Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2013

You see, several months later, the federal Department of Education challenged us to compete against a well-respected national nonprofit 60 times our size in a bid to provide accessible educational materials for US students who are blind, dyslexic, or otherwise print disabled. I was wrong. money than existing approaches.

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Advocacy Change Literacy DC 176

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 6, 2013

Almost anyone from the human rights field will tell you that the work can be as rewarding as it is challenging. If you’re up for the challenge and want to change the world, or know someone who might fit the bill, please check out or share this job posting. Why You Do Want this Job: All the above.

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Job Open Source Global Government 238

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

At RHoK Global in June 2012, we joined the RHoK Sustainability Project and invited participants to build solutions addressing challenges in accessibility or human rights, two core program areas at Benetech.

International 209

International San Francisco Open Source Global 209

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2011

Despite an audience of fellow statisticians, I chose to focus my talk more on the research questions and challenges posed by our work in human rights and less on the nuts and bolts of our statistical methods (though I did include a few equations and Greek letters!).

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Chapter Local San Francisco Guatemala 174

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

First, it was written broadly enough to encourage bold ideas that challenged the status quo in the accessibility field. Challenges and Opportunities I am highly optimistic about the opportunity to solve the accessibility problem through innovative applications of technology. However, I don’t want to understate the challenges we face.

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Copyright Law Accessibility Library 196

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

That’s why we were excited to participate in the Skoll Foundation’s second annual Skoll Social Entrepreneurs Challenge , a fundraising campaign committed to strengthening the capacity of organizations like ours to accelerate impact on some of the most critical issues of our time. The Challenge ran for six weeks through December 5th.

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Open Source Africa Zimbabwe Malawi 183

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

Benetech has some of the juiciest and most exciting range of legal challenges I can imagine: the great majority of our legal work concerns intellectual property and human rights. The DMCA 1201 ruling on ebook access through DRM circumvention was clearly aimed at us: should we take up the challenge?

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United States Library Copyright License 134

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 19, 2014

Our experience working with human rights defenders, especially LGBT and Tibetan groups, give us direct insights into these challenges. My comments were based on the recent HuffPo op-ed authored by Enrique Piracés and me, entitled Human Rights and the Duty to Protect Sensitive Data.

Open Source 137

Open Source Government Reflection Software 137

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 26, 2013

She succeeds in showing us, rather than telling, something true and challenging. Although the movie touches on many social justice issues, Iram made it clear that she didn't want to make another documentary about Pakistan. In the post-film Q&A, Iram said she aspired to do for Pakistan what Slum Dog Millionaire did for India.

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Pakistan Virginia San Francisco India 237

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 10, 2012

We don't make chat or email tools like Cryptocat or Hushmail, but the security challenges we face in design are similar. The Wired piece correctly identifies one of the core challenges faced by designers of tech tools for use in the human rights field: the difficult tradeoff between security and usability.

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Online Government Tech Design 171

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

At CGI Annual Meetings, leaders from across sectors do more than just developing new ideas or getting inspired: they come together to take real action to address pressing global challenges. Our commitment was selected as an exemplary approach to addressing a global challenge.

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Global India Mobile Impact 134

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 7, 2012

As a longtime member of the Skoll community, I prize this week for the opportunity to talk frankly with peers about our biggest mutual challenges. But, many of the others were eager to think through the challenges of adapting this model to their organization, and how it might work well.

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Fund Social Liberia Money 154

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 4, 2015

We've never done a crowdfunding campaign specifically for Bookshare, and tomorrow we'll find out if some of our 350,000 users and their families are able to express their appreciation by helping match these challenge grants.

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Giving United States Student Grant 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

Our human rights team is expanding and taking on new and exciting challenges. Even more broadly: can AI be transformed rapidly enough to meet the many new challenges to human rights? It will be exciting to observe how AI continues to transform itself in the future as the challenges to human rights evolve.

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International Asia Global University 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Being geeks, we thought of ways to address this challenge with technology. We see this panel as the beginning of an ongoing conversation about the challenges and opportunities for human rights technology. We realized that the most effective tool to fight human rights abuse was the truth.

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Burma Analysis Guatemala Law 168

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 3, 2013

With Bookshare , Benetech’s online library for people with print disabilities, our ebook-based approach to the accessibility challenge has already delivered on the promise of ending the famine of accessible books in the United States. In this sense, you could say that we are radical braille advocates. This is important here in the U.S.,

Literacy 208

Literacy eBook Images Accessibility 208

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 14, 2012

This global Martus meeting brought together individuals who use Martus to address different human rights documentation and security needs in widely varied projects, to share their successes and challenges with the software.

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Global Group Thailand Burma 157

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 25, 2009

The ICC is still in its infancy: one of the challenges the movie brings up is the inability to get most of its indictees into the court. The current president of Sudan is a good example of the challenge. Ambassador to the UN during the Bush Administration, is quite direct about why he opposes the court today as he did then.

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Sudan Movie Statistics Roles 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 25, 2014

What if we applied Joi’s agile, bottom-up innovation approach to the global development challenge posed by Chris? What if we brought the power that creates so much wealth in the tech community to bear on the inequality challenge? As I previously described in a Huffington Post op-ed , it was then that the idea struck me.

