The Human Toll

He thought slavery was a moral failure of our distant past. A newspaper article opened his eyes.

- Justin Dillon

Search for me online and you’ll find a website called MadeInA FreeWorld.com. That’s the company I run. We make software that helps businesses protect against the use of slaves in their supply chains.

That’s right, slaves. One of the world’s most tragic realities is the fact that slavery is thriving—and probably casting its shadow over your house right now. The United States Department of Labor has identified at least 139 products from 75 countries that were produced using forced or child labor, including clothes, coffee and carpets. It’s estimated there are more than 20 million human trafficking victims in the world, a quarter of them children forced to work in factories and brothels.

When I first learned about this in justice, I was so shocked I could barely speak. That shock has since matured into action. That’s why the company I started, Made in a Free World, created software called FRDM, which monitors more than 50,000 global goods and suppliers so that companies know whether the materials and services they’re buying are produced humanely.

I’m passionate about my work. I’m also surprised by it. My title is CEO, but I never went to business school. My company makes software, but I’m no software engineer. I commute every day to an office in downtown San Francisco, but for most of my life I never had a real job. I used to play in a rock band.

How did I get here?

THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION starts about 40 years ago, when I was growing up in the suburbs of San Francisco. At church, at school, hanging out with family and friends, I sensed there was something more the world wanted from me. Something I needed to do. I didn’t know what it was. But I had to respond.