Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 16, 2010

Miradi gives conservation planners cutting edge tools to design, manage, monitor and learn from their projects. Miradi is the first software program designed especially by and for conservation planners based on a common set of environmental metrics.

Norway 133

Norway Conservancy Sweden Software 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 13, 2010

Almost all the geeks I know want to do something important, something meaningful, whether exploring something new in cosmology, designing a building that could better resist an earthquake, cure a disease or design a new and faster chip. We get a charge out of figuring things out, and understanding how the world works in a deep ways.

Work 162

Work Hunger Amazon Government 162

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 19, 2013

SB] 2 offers programs in technology, engineering, design and entrepreneurship to local youth, and supports local, early-stage companies. [SB] open source design or DIY manufacturing) to create customized products in small batches and the global reach of the Internet to sell them.

Local 129

Local New York Culture Open Source 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

Almost all the geeks I know want to do something important , something meaningful, whether exploring something new in cosmology, designing a building that could better resist an earthquake, cure a disease or design a new and faster chip. We get a charge out of figuring things out, and understanding how the world works in a deep ways.

Work 113

Work Social Hunger Government 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

We take their files and convert them to the DAISY format which is a digital format designed specifically to create accessible materials for people with print disabilities. They were the first publisher to sign on to deliver their books electronically to Bookshare back in 2003, and gave us permission to provide their books outside the U.S.

Accessibility 133

Accessibility Marketing eBook Files 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 1, 2014

While the context and the users may vary in each case, the principles of human-centered design and treating others as we would like to be treated remain the same. As technologists with a focus on creating social good, we need to keep in mind principles of safety and ethics.

Technology 192

Technology Open Source Data Exercise 192

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 19, 2008

Jim Patell of Stanford's Business School (and the d.school there) gave his pitch for similar principles in his extreme design for affordability class: it was cool to see an academic approach so grounded in reality and making a difference! While at ConEx, I had the chance to talk about our approach to agile, user-centered development.

Conservancy 100

Conservancy Classes Problem Demonstration 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

As a geek, I knew that the engineers designing the Leaf would design in a safety factor in this display. It's trying to predict how many miles you have left in your range (as a one-way measurement), depending on battery charge, your driving habits, speed, temperature, use of climate control and so on.

San Francisco 157

San Francisco Virginia San Jose Test 157

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 15, 2009

The digital measures designed to defeat piracy usually end up equating accessibility with piracy. Provisions designed to handle copyrighted materials could conflict with fundamental exceptions in copyright law like fair use of copyrighted works and the Chafee Amendment. We don’t know if it’s benign or hostile to accessibility.

Accessibility 100

Accessibility Adobe Copyright eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 13, 2009

They have a prototype design for powering climate sensors in building in air conditioning ducts, that would get their power from the air flow. One I'm fond of is Humdinger. They have lots of innovations, but my favorite (and how I first heard about them) is their micro-windbelt power generator.

Generation 100

Generation Tag Design Build 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 17, 2008

I got into a spirited debate with a Norwegian researcher about a paper entitled something like "Is DAISY Universally Designed?" But, the DAISY Consortium doesn't design the players. Her conclusion was no, and her research was well done.

Austria 100

Austria Accessibility Conference Portugal 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 15, 2009

The program allows environmentalists to design conservation plans that bring together best practices in environmental management. And it’s specifically designed to be used by local people who of course, have local knowledge. Miradi (Miradi 3.0 Dozens of environmental organizations in 100 countries currently use Miradi.

Bahamas 100

Bahamas Mongolia Thailand Conservancy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 23, 2008

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. I love my digital camera and taking lots of pictures. However, most times that means I'm not in the picture.

Camera 100

Camera Picture Conference Course 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 19, 2013

We’ve designed the site to be fully searchable, making it easy to find the information you need, and developed new content to convey the impact of our work and provide resources we hope will be useful. We’ve started a Benetech blog that will feature voices from across our organization (one that is separate from my personal Beneblog ).

Site 158

Site Accessibility Press Ideas 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

They punch a bunch of psychological tickets for humans: the game designers know what they're doing. Millions of people pay each month to participate in massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). I've tried them, and I have friends (and kids) that have been totally sucked into them.

Game 150

Game Roles Virtual Skills 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 3, 2016

We know a great deal about this Treaty, which is designed to help people who are blind or have other disabilities that interfere with reading, such as dyslexia. Our nonprofit organization operates Bookshare , the largest online library in the world that focuses on the needs of people with these disabilities.

United States 100

United States Language Copyright Library 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 14, 2012

Martus is Benetech's free and open source software package designed for human rights activists to collect stories and data about human rights abuses. When Benetech first began designing Martus, we began by incorporating input from human rights partners on the frontline. For me personally, the meeting was a rare experience.

Global 157

Global Group Thailand Burma 157

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 20, 2011

Miradi, is used by nature conservation practitioners around the world to design, manage, monitor and learn from their projects. Rare has embedded core Miradi functions into their standardized marketing methodology which is used to design conservation campaigns in 50 countries.

