US Department Assigned: Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking
Role: Project Lead, Forced Labor
Summary
Policymakers are looking to harness the power of new technologies to rethink how the U.S. government approaches and responds to these and other long-standing challenges.
Teams from Stanford University were chosen and divided to take actual specific foreign policy challenges and discover and validate agency and user needs and to continually build iterative prototypes, requiring close engagement with officials in the U.S. State Department and other civilian agencies.
Research
I led a team through qualitative and quantitative research methods. We conducted over 90 interviews of experts and stakeholders through the fashion supply chains (NGO's Auditors, Brands, Factory Owners etc.) Each week findings, insights, and prototypes were presented to the US State Department and the mentor team at Stanford University. Mentors included Steve Blank & Jeremy Weinstein.
Prototype & Product
10 prototypes were made starting from sketches to working prototypes. Each version was tested on the US State Department and Supply chain stake holders. Results were recorded and new versions and iterations were made as needed.
Results
Final results and platform were written up and presented. US State Department is using this information moving forward.Results were also shown and discussed with Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs, SAC, SLCP, The Human Rights Division of the United Nations, and other High Volume Brands.
In person meeting with Susan Coppedge, Ambassador-at-Large, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.