai: Yelp or Amazon Reviews for police interactions". www.cnbc.com. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
2. "Brandon D. Anderson". Conference on World Affairs. 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
3. "My Origin Story: Brandon Anderson". Generation Titans. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
4. "Raheem". SIPS Fund. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
5. "Raheem is a Chatbot for Anonymously Rating Experiences with Police". Fast Forward. 2017-10-23. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
6. "Brandon Anderson". Halcyon. 2017-06-28. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
7. Whats Your Revolution 10 24 18 Brandon Anderson Founder of Raheem AI, retrieved 2019-02-27
8. "Brandon Anderson". Halcyon. 2017-06-28. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
9. Mathew, Teresa. "Positive or Negative: Rate Your Latest Police Encounter". CityLab. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
10. Schwartz, Elena (2018-06-13). "Can Artificial Intelligence Hold Police Accountable?". The Crime Report. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
11. "FEATURE: Young Black Entrepreneur Brandon Anderson creates app to monitor police brutality". AFROPUNK. 2016-04-18. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
12. "Brandon Anderson". Wonder Women Tech. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
13. Farley, Shannon (2017-06-22). "Nonprofits, not Silicon Valley startups, are creating AI apps for the greater good". Recode. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
14. "FEATURE: Young Black Entrepreneur Brandon Anderson creates app to monitor police brutality". AFROPUNK. 2016-04-18. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
15. "Raheem Ai - Tech Nonprofit". Fast Forward. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
16. Fast Forward (2018-03-29), Brandon Anderson, Founder of Raheem | AGG 2018, retrieved 2019-02-27
17. Peters, Adele (2017-10-02). "This Chatbot Makes It Easy To Document Your Interactions With The Police". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
18. "Meet the chatbots helping users anonymously report social injustices". VentureBeat. 2018-03-18. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
19. "Brandon Anderson". Camelback Ventures. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
20. "The AI Agenda". The Economist Events. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
21. contributor, Julia Airey / (2016-11-04). "Can this new chatbot increase police accountability?". Technical.ly DC. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
22. "Gay Man's Software Holds Police Accountable". www.intomore.com. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
23. TEDx Talks (2016-03-14), Make Space | Brandon Anderson | TEDxGeorgetown, retrieved 2019-02-27
24. "100 to Watch | National Black Justice Coalition". www.nbjc.org. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
25. "Brandon Anderson". www.echoinggreen.org. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
26. Echoing Green (2018-06-18), To Live and to Love in a World Free of Police Violence, retrieved 2019-02-27