Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 29, 2011

I wrapped up my visit by demonstrating our new Read2Go iPad application to Jackie, who Steve described as one of his hardest working data entry employees. Steve especially noted the support he received from his mother, a farmer in rural Kenya, for keeping Daproim going until the business took off. Of course, I showed off a textbook!

Kenya 228

Kenya Student Africa University 228

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

I was able to demonstrate what we do with the files the students help generate, using our Read2Go application on an iPad. I also was able to meet and have dinner with DDD's Chief Operating Officer, Cynthia Hauck, an experienced outsourcing exec based at DDD's Cambodia offices, who has joined DDD recently.

Laos 235

Laos Data Digital New York City 235

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 23, 2010

We are excited about the commitment to transparency and science demonstrated by this data release. The Benetech team worked closely with the team at the Liberian TRC, who did an incredible job of collecting data about human rights violations during Liberia's civil conflict.

Liberia 100

Liberia Data Statistics Analysis 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 10, 2009

I saw a neat demonstration at TED, when I got the chance to meet Janice Fraser of Emmet Labs. The idea is to have stories about people in the past, and the connections between people, with a wiki approach with some extra structure. The focus is on pre-1970, so we have lots of kings and queens featured.

South Africa 100

South Africa Africa Wiki Music 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 16, 2011

I saw an initial demonstration of a web-based image description tool, called Poet. So, a blind student looking at a complex scientific diagram for their high school science course would be able to hear a detailed description of the main elements in that diagram.

Images 194

Images Alternative Student Accessibility 194

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 4, 2009

It helps blind people all over the world, as this recent sample of Hindi Braille demonstrates. The National Federation of the Blind is organizing events around the country to celebrate his birthday and the invention of Braille. We're very proud at Bookshare.org about our support of Braille.

Sample 100

Sample Library Demonstration Celebrate 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 8, 2015

We operate at the intersection of technology and social impact, and therefore our ideal candidates will demonstrate these dual interests and experiences. Our Benetech Labs is busy looking for the next tech social enterprises that could make similar global impact.

Technology 100

Technology Literacy Social Uganda 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Looking forward to demonstrating some of these cool new textbooks when our crack Bookshare production team has turned them into exemplars of exciting and fully accessible textbooks! And for potential Bookshare users, it's a way to try out our content and see how it works without jumping through hoops.

Knowledge 100

Knowledge License Accessibility Demonstration 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 14, 2011

Our work to date repeatedly demonstrates bridging this market failure gap: Our Literacy team has reinvented the traditional library for the blind, reducing the cost of producing an accessible book by a factor of 100 and ending the book famine that people who are blind or print disabled have faced for years.

Technology 150

Technology Change Social Literacy 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 17, 2010

These researchers set the worldwide standard for calculating scientifically sound statistics and quantitative findings that support human rights claims which are transparently, demonstrably, undeniably true. Their work illustrates Benetech’s mission to create technology in the service of humanity.

Chad 124

Chad Guatemala Data Liberia 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 16, 2009

We're really excited about the social responsibility that Hachette has demonstrated through making this commitment! They will be sending the books to us in high quality XML formats that we can turn into DAISY and Braille digital files. The Bookshare infrastructure is set up to make it easy to provide these specialized accessible formats.

Group 100

Group United States New York Files 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 26, 2011

My student host, Cole Hershkowitz, demonstrated this sustainability focus. Caltech even has the new Resnick Institute established to address this issue. This is an increasing area of interest for me and Benetech, so these were great connections to make.

Student 133

Student DC University Washington 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 1, 2005

I saw a demonstration of this software at the last Gathering conference, and it looks very well done! The BBC just had a great article that demonstrates the power of this tool: Mobile phones boom in Tanzania. People who have heard me speak know how excited I am about the potential of cell phones.

Tanzania 100

Tanzania Demonstration Phone Philanthropy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

It also demonstrates how each ebook that is added to the Bookshare collection is a brick in our members’ foundation of independence and inclusion. Many of the books were ones I already had on my shelves, gathering dust because I couldn’t pick them up.” Frank’s story exemplifies the life-changing power of access to information and reading.

Life 147

Life Gift eBook France 147

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 21, 2008

Below is a story from the New York times that gives us a glimpse of what that world might be like - where two high school children, albeit with some good connections, can demonstrate that some NY sushi is not "kosher" - offering farmed tilapia at tuna prices.

Costa Rica 100

Costa Rica Taxonomy Sample New York 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Rather, the incident demonstrated just how affected we are by something as simple as a chopped down tree (some citizens were so angry they threatened city officials). Now, we’re not expecting the world to cry crocodile tears for us. The city made a mistake. But let’s put it in perspective.

Bahamas 100

Bahamas Mongolia Thailand Conservancy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 22, 2006

I liked the demonstration Bryon showed: straightforward language around a very complex and inaccessible topic. It turns out that figuring out whether working helps or hurts you is much more complicated than figuring out your taxes! So, this website takes you through the process for a given job and shows you roughly what to expect.

Benefit 100

Benefit California Org Language 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 19, 2008

The ConPro and Miradi teams have been working to make the connection between the two systems as smooth as possible: we were demonstrating an early version of this at ConEx. TNC has put a stake in the ground with its new ConPro , a web-based conservation portal with almost 1000 projects already in it.

