Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 27, 2014

We are competing against other participating organizations—and racing against the clock—to raise funds and secure matching funding from the Skoll Foundation. Now, with the Skoll Foundation’s matching support, your gift will have far more impact! This post also appeared on the Benetech blog.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2013

Our longest-term donor, the Skoll Foundation , went so far as to introduce me to a DC-based advocacy firm. advocacy Arabella Advisors Benetech Bookshare congressional testimony DC Global Literacy impact Larry Lessig nonprofit Skoll Foundation social change social enterprise tech4good US Congress Washington' I was wrong.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

The Skoll Foundation convened an event the day before CGI where at least thirty Skoll Award winners got together, and our conversations continued throughout the event. a11y Beaumon Benetech blind Bookshare CGI2013 India Lavelle Marrakesh print disabilities Skoll Skoll Foundation socent VIPDC'

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 14, 2012

And, support from the Open Society Foundation made this event possible! With generous support for new technology developments from the MacArthur Foundation, we now have the ability to assess and prioritize needs, enhance existing features, build new functionality and develop client and server infrastructure.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 26, 2013

Here is an excerpt from my written testimony, as originally featured on Benetech''s Blog : Delivering my statement before the House Committee on the Judiciary, August 1, 2013 We build our work on strong foundations laid down by other people and companies, whether it’s the open source ecosystem of the Internet, or proprietary software or content.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 30, 2010

Running through the hall, I ran into Kristine Pearson of the Freeplay Foundation (hand and solar powered radios for mainly Africa), and heard about her new radio/MP3 player with 32 GB of storage. Tags: WEF social entrepreneurs Davos Schwab Foundation.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 17, 2013

He is also one of the creators of the environmental protection movement in Paraguay, having co-founded the Moisés Bertoni Conservation Foundation and the Mbaracayú Biosphere Reserve, two of the country’s prominent nature conservation institutions.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 20, 2012

The recently launched Laura and John Arnold Foundation Giving Library is a unique resource that provides this information about nonprofits through engaging video interviews. We’re delighted that Benetech was selected to be one of the first 250 nonprofits spotlighted on the Giving Library.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 27, 2010

The Schwab Foundation arranges for the social entrepreneurs to stay in the Schatzalp mountain hotel. A few of the more experienced SEs join the Foundation staff in helping the new attendees get the maximum value out of the conference. Although this is my sixth time to Davos for the WEF, the train trip never fails to enchant me.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2014

The Oak Foundation just awarded us a grant to provide accessible content to people with qualifying learning differences (like dyslexia) in Brazil, India, and the United Kingdom. The Lavelle Foundation is supporting us to expand Bookshare in India, which will likely be our first full-scale replication of Bookshare outside the U.S.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 5, 2015

Kate will be heading to Europe this fall to sing professionally in Italy for the Turin Opera Company, as the winner of one of three Opera Foundation Scholarships. My daughter, Kate Fruchterman , will be returning briefly to the area the evening of June 17th to give a concert.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

It has been critical for Bookshare’s foundational principle of “scan once, share with many.” With the leverage of technology and the foundation provided by well thought out IP laws, we can inspire both economic growth and social good. This post originally appeared on Benetech''s Blog.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 18, 2011

Speed Geeking at the Gates Foundation Global Library Program about Bookshare International 9/22 Stanford Social Innovation Review online webinar "Nonprofit, For-profit, or Something in Between?" Of course, I have other trips planned for just meetings as well. 9/19 (tomorrow!)

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 20, 2013

Earlier today, I attended the American Foundation for the Blind’s (AFB) National Leadership Conference in Chicago where I received the 2013 Migel Medal. Migel, whose experiences with blindness caused during World War I, led to him helping start the Foundation. It was named for the first board chair of AFB, M.C.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 2, 2012

Jim Fruchterman and Marcia Adler During our party, we also honored Social Profit Network's Robert Levenson, the Skoll Foundation and the Omidyar Foundation which provided vital philanthropic funding to expand Bookshare over the last decade. Bernie was represented last night by Marie Young of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2015

What is it like for a nonprofit to have a successful, lasting partnership with a private philanthropic foundation? One foundation that has been a committed supporter of our work is the Lavelle Fund for the Blind. That’s what a lot of foundations would love to see happen: in this case, it’s happened multiple times!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 18, 2012

Part of my objective was to show the unintended consequences of Internet censorship bills like SOPA and PIPA (SOPA's Senate buddy bill), responding to alerts from organizations I trust like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

Chuck is the president of Naropa University , but we first met when he was leading the Greyston Foundation, a pioneering social enterprise known for originally making brownies for Ben ‘n Jerry’s ice cream while employing formerly incarcerated individuals as the primary workforce.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

More specifically, Jerry is part of a working group focused on these issues at the Center for Integrated Modeling of Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition Security (CIMSANS), a division of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Research Foundation , which works to advance open data and modeling methodologies required to produce comprehensive (..)

