Brandon Anderson (entrepreneur)

Anderson was born in Oklahoma.[1] His mother is a rental car clerk and his father a forklift truck driver.[2][3] He has described his childhood as being "characterised by violence".[4] He was kicked out of his grandparents house as a teenager and made homeless.[5] Anderson ran away with his best friend, with whom he later fell in love.[5] Anderson enlisted in the Army in 2003, where he worked as a satellite engineer.[1][6] In 2007, while Anderson was serving as an engineer in the army overseas, his partner was shot and killed by a police officer during a routine traffic stop.[5][7] Anderson was discharged from the Army once he disclosed his sexuality. [8]

Anderson became a community activist and organiser, earning a degree at Georgetown University in 2015.[5] At Georgetown he studied sociology and philosophy.[9] He served as a Racial Equity Fellow at the Washington, D.C. Center for the Study of Social Policy.[4] Anderson learned that the majority of people don't report negative interactions with police officers because they "do not trust the system".[10]

In 2014 Anderson was awarded money from Fast ForWord and the My Brother's Keeper Challenge to build Raheem.ai, a Facebook messenger chatbot that eliminates barriers to reporting police misconduct.[1][11][12] The chatbot allows the public to evaluate police interactions and offers follow-on support for users.[13][14] Raheem.ai was inspired by Waze, who, alongside offering navigation information, use user-generated information to inform local government about fill potholes.[15] The chatbot asks questions about recent interactions with the police, anonymises the data that is collected and shares them in real-time to a public dashboard on police performance.[16][17][18] Raheem.ai publishes reports about where police are working well and where they are failing communities.[1][19] It aims to reach all fifty states by 2020.[20] With Raheem.ai Anderson looks to build the first crowdsourced database of police interactions.[21][22][23]

In 2016 Anderson delivered a TED talk at Georgetown, where he discussed what it means to be vulnerable.[24] He was named as one of the National Black Justice Coalition 100 Black LGBTQ/SGL Emerging Leaders.[25] Anderson was made an Echoing Green Fellow in 2018.[26][27]