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Paraguay Problem Application Global 144

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 22, 2013

TPMs and Accessibility Challenges Here is a short list of the challenges that arise in the interaction between TPMs and accessing digital content: The digital textual content is presented as an image. In many cases textual content is not delivered as text, but as a digital image of a page of text.

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Measure Technology Audio eBook 181

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 27, 2011

So, if you know someone highly capable, who would be energized by the challenge, send them our way. There are exciting new projects we could be launching today if we had more of this kind of risk capital. A cover letter that articulates why this person wants to work for Benetech in this role and a resume is all we need.

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Open Articulate Instruction Instructional 140

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 5, 2010

There was special energy around the concept of climate adaptation: the idea that no matter what happens on controlling greenhouse gases (see, failure of Copenhagen), that climate change is already affecting the world and we will be having huge challenges adapting to that change.

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Japan Technology Conservancy Proposal 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 18, 2010

Despite these challenges, the NHRC was clearly interested in using Martus to safeguard information about sensitive human rights complaints. A key factor in any successful Martus implementation is addressing the particular challenges faced by users. Several staff members were also not computer literate.

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Nigeria Training Train San Francisco 138

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

Such efforts are necessary to address global nutritional needs in a world facing the challenges of climate change.

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Open Source Open Illinois Model 174

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 6, 2011

Yes and how many times must I change my strategy Before I get on a steady road The answers, for now, are floating in this cloud The answers are floating in this cloud (Repeat) And when will I know my work has been done That the impact will forever be How will I measure my mark on the world That it not be just part of marketing Yes and can I admit that (..)

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Social Metrics Channel Measure 142

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 8, 2010

Benetech's chief scientist, Dr. Patrick Ball, has spent time there working on the scientific challenges of our work studying large scale human rights violations. The Santa Fe Institute is probably the best known: a research institute dedicated to studying complex problems. So, I was initially kind of skeptical about this eclectic group.

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Philanthropy Foundation San Jose Studies 206

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 1, 2014

This iterative method helps us focus on building products that are responsive to real needs Treat users as customers, not recipients of charity People in challenging situations must invest their time and limited resources to improve their lives. Our role as technologists is to provide the tools that empower them to do so.

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Technology Open Source Data Exercise 192

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

This may sound challenging, but we have a track record of successfully creating multiple break-even social enterprises. They commit to funding Benetech and its Labs projects, help us think through technology and business model challenges, and draw on their networks of people and companies that could help our nascent ventures.

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Technology Profit Application Method 163

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 29, 2010

It was a triple-play kind of opportunity: every city in the developing world needs help grappling with waste and with greenhouse gas challenges. They just need software to help cities understand the size of their challenges around these issues. What a great kick-off for a day!

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Conversation Bangladesh Iraq Mentoring 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 10, 2011

On International Human Rights Day, we pay tribute to all human rights defenders, celebrate the recent victories of the human rights community, and recognize the challenges that still lie ahead in the global struggle to advance justice, accountability and an end to impunity. 2011 has been an amazing year for human rights defenders.

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International Guatemala Colombia Analysis 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 1, 2012

In connection with Harkin’s visit at the World Institute on Disability at the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, I was given a challenge: bring together a group of social entrepreneurs for a conversation with Harkin, in order to identify novel strategies to improve employment opportunities for people with Disabilities.

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Hosting San Francisco Law Education 140

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 18, 2008

They are tackling the challenge of making the richer Web more accessible. An example of this kind of challenge is with gmail. John Crossman (Benetech's Director of Engineering) and I attended an interesting and exciting Google Open Source talk on AxsJAX at Google this week, by Charles Chen (the developer of FireVox) and T.V.

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Google gMail Open Source Application 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 24, 2018

Just last month, he helped me solve a knotty trademark and web domain challenge. Gerry stayed on Benetech’s board until early this year, because he prized the mental stimulation of doing good with technology. None of it would have been possible without the brilliant heart and mind of my mentor, G.

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Mentoring Copyright Law Photography 167

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

And then they go into the modern workplace, which is frequently as stultifying as these virtual worlds are thrilling. Read and Reeves are convinced that at least some smart workplaces of the future are going to adapt some of the ways of the games to more fully engage their employees and become more effective as economic organizations.

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Game Roles Virtual Skills 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

This last November, I had the honor of giving a plenary talk at the Eighth General Assembly of the World Blind Union ( WBU ), in which I addressed these opportunities and the challenges ahead. WBU is the global organization representing the estimated 285 million people worldwide with vision impairments.

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Accessibility Global eBook Copyright 155

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 3, 2008

Even in the United States, access to printed materials can be a significant challenge for people who are visually impaired or have other disabilities that prevent them from reading standard print. This summer I interned with an organization called Benetech , a U.S. The work was often slow, and communication was sometimes difficult.

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Accessibility India United States International 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 10, 2011

He talked about the opportunities and challenges he sees ahead, especially as technology tools continue to be adopted by more of the human rights community, from cell phones to Facebook.

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Literacy Disaster Phone Press 150