Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 3, 2014

And, she wants to improve access to education, economic opportunity and of course, books, for all Moroccans, but most especially women! She''s very proud of her country, and thinks that her fellow Moroccans need to know more about their culture and history. I believe strongly in social entrepreneurs who understand their own society.

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Morocco Literacy Europe History 199

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

I took my first full pattern recognition course at Purdue long ago and far away (my brother Bill is a Boilermaker/Purdue alum, too). For example, an accessible version of a key book or item of course content. At the STS meeting in Kyoto, I had the pleasure of meeting France Córdova, the president of Purdue University.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Many thanks to all our financial and programmatic partners, collaborators and supporters, volunteers, and, of course, to Betsy Beaumon, General Manager and Vice President of the Benetech Global Literacy Program, and the entire Global Literacy team!

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Literacy eBook Global Audio 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 26, 2011

Of course, I have a soft spot for Caltech, having gotten my two degrees there. The students are, of course, the treasure of a place like Caltech. It stimulates the same pleasure center that brainstorming does for me! The universities I visit tend to be full of students and faculty committed to doing important and innovative work.

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Student DC University Washington 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 21, 2009

Announcing All For Good was a big piece of the event, of course. She was much more on Facebook marketing message, but of course that's her role at FB. I thought Arianna Huffington did a good job as the opening keynoter hitting on the service theme. Lots of enthusiastic FB users in the audience helped make her points.

Foundation 100

Foundation Facebook Flickr Course 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

The contributions of global RHoK participants during the course of the weekend and beyond will strengthen Mifos’ efforts to scale towards a vision of enabling 3 Billion Maries to create a world without poverty. Making Mifos more transparent by empowering staff to more easily use client information for document generation and reporting.

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International San Francisco Open Source Global 209

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 24, 2011

Of course, with the prevalence of people with learning disabilities in the population being one in four or five, they’ve been part of probably every meeting I’ve ever been to! Of course, it’s pretty clear given heredity that many parent leaders in this effort have LD too!! But, these leaders were “out” about their disability.

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Rhode Island Learning Roles Course 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

and ship the images and recognized text to Laos (and several other countries with other partners, including of course the U.S.). We scan the books in the U.S., Our partners proofread the text, fixing mistakes and adding accessibility, and ship us the files back to add to our Bookshare library.

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Laos Data Digital New York City 235

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 28, 2007

Of course, the reason is economic development. Knowing their audience it prominently featured a beautiful golf course (and of course beautiful Malaysian women). And of course, we were dancing up a storm. Countries vie to sponsor the main event, throwing a big show and serving up their best food. Lots of Motown.

Malaysia 100

Malaysia Brazil Music India 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 14, 2009

Of course, the secret to Bookshare is that it's not Benetech making it so successful, it's our volunteers, our community, the schools, colleges, universities, authors and publishers that make it work so well for people with print disabilities so severe that they cannot read a standard printed book effectively. coming up on April 29th.

Press 100

Press National University Washington 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 23, 2008

Of course, I had forgotten to bring a jacket, so I used a handy conference umbrella during a brief rain on the mountain top. However, most times that means I'm not in the picture. Neil Soiffer of Design Sciences took this nice picture of me on the top of the mountain for the ICCHP conference's Mountain Attack on July 12th, 2008.

Camera 100

Camera Picture Conference Course 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 27, 2008

The scanning setup is quite similar to ours in Palo Alto, of course. And, hopefully in the future we'll be able to do books in Indian languages like Hindi and Tamil (and many others, of course). It has a great symmetry: people with non-print disabilities are scanning in books for people with visual disabilities.

India 100

India Language Camera Library 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 3, 2016

Of course, the biggest change that the Marrakesh Treaty makes is easing the import and export of accessible books. This change would allow us to better serve American overseas. These three changes clarify Section 121 in minor ways that are quite helpful to Americans with disabilities.

United States 100

United States Language Copyright Library 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 18, 2011

Of course, I have other trips planned for just meetings as well. So, I thought I'd share what's coming up to give a flavor of where in the world Jim will be in the next two months (the other four talks are scheduled for next year already). 9/19 (tomorrow!)

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Public Change Connecticut Cleveland 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 14, 2009

Of course, if there is an international treaty on the topic and the U.S. Of course, the Librarian of Congress has pronounced on this topic already! Of course, very few authors will have the power in practice to negotiate these terms, but it's a long way off before TTS can touch human narration from a market standpoint.

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Copyright Proposal Audio eBook 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2007

It's Australia-centric, of course, but one could imagine the concept being adapted for other communities. 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. I've played it for a while, and thought it was well done.

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Social Australia Second Life Game 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 28, 2007

Of course, the issues are different and the U.S. Of course, not all of the interactions were pleasant. Over the five years I've attended the WEF, the level of protesting has gone way down. I like to think that inviting social entrepreneurs and other representatives of wider society has played a role in this. presence seems lower.

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Switzerland Course Roles Interaction 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 10, 2011

Our human rights program has many important moving parts: Improving the science of human rights statistics Doing major projects to help a country figure out what happened in the last ten or twenty years of civil wars Helping both academics and prosecutors get data usable for their needs Building technology tools like Martus for capturing human rights (..)