Conservancy 100

Conservancy Classes Problem Demonstration 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

We’re going to demonstrate what this could look like by piloting Bookshare International at scale in India. It was exciting to be an active player in global diplomacy: Bookshare was the most-cited model of what other countries hope to have, both in terms of accessing our 200,000+ books and having their own national version of Bookshare.

India 142

India Literacy Global Accessibility 142

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 31, 2008

It has yet to be demonstrated that actual killings have dropped. However, a study conducted by our team last year, Assessing Claims of Declining Lethal Violence , shows evidence that reporting of killings has dropped.

Colombia 100

Colombia New York Children Demonstration 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2015

The Fund demonstrates the incredible social impact that private philanthropy can create through smart investing strategies and risk tolerance. The Lavelle Fund for the Blind has been a wonderful partner to Benetech. We are deeply grateful to the Fund for its continued support and commitment to improving the lives of people with disabilities.

Fund 100

Fund India United States eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

Our flight from Hong Kong to Fuzhou on Dragonair was made much more interesting when we had a ringside seat on a disability rights demonstration! Rami Rabby is famous in the American blind community as the first blind foreign service officer working for the US State Department.

China 104

China Local Course Children 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 13, 2007

We were able to show the latest version of the Route 66 demonstration site, which is now fully functional for trial use. And of course, we have some major funders who support Benetech and provide us with risk capital that we can use to advance projects, such as Skoll and Omidyar. Johnny Falla and Ruth Norris of Skoll joined us at the event.

North Carolina 100

North Carolina Literacy Foundation Demonstration 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 8, 2005

Last week Jane Simchuk, Dave Offen and I got a demonstration of Quindi: the Meeting Capture tool. The link to Quindi came from my old buddy Patti Price, who I've known for many years as a leading speech technology researcher. Quindi makes capturing meeting video/audio and action items really easy.

Lecture 100

Lecture Audio Demonstration Student 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 12, 2006

Getting a demonstration from the development engineers made a huge difference to my grasping of what could be done with this technology to help blind and print disabled people through Bookshare.org. Exegenix takes PDFs of documents and outputs XML of those documents through a human-assisted pattern recognition process.

Consultant 100

Consultant Service India Literacy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Go where the market won't go and demonstrate to the market what's possible. Finance needs to take into account social and environmental returns. I hope you come away from the conference with deals. Step in when the market fails. A bit of government here can go a long way. 250 million pound fund for this. 10 million risk fund for that.

Social 100

Social United States Government Homeless 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

To better understand why promoting “breathing space” for creativity is crucial for copyright to achieve its purpose of encouraging innovation, consider some examples from Benetech’s work that demonstrate how copyright exceptions can create a framework for innovation in action.

Copyright 196

Copyright Law Accessibility Library 196

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 9, 2018

The Bookshare story Bookshare is a real example of the confluence of how all of these exciting developments were able to drive an innovative new way of addressing a social problem, and demonstrating the potential of what ebooks can do. For me, it started in late 1999 noticing a new icon on our home PC.

Accessibility 135

Accessibility eBook People Copyright 135

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 2, 2007

Route 66 Literacy Our newest project is Route 66 Literacy, and it includes a demonstration site that anyone can try out. And, the most committed and dynamic folks from that crowd may have the chance to serve on our board of directors. If you know someone like that, send her (or him) my way, too!

Literacy 100

Literacy San Jose Guatemala Bangladesh 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 11, 2017

Systems Entrepreneurship is on the Rise Jeff Walker has been making the case for what he calls "systems entrepreneurship" at Harvard's Kennedy School, Skoll and in a new SSIR article.

System 122

System Software Classes Roles 122

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2016

Rather than just telling people how the world needs to improve, the successful social entrepreneur demonstrates how to do it. We believe that our track record demonstrates how to drive this kind of equilibrium change repeatedly. But, we generally play in that space based on our credibility as operators of social change at scale first.

Change 100

Change eBook United States Conservancy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

Probably my most favorite part of the MagnaFlyer demonstration was easily cutting and pasting a Bookshare ebook I downloaded into the application and seeing it read it (it was a Creative Commons licensed book—so completely legal!).

People 113

People Help Tech Colorado 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 13, 2012

Achieving scale usually leads to sustainability: when we demonstrate that a new Benetech solution is far more effective than the status quo, we can usually find a way to finance that innovation for the future. Benetech’s approach differs from that of other groups in that we do not limit our interest to a single issue area.

Articulate 137

Articulate Open Source Metrics Open 137

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 29, 2011

Students do not have to be blind to have an IEP: it’s simple to demonstrate that from statistics widely published by the Department of Education (the blind and visually impaired are a very small fraction of students with IEPs). Students do not have to be blind to qualify under the copyright exception.

Student 145

Student Accessibility New Jersey Learning 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 10, 2008

I did so, by demonstrating that the three leading social entrepreneurship groups are majority focused globally rather than domestically in wealthy countries, and fund leaders drawn from disadvantaged communities.

Technique 100

Technique Philanthropy Global Problem 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 21, 2008

We can't share the details because of confidentiality provisions, but we look forward to continued close collaboration with the ICC to document the disappearances and homicides and demonstrate the magnitude, trends and patterns of these incidents. You can visit our Colombia Project Page to read more about this work.

Darfur 100

Darfur Sri Lanka Liberia Colombia 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 7, 2013

Jim Fruchterman with ND-Burma members In the years since the 1988 suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations, the military junta in Burma has committed many thousands of human rights violations, including killings, torture, forced displacement, rape and political imprisonment.

Burma 176

Burma Thailand China Bangladesh 176