 He has funded workshops for dissidents from Central Asia, Iran, Iraq and North Korea ... Ackerman also funded the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, which was started in 2003 by student leaders who’d helped bring down Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic three years earlier.Some members of Egypt’s April 6 movement, which toppled President Hosni Mubarak, took civil resistance training from Canvas organizers in Belgrade.