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 6, 2010

At a two-day event at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation on changing an entire movement. I particularly heard about the need of Miradi to do more for advocacy groups, foundations and smaller groups (who need a simpler solution). are there more gorillas? This is a very action-oriented community.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 21, 2016

Mary spoke privately to a small group of social sector leaders at the Skoll Foundation offices. She hit the world stage most notably as Ireland’s first female president, and has continued to campaign for the world’s most vulnerable people, especially women. I want to share just two insights from Mary that made a big impression on me.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

These partners include the Norwegian Library of Talking Books and Braille (NLB), the Hoerbuecherei des OSBV Talking Book Library in Austria, and the Dorina Nowill Foundation in Brazil.? Benetech looks forward to working with all these groups to provide the latest books, especially textbooks (primarily in English). ?These

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

I am on the board of the Zerodivide Foundation, which is an extremely cool foundation serving the underserved of California with technology. Transformation A core foundation of our institutional vision has always been to deliver relevant, impactful community-based philanthropy. We're seeking new board members.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 2, 2009

Ten years ago, Jed was the head of REDF, the famous social enterprise foundation in San Francisco. Last week I was in New York City and had the opportunity to meet with many interesting people (and got lots of ideas). One key connection was with Jed Emerson.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 17, 2009

I was recently introduced to Lisa Nash of the Blue Planet Run Foundation, about their Peer Water Exchange. 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. You're known by the company you keep!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 28, 2013

Today, I want to call on national governments, the international development organizations funded by governments and donor foundations, to invest in the capacity of authorized entities in each country. That is the miracle of a robust website: it doesn’t cost much more for it to serve twice, or even ten times, as many people.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 4, 2008

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation just published a very nice article, Leveling the Field , about one of our key Bookshare.org supporters, Bernie Newcomb. Bernie is very low key, and I'm glad the Foundation encouraged him to go on the record with why he does what he does. Bernie was VP Engineering and co-founder at eTrade.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

Inspired by socially responsible and mission-driven clients, last year she shifted her focus to practicing in the nonprofit sector and served as Pro Bono Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation. We are incredibly fortunate and excited to have both Nadine and Elaine joining Benetech! This post originally appeared on Benetech''s Blog.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 7, 2012

This early portion of the Skoll conference is for Skoll awardee staff, the Skoll Foundation and key resources to grow the field. As Kim Tripp of the Skoll Foundation noted in her wrap-up, there is a handful of people who came home from Oxford wondering what they would do with an innovation fund. How is it structured?

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 28, 2014

SocialCoding4Good connects software developer professionals from companies like VMware, HP, and Google to volunteer their time and technical talent to open source social good projects at Benetech and our peers, including the Mifos Initiative , Wikimedia Foundation , Medic Mobile , and Mozilla.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 3, 2011

He uses the Alliance Forum Foundation as one of his vehicles for making deals along these lines in Asia and Africa. A longtime venture capitalist with his DEFTA Partners firm , he wants to help solve social problems using hybrid capital structures that meld nonprofit and for-profit partners.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 29, 2011

It so clearly shows the benefit of what the Rockefeller Foundation calls Impact Sourcing. Of course, I showed off a textbook! I'm really glad that Samasource connected us with Steve and Daproim, and that the partnership is working so well.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 30, 2007

I'm excited about our growing partnership with the American Foundation for the Blind, the leading foundation focused on blindness issues. One thing we just did was to fill in the last few missing titles on AFB's Braillebug Reading Club.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 9, 2013

Finally, we’re grateful to the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation for matching us with pro bono attorneys who drafted a very impressive agreement tailored to Spanish law concerning serving individuals with print disabilities. Special thanks go to Charles Coward and Xavier Domènech of the Barcelona law firm Uría Menéndez.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 8, 2011

Knight Foundation, our SocialCoding4Good initiative will kick off later this year. Route 66 Route 66, our online platform for teaching reading, has officially launched thanks to support from the Peery Foundation. and James L. Route 66 is software that provides teachers (and non-teachers!)

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 6, 2009

Spotted this photo of Benetech's Robin Seaman visiting the Helen Keller archive at the American Foundation for the Blind and holding an Oscar. Helen Keller received this Oscar for the documentary about her life in 1955, as mentioned in the online Helen Keller Kids Museum.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 13, 2007

Two local Silicon Valley foundations were especially noteworthy for supporting Route 66 at its earliest stages. Here I am looking over the shoulder of Lynne and John O'Hara of the Special Hope Foundation. She heads the Center of Literacy and Disability Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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