AI & Cross Sector Collaboration to Combat Trafficking


Martin Laird, BA | September 20 | 4:00-5:00 PM

Topic: Programming | Knowledge Level: Intermediate, Advanced | Location: Room 2591

IBM believes that technological advances should benefit everyone, especially people in vulnerable, and that “good tech” can play an important role in addressing this. But information about where slavery occurs and how it is sustained is fragmented across the world and across many entities. This data is very sensitive, which poses important challenges to sharing securely and protecting privacy and safety. IMB saw a unique opportunity to bring all this information together across sectors and geographies to unlock the power of data collaboration on a massive scale. After two years of design and development, IBM recently announced, along with a multi-sector consortium of organizations, the launch of the Traffik Analysis Hub (aka TA Hub) - an international data sharing and analytics platform to disrupt human trafficking. Nonprofits, law enforcement, and financial institutions are using the TA Hub to share their valuable data on trafficking. Applying IBM’s Watson AI and other tools to analyze blended data and uncover hotspots and routes has not been evident before. IBM believes that this new platform will be a game changer in facilitating collaboration across organizations and national borders, enabling us to make major strides towards disrupting this terrible industry. This session will explore the TA Hub and engage participants in a discussion on engaging in this collaborative and ground-breaking effort.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Present a demonstration of the Hub

·  Engage participants in a discussion about engaging in data sharing, collaboration and analysis to benefit their own objectives

About the Presenter


Anna SchrammMartin Laird, BA