Guam 124

Guam Conservancy Software Help 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

Simple communications design that everybody gets: green light, yellow light, red light. Signals blends two key ideas: The patterns of student failure can be spotted early: much earlier than existing systems relying on failing midterms! Purdue can spot patterns that indicate a much higher chance of failure, and intervene early.

Student 113

Student France Blended University 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 8, 2015

The Vice President of Global Literacy leads Benetech’s biggest program, standing at the confluence of some of the most active and rapidly evolving fields: digital content, EdTech, domestic and international education, and user-centered design.

Technology 100

Technology Literacy Social Uganda 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 8, 2013

People with print disabilities are the most natural customers in the world for digital versions of books.

Accessibility 133

Accessibility Amazon Library eBook 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 5, 2013

Last month, leaders from around the world gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco, with the hope of taking a huge step forward and designing that international model. Diplomatic leaders leaders gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco. I’m excited to report: they did just that.

Morocco 127

Morocco United States Copyright Library 127

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 18, 2011

Next, our Palo Alto neighbors D-Rev (for Design Revolution) dropped by in the form of CEO Krista Donaldson. KoBoToolbox is a toolkit for making it easy to collect survey data on mobile devices (turns out, I later found out we're already proposing to use this to do a survey in Africa).

Uganda 124

Uganda Africa Proposal Survey 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 25, 2012

HRDAG designed a process to randomly sample the Archive and the archivists began using Benetech’s Martus software to organize and secure information generated from the samples.

National 206

National Guatemala Texas Online 206

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 22, 2006

A great example of what technology can do when it is designed with people at its center is the new website: Disability Benefits 101: Working with a Disability in California. org is designed to help guide the person with a disability who is considering going back to work.

Benefit 100

Benefit California Org Language 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

To address this need, we’ve been operating the DIAGRAM Center , a research and development hub working to set standards, generate best practices, and design tools to ensure that images found in digital content are accessible to everyone. One of our goals is to lower the cost of making an image accessible by at least a factor of ten.

Copyright 196

Copyright Law Accessibility Library 196

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 15, 2010

They design solutions in response to these pain points, and bring them back into the field for real-world feedback. Many universities do similar things, but Rice goes a key step further. Their students actually go into the field, work with local medical professionals, and learn their real problems, their real pain points. So far, so good.

Global 178

Global Technology Marketing Kenya 178

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 9, 2018

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature…” These great qualities of ideas led to our legal system regulating the propagation of ideas differently than physical objects.

Accessibility 135

Accessibility eBook People Copyright 135

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 20, 2013

The book famine may be receding here in the United States with Bookshare and the increasing advent of universally designed and accessible ebooks, but globally we have only scratched the surface of the need. However, in the immortal words of Revolutionary War naval captain John Paul Jones, “I have not yet begun to fight!”

eBook 221

eBook Award Copyright Syria 221

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 26, 2011

Getting into the design of a net-zero house was a cool thought experiment for me, but the team is actually building their house right now. They’ve already raised $800k of the $1.1-1.2 million they need to build the house and transport it to the Mall in Washington DC for the judging.

Student 133

Student DC University Washington 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 8, 2008

The products the Press designed were pretty impressive. The Press has several Braille presses, including one they built themselves. We also got to visit (on the same campus), the Braille library, which was full of thousands of volumes of Braille.

China 113

China Press eBook Library 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 5, 2008

Here's more information: Benetech and the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) have released Miradi, a user-friendly software program that allows nature conservation practitioners to design, manage, monitor, and learn from their projects to more effectively meet their conservation goals. Miradi 2.0

Conservancy 100

Conservancy Press Software Environment 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 17, 2012

The flaw turns out to be related to a design error in the implementation of RSA in specific "embedded" devices, specifically firewalls and routers. They're not user-driven machines, instead they're designed to be plugged in and basically run themselves. It's not a general problem with RSA, and there's no current risk to Martus users.

Public 150

Public Generation Problem Analysis 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 28, 2014

TED gives me the chance to brainstorm with loads of people who gather to discuss ways to change the world through technology and design. I just returned from a spectacular week at this year’s TED conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Ideas 223

Ideas Kenya Brain Software 223

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 7, 2009

After all, that's the whole point of universal design ! Although our efforts on RtF are mainly around serving people with disabilities, we are open to thinking more broadly about how these technologies could benefit more people. I ran into a Stanford MBA student at TED, Joy Sun.

Education 100

Education Africa Student Journal 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

Guzmán’s findings helped support arguments by prosecutors that high-level National Police officers were aware of orders given for the planning and design of operations like the one that resulted in García’s disappearance.

Guatemala 149

Guatemala Help Analysis Statistics 149

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 12, 2009

The new website makes it possible for us to pick up the pace of innovation even more, because it will be much easier to add enhancements to this new modern design. It's been an all-Benetech effort to make this possible. The goal of the new Bookshare is make it easier to deliver on our mission objectives. in the next few years.

Student 100

Student Accessibility Library Software 100