Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 3, 2014

We had a great conversation, and I learned much more about her dreams for doing more for the people of Morocco. Last year, I was able to meet Jamila in person in Marrakesh, while I was there for the negotiations on the Treaty for People who are Blind or Print Disabled.

Morocco 199

Morocco Literacy Europe History 199

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.

Hosting 140

Hosting San Francisco Law Education 140

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 19, 2013

I had the pleasure of meeting her earlier this year for an exciting conversation. Brainstorming what these jobs might look like was one of the highlights of our conversation. Majora’s life journey is an inspiring story.

Local 129

Local New York Culture Open Source 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

Jerry and I had a great conversation about open sourcing of agricultural scientific models, such as those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their climate change reports.

Open Source 174

Open Source Open Illinois Model 174

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 3, 2011

In our conversation, George and his team outlined ways to use this hybrid approach for expanding social impact in Africa as well as new ideas for enterprises for following up on natural disasters in Asia for sustaining positive change after the immediate humanitarian response.

Public 140

Public Bangladesh San Francisco Asia 140

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Through Patrick’s analysis and our conversations with human rights groups around the world, we learned that the human rights sector—albeit being an information processing industry—used information technology nowhere near full potential and that human rights fieldworkers were the least served with information technology.

Burma 168

Burma Analysis Guatemala Law 168

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 5, 2007

There are always interesting conversations going on when you get lots of social entrepreneurs together. There always seems to be a definition conversation going on, something along the lines of either "what is a social entrepreneur?" or "what new name should we use for social enterprises?"

New Zealand 100

New Zealand Camera Flickr Photo 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 30, 2008

IDEO is very interested in making a bigger positive impact on society, and I was heartened by the great turnout and conversation. I just gave a talk at IDEO, the famous Silicon Valley design firm. Doug Solomon, their Chief Technology Officer, was my connection to come in, and I appreciated Doug's invitation!

Design 100

Design Impact Social Global 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 18, 2011

Krista and I had a wide-ranging conversation, the kind that social entrepreneurs tend to have when they get together (like, how to get projects to have impact at scale and where to find the money to launch new projects and scale them). D-Rev wants to create solutions to help the poorest people in the world.

Uganda 124

Uganda Africa Proposal Survey 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 21, 2009

And because the words from each character were color coded, she had to add the speaker's names to each snippet of conversation by the various characters. Because the font was non-standard, it would be about as much work to chop & scan the book as it would be to type it, so Laurie typed in the 46 pages.

Volunteer 113

Volunteer Examples Work Authoring 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

Five years ago there is no way I could even carry on a conversation with our friends about what they were reading without being terribly frustrated about all the books I couldn't get. It just made my day. Now, I can read books that are newly published as fast as or even before our friends.

Volunteer 100

Volunteer Accessibility Sound Comment 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 3, 2009

This loan was the result of a conversation I had with Kushal Chakrabarti, the founder of the Vittana Foundation. This weekend, I made my first educational microloan, to Claudia Belén García Royz of Nicaragua, who is studying to be an industrial engineer.

Education 100

Education Nicaragua Kiva Amazon 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 20, 2007

This is a place where their concerns for their children and grandchildren can be openly expressed rather than being deemed inappropriate for polite business conversation. These are real people who yearn to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Switzerland 100

Switzerland Global Conference Children 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 30, 2012

Among the meetings and discussions I enjoyed at CASE was a conversation with a group of MBA students interested in helping NGOs that are working to advance the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals.

Award 154

Award Lecture Social Student 154

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 26, 2011

I was able to meet with three separate sets of students, both undergraduate and graduate students, and get into conversations about how to get started in social innovation. And lastly, staying in Caltech’s faculty club, the Athenaeum, is a real treat.

Student 133

Student DC University Washington 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

Of course, there were far more conversations than I can capture in a short blog post. It’s a great model that was pioneered in the Bay Area but now seems to be having even bigger success in Colorado.

Impact 100

Impact Colorado Social San Francisco 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 27, 2008

ATIA is one of the biggest assistive technology conferences of the year and we had many exciting conversations about Bookshare.org for Education (B4E, our $32 million five year project to deliver accessible books to every student with a print disability in the U.S.).

DC 100

DC Instruction Instructional Student 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 10, 2013

The analysis made news globally and expanded an international conversation. This number was significantly more than the existing estimates that had dominated news and policy discussions. Here big data affected a global policy debate—and will hopefully make a big difference.

Profit 171

Profit Data SWF Syria 171

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 5, 2013

We were worried that a bad treaty might even negatively affect our ability to serve our users in the United States.

Morocco 127

Morocco United States Copyright Library 127

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 12, 2006

We had a great conversation high above south Mumbai in the Air India building, which overlooks Mumbai's peninsula. I was meeting with the Exegenix team, part of TCS that is working on XML document conversion technology. The reason I came to Mumbai was to visit Tata Consultancy Services, the giant outsourcing firm.

