SumAll Offers Its Data Analytics Capabilities To Help Shed More Light on Human Trafficking

NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SumAll, the leading source of Big Data business intelligence for fast-growing businesses, announced an initiative through its SumAll Foundation (www.sumall.org) to help better present and advocate data surrounding global issues, the first being focused on human trafficking. SumAll.org was formed through the unanimous decision of SumAll.com employees who each set aside 10% of their equity to the non-profit organization.

As SumAll's Series A round in November 2012 was oversubscribed, SumAll.org sold $500k worth of shares to get operations for SumAll.org up and running. "Coming to work everyday and knowing that a part of what I'm working for is creating value for good is an awesome feeling," Saskia Ketz stated, an early employee of SumAll.com and design lead on the committee of SumAll.org. By donating its considerable analytical and technological resources to global agencies involved in the fight, the foundation hopes to expose new aspects of the problem as well as new strategies for ending the practice wherever it exists worldwide.

"It's amazingly tragic that almost 150 years after the 13^th Amendment was passed, that the world must still combat the buying and selling of humans," said Dane Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer of SumAll. "We now live in an information society where the economics and commerce that drive human trafficking can be measured and analyzed." Although slavery is illegal internationally, slavery still persists as a tragic problem today - there are now 27 million individuals worldwide, including children, held against their will primarily for labor or sex. The global median cost per slave has not changed much from $134 (inflation adjusted USD) in President Lincoln's day to $140 today*. While the majority of slaves can be found in India, Asia and Africa, there are still thousands of individuals held against their will for sex and labor in the U.S.

SumAll.org provides a way for its employees to apply their skills and technological knowhow to address pressing global issues. "Every non-profit we have spoken to struggles with organizing, visualizing, and making their data useful," said Korey Lee, VP of Analytics at SumAll. "SumAll's expertise is in the area of Big Data analysis, which is where we saw an opportunity to use our knowledge and collective expertise to provide these organizations with better analytics, to uncover new ways of attacking this problem."

SumAll has learned from speaking with several anti slavery organizations that it's vital to look at why people are still enslaved in modern times. If we only focus on rescue, we may save some, but traffickers will simply enslave others in their place. Growing economic globalization, massive rates of migration, extreme poverty, overpopulation, corruption, racism and sexism -- are all correlated to trafficking and slavery. We must transform the social, political and economic systems that allow slavery to persist.

Part of SumAll.org's first initiative was creating an infographic detailing the extent to which slavery is still prevalent today. The infographic was presented as a satirical fashion ad to show that not only are people being bought and sold as commodities, but some of the products we use everyday are tied to slavery.

Thorn's Director of Programs Claire Schmidt detailed one of their current initiatives, "Analytics and technology can be purposed to combat child sex trafficking - utilizing existing data to determine indicators of trafficking victims within online environments and helping route that information to authorities and organizations who are best able to intervene and assist."

The SumAll Foundation has already received data from several anti-trafficking organizations and is seeking other like-minded non-profit and governmental partners. SumAll.org has reached out to both of these organizations to better understand the role technology can play in bringing an end to these horrific crimes. To learn more, further the cause, or donate go to:

• Free the Slaves
• Thorn Foundation
• Polaris Project

About SumAll:

SumAll, now deployed in 30 countries, is a forward thinking, socially conscious company focused on harnessing the full power of real-time business intelligence for growing businesses. Users can integrate multiple data sources including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Analytics, Google AdWords, eBay, PayPal, Shopify and Big Commerce into one intuitive, interactive chart. Leading VC investors, Battery Ventures, General Catalyst, Matrix Partners and Wellington Partners, back the company. For more information, visit https://sumall.com/.

About The SumAll Foundation (SumAll.org):

The mission of SumAll.org is to leverage technology to help organizations and individuals optimize decisions. Through better understanding their internal data and market trends, charitable organizations and individuals can be more effective at fundraising, educating, and scaling their resources to create a better and more data driven world. Data is meant to be universally shared and used by all to improve quality of life, operational efficiency, optimize income, and minimize costs. Our goal is for charitable organizations to use their data to make more effective and efficient decisions so they can impact the bottom line - impacting lives for the better.

*Sources:

The data from this article and infographic was compiled by a team of analysts and designers from SumAll.com. They volunteered their time above and beyond their full time jobs and pulled data from dozens of data stores, interviews, and primary source reports. Our research reflects an effort to aggregate, visualize, and communicate the most credible and relevant data available.

SOURCE SumAll