3 Strands Global Foundation
“It’s more critical than ever that schools incorporate research and evidence-based prevention education in their curriculum to protect our youth from human trafficking and exploitation,” stated Ashlie Bryant, co-founder and CEO.
EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. (PRWEB) January 11, 2023
3Strands Global Foundation (3SGF), a non-profit with a mission to mobilize communities to combat human trafficking through prevention education and reintegration programs, today announced a groundbreaking study which calls out the usage and benefits of artificial intelligence in the war against human trafficking. The study coincides with National Human Trafficking Awareness month.
“It’s more critical than ever that schools incorporate research and evidence-based prevention education in their curriculum to protect our youth from human trafficking and exploitation,” stated Ashlie Bryant, co-founder and CEO. “We have focused on ensuring our programs are effective since our inception 12 years ago which is now confirmed by this study.”
Having gathered more than 30,000 stories from counselors and school staff who have gone through its PROTECT Prevention Education program, 3SGF sought to develop a methodology to measure the effectiveness of the training which helps educators and school staff identify physical signs and behaviors indicating a student is being victimized. The program further illustrates how to recognize and respond to trauma, and also teaches the steps to take to report human trafficking, as well as how to connect victims with the proper professionals.
Preliminary results show that of the 30,000 stories gathered, it became overwhelmingly clear that a significant majority of the participants now have increased awareness of the issue, demonstrated better knowledge of how to help prevent the crime, and expressed an intention to change how they approach what they do daily. In addition, it was observed that approximately 30% of the stories involved comments by educators expressing they wish they’d had this knowledge sooner as they can think of many students they would have acted upon to help.
This means that educators were much more aware of the human trafficking issue after program participation, increased their knowledge of the signs or red flags that identify the behaviors and understood what to do (behavior change) when an issue was identified. As more data is gathered, 3SGF will be optimizing its education programs based on the feedback received.
3SGF partnered with Levity, a leader in no-code Artificial Intelligence (AI) automation, to create the research study utilizing natural language processing, a branch of artificial intelligence, to measure the effectiveness of their prevention education program. Utilizing the Levity AI custom platform gave 3Strands the ability to evaluate more than 30,000 stories that were collected from counselors and educators from the 100,000 nationwide who had been through the 3SGF education program.
By applying the logic created for the study, the platform analyzed and categorized each story. If the story, directly from the educator, demonstrated one or more of the desired outcomes; Increased Awareness, Increased Knowledge or Intended Behavior Change, a label was applied. The system then added a confidence level for each identified label. The study results were generated with a 99% confidence level.
“It’s exciting for a non-profit to have access to this type of leading-edge technology which Levity graciously provided to us for a trailblazing evidence-based study of this kind” stated Ray Bryant, a professor at Jessup University who advises 3SGF on their data science needs. “To be able to analyze such a voluminous amount of qualitative data utilizing AI was unprecedented. It would have taken us six person-years of effort to accomplish this without that technology which would have been time and cost-prohibitive."
“Levity was founded on the belief that artificial intelligence should be available to everyone, not just big tech companies. We are proud to partner with 3SGF and believe that their mission is critical to everyone around the globe. We believe that using AI for good is critical for society, and Levity and 3Strands Global Foundation are partnering to make it work,” said Hannah Kleinings, Customer Operations Manager at Levity.
3Strands Global Foundation
3Strands Global Foundation is a global leader in human trafficking prevention, combating human trafficking through education, employment, and engagement. The programs extend across primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. 3Strands has educated over 750,000 school students and trained over 100,000 school staff members on human trafficking and exploitation through the PROTECT program and has served more than 700 individuals through the direct services survivor Employ + Empower program, generating more than $697,000 in earned wages through sustainable jobs. The staff at 3SGF believes prevention changes everything and has mobilized over 100,000 people through engagement efforts.
About Levity
Levity’s No-Code AI automation platform empowers companies to speed up processes, reduce costs, and frees people from mundane, time-consuming tasks, allowing them the time and resources for creativity, whatever the level of technical expertise in the business. The platform combines a suite of machine learning tools with a simple, easy-to-use AI Block builder and templates. Levity is on a mission to level the playing field for businesses of all sizes, by making it easier for companies to process unstructured data that only AI can truly automate. Levity is backed by some of Europe’s leading investors, including Balderton Capital, Chalfen Ventures and Angular Ventures and its open beta is now live.