Consultant 100

Consultant Service India Literacy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 14, 2009

Last Friday I spent almost two and a half hours in a wide-ranging conversation with Maria Pallante of the Copyright Office (and two other folks whose full names I didn't write down). In our conversation, I got the impression that the Copyright Office is getting ready in case Chafee is revisited. Long post alert!] national experience.

Copyright 104

Copyright Proposal Audio eBook 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 25, 2014

Moreover, since the nature of technology is such that it comes instrumented for measurement, this approach also supports the development of best practices in the delivery of social outcomes, which is essential in order to create meaningful, lasting change.

Paraguay 144

Paraguay Problem Application Global 144

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 2, 2006

One of the most interesting conversations I had was with Katheleen Gardiner of the University of Denver. The most exciting part of our conversation was around the impacts of estrogen and Prozac on some of the key pathways in cognitive impairment in Down Syndrome.

Denver 104

Denver Model Database Research 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 1, 2011

This portion was an internally focused effort based on conversations with our team. Benetech has spent a good part of this last year thinking about what's next for our mission and our team. A crucial part of that effort has been to identify what we think is uniquely true about Benetech.

Literacy 145

Literacy Articulate Open Source International 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 13, 2007

It was a great hour of conversation around social change and the tech community's role. Santa Clara University invited Bill Coleman (founder of BEA and Cassatt), Jeff Miller (VC at Redpoint Ventures) and me to speak recently on the topic of "Working to Change the World."

University 100

University Change Work Broadcast 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2007

Of course, I brought up the lack of accessibility to some people with disabilities, based on the conversation I had in Brighton with Hiroshi Kawamura and Kevin Carey. Larry Goldberg of NCAM/WGBH brought up that they were starting to work on access with Linden Labs, the maker of Second Life.

Social 100

Social Australia Second Life Game 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 4, 2007

The people in attendance were good, and I had many exciting conversations. The goal of the meeting was to talk about ways to advance crucial goals of the UN with help from the technology community, especially poverty reduction. The chair of the effort is Craig Barrett, Intel's chairman.

Global 100

Global Develop Alternative Environment 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 29, 2005

Interesting conversation starting (I think) on Social Edge - Investors and Entrepreneurs Discuss Breakthroughs in Social Capital. And, investors tend to steer the conversation right back to the low-risk-fixed-return or the high-risk-high-return enterprises. This is a constant topic among social entrepreneurs.

Foundation 100

Foundation Conversation Issue Marketing 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 19, 2007

Here's the picture and the conversation Tony recalled: Tell me about Reba. So many social entrepreneurs work with "us versus them" issues and Tony riffed on this to great effect. Merlett told him that she didn't like white people. Reba is white, isn't she? Don't ask me. I don't know. You don't know if she's white?

North Carolina 100

North Carolina Blended Picture Student 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2015

This revised project included the conversion of books into accessible formats and working with multiple schools. Frankly, it didn’t go as well as we had hoped, and Lavelle worked with us to retarget the grant to focus on students with visual impairments. This pilot paved the way for our work in the education field.

Fund 100

Fund India United States eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 28, 2007

It should be fun: I really enjoy talking with Bill and this is a chance to talk about what we both think really matters! Here's the announcement from SCU.

Change 100

Change Work University California 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 24, 2006

These were substantive and informative conversations, and are crucial parts of taking the rapport with the publishing industry that we've developed inside the U.S. I was able to meet with two key people from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as well as the head of the International Publisher's Association, Jens Bammel.

Stream 100

Stream Profile Philanthropy International 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 30, 2010

Every table conversation brings a new perspective and a new idea: whether it’s new knowledge, a great contact or a new extension to the idea under discussion. In the hallways, you’re as likely to run into the head of an international NGO, as CEO of a Fortune 100 company, as a renowned professor as the foreign minister of a major country.

South Africa 165

South Africa Bangladesh Norway Africa 165

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 2, 2005

We had a wide ranging conversation about the challenges of how to run nonprofit social enterprises, especially technology enterprises. I had lunch yesterday with Mitchell Baker , head of the Mozilla Foundation , the creators of the Firefox browser. I think that Firefox is a great example of responding to market failure.

Internet 100

Internet Foundation Conversation Benefit 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 18, 2007

This meeting moved the conversation forward. Last year's Gathering had really indicated our members were interested in a new organizational form that might better serve social enterprise rather than bending the for-profit or charity forms to our purposes (since we aren't really either).

North Carolina 100

North Carolina Long Beach Asia Proposal 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 23, 2008

This helped lead to several great conversations with the different agencies about Bookshare in China and Hong Kong. After talking about Hadley's work in China, Chuck Young allowed me to address an audience at the university about how Bookshare.org could be used in Hong Kong and China.

China 100

China Sound Picture Copyright 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 28, 2006

Davos rules are that these conversations are off record. Without quoting anyone, I can tell you that people were really excited and engaged. It is gratifying to see the immense brainpower of top leaders figuring out how to drop rhetoric and talk about actual action steps.

Industry 100

Industry Trend Government Issue 100