AnnieCannons Inc.

Our Mission

AnnieCannons is a registered 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to training survivors of human trafficking in programming and other skills demanded by today's technology companies. We carefully and compassionately assess the aptitude and interest of each survivor in our program and offer literacy, personal finance, and computer literacy training across the student population. We continue by training interested candidates in quality assurance management, web design, and application programming and then helping them practice skills on anti-trafficking technologies as well as, eventually, securing clients on their behalf. Our approach provides the first viable means for directing economic power into the hands of trafficking survivors on a massive scale. That economic power can, in turn, allow survivors to drive necessary economic growth in their own communities and act as change agents by decreasing the vulnerability of communities to trafficking. After a successful proof-of-concept phase in the Bay Area, we will translate and adapt our curriculum for residents at international trafficking rehabilitation shelters, especially in less-developed countries. To that end, we have forged partnerships with NGOs and shelters in Myanmar, India and Romania that are prepared to assist in this translation process. Once we have trained a critical mass of survivors (approximately 26) with in-demand tech skills, we have modeled a means to self-fund: we would handle the branding, marketing, and sale of software development and support services by our trainees on a contractor basis, with the help of US-based sales and marketing teams. The vast majority of contractor fees would go directly into survivors' pockets, but the organization would retain a modest commission that will fund training more survivors and curating a work environment conducive to success. While no graduate would ever be required to work in our organization, we would offer a work environment tailored to be female- and survivor-friendly (for example, with on-site childcare, counseling, nutrition, and security services). We believe that this model can be scaled to cities around the world with high rates of human trafficking and unemployment.