Literacy 150

Literacy Disaster Phone Press 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 25, 2009

Of course, our role in this field is as scientists helping get at the truth using statistics. After the movie, Patrick answered questions of the team about his experiences working at the court and his take on some of the issues raised in the movie.

Sudan 113

Sudan Movie Statistics Roles 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 27, 2007

Many great social entrepreneurs running around along with the world leaders (and of course, Angelina Jolie). I'm greatly enjoying the CGI event this week in New York. I've been taking a fair number of pictures.

Colombia 100

Colombia Global New York Picture 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 22, 2013

Of course: from its founding Caltech has been a testament to the generosity of donors who succeeded in business. Now, as a successful tech entrepreneur, I’ve benefited from California’s incredible venture machine, which creates immense value for individuals and for society.

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Syria Guatemala Open Source Lecture 196

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 21, 2007

Of course, the great thing is when accessibility works but is just invisible, and that's the case. So, it's just a lot of fun to engage online with a group of people who share a passion for books (specifically, Harry Potter books tonight, of course). Good design is universal!

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Online Teen Listserv Course 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

Of course, I felt Rami was taking a much bigger risk! Of course, we were worried about Rami being stuck in Hong Kong as we jetted off to Fuzhou. I was busy taking pictures, and my companions thought I was nuts. Rami had obviously studied nonviolent resistance. He never raised his voice, but didn't cooperate with being hauled away.

China 104

China Local Course Children 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 19, 2009

Of course, we explain that access to Bookshare is only for the purpose of helping a person with a print disability. These kinds of devices are much more like the tape recorders and CD players with which non-PC users are familiar.

eBook 100

eBook Children Press Stream 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 27, 2015

Of course, Mexico might well beat both the USA and Canada, but Mexico is in the Latin America group at WBU. In North America, Canada was rated as “probable” and the USA as a “possible.” There is a fair amount of friendly competition going on to see which country ratifies first.

Germany 100

Germany Mexico North America India 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Of course, we are huge fans of prevention and applaud the efforts to get trachoma under control so that millions of people can be spared the painful and disabling path towards low vision and blindness. At Benetech, we apply innovative technology to create new realities for people with blindness and other print disabilities.

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Ghana Tanzania Kenya Africa 165

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 23, 2008

Of course, the Bookshare.org way is to provide a path to people helping each other: as technologists we're enablers. Of course, we were able to squeeze in a little sightseeing around Hong Kong, including a visit to the Aberdeen Harbor and catching the view from Victoria Peak. I found the people here eager to get to work.

China 100

China Sound Picture Copyright 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 1, 2008

But, brilliant of course. As a geek, it feels good to see some of the oddities of tech people translated into the music world. Gould was a real character: maybe even stranger than my Caltech classmates. A significant character in the book is the blind piano tuner, Verne Edquist.

Music 100

Music New York Tech Course 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 17, 2009

And of course, under the hood of PWX is technology that makes this kind of network run and hum. As a successful example of how to build a scalable approach to a chronic issue, I noticed that PWX was highlighted in the recent Irvine Foundation convergence report.

India 113

India Map Proposal Project 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 19, 2013

Of course, we talked about data entry and QA testing, but also less obvious and exciting alternatives that have great potential both to revitalize the South Bronx and address the problem of the loss of American manufacturing jobs. Brainstorming what these jobs might look like was one of the highlights of our conversation.

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Local New York Culture Open Source 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 7, 2013

Of course, we have many more exciting ideas for transforming the lives of millions of people who could benefit from our services. We’re standing by to help support these Indian organizations with the technology and services of Bookshare in pursuing these expanded digitization efforts.

India 225

India Literacy United Kingdom United States 225

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 30, 2007

Earned income is another way, of course. Would other nonprofit agencies operate differently if the people they served had a regular chance to question the leadership directly and frequently? Greater accountability is essential to progress in the social sector: this is just one start.

Audio 100

Audio Library Course Volunteer 100

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

APRIL 10, 2013

Of course, data has to be collected in ways that match our value systems and respect ethics, privacy, and informed consent. Looking forward, we can imagine a world where content is matched to the learner because we’ll be able to tailor education to the individual and how they best learn.

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Profit Data SWF Syria 171

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

Benetech will of course continue the software and technology development that is the primary focus of our Human Rights Program. As HRDAG sets out on its own, its primary focus will continue to be on the data-driven and scientific side of analyzing human rights violations around the world.

Analysis 174

Analysis Project Open Source Analytics 174

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 22, 2007

And of course, it's the people who make all of this possible. And of course, we were backed up by some great staff: Sarah Park, Lorraine Grogan and Jen Bavry. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does, and of course to the Ninth Gathering in Boston in March 2008. Wish I had pictures of all of them! Maybe I'll see you there!

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Long Beach North America Milwaukee Boston 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 29, 2006

Of course, we hope additional people who love books are inspired to volunteer for Bookshare.org thanks to Matthew's example! Thanks to efforts by our Bookshare.org team and our communications director, Ann Harrison, we were delighted to see Matthew's efforts highlighted in an article in his hometown paper, entitled Helping everyone read.

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