Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2013

This post originally appeared on Arabella Advisors'' Greater Good blog as part of the series Impact 2014. advocacy Arabella Advisors Benetech Bookshare congressional testimony DC Global Literacy impact Larry Lessig nonprofit Skoll Foundation social change social enterprise tech4good US Congress Washington' Fast-forward six years.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

More and more of my time is spent around both raising money and raising awareness of how much more could be done with technology to increase social impact. First, I’ll cover our biggest fundraising effort of the year: individual philanthropy is crucial to us; it’s the portion that makes 10X impact possible!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

We just announced a Commitment to Action at the Clinton Global Initiative , to increase our impact in India by an order of magnitude. We recognize that becoming effective communicators and storytellers is necessary in order to maximize our impact in the service of our beneficiaries, and we’re committed to improving in this area.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 1, 2014

For instance, we ask, how can we harness the power of technology for positive social impact; and how can we mitigate the risks to privacy and civil rights posed by the age of big data? As toolmakers, our ultimate impact is measured by what other people build with our tools. Case in point: our accessible online library, Bookshare.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 28, 2014

As an economist, he stresses the need to quantify the impact of humanitarian interventions: for instance, whether a certain effort will bring $59 of benefit for every dollar in, or only $4. The lifelong impact of significant malnutrition on a child can be devastating. Old-fashioned cooking methods kill millions each year.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 24, 2017

There is a big controversy in the technical standards area that impacts accessibility of content in web browsers. We are an organization that has been fighting to overcome the negative impact of DRM on accessibility for over a decade. Ars Technica covered this recently in their post: Over many objections, W3C approves DRM for HTML5.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

On February 16th in Los Altos, California, I shared these thoughts on Robin Seaman’s impact on the world with her family and friends at her Celebration of Life. However, I'm here to spotlight the impact Robin had on millions of people who never had the pleasure of meeting her personally. The sister, the aunt, the friend, the mentor.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 28, 2014

As we are getting ready to welcome a new VP of Engineering, I’d like to acknowledge and thank Gerardo for his many contributions and their lasting impact on the lives of the people we serve. A passionate technology-for-good advocate, Gerardo has made major contributions to Benetech’s social mission since he joined us over four years ago.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 18, 2014

We’re passionate, agile, and growing, and we need you: an accomplished, entrepreneurial technology leader motivated by creating lasting impact for the betterment of society. You have to be someone who’s motivated above all else by the opportunity to work on high-impact software applications with extraordinary social return on investment.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Its mission is strongly aligned with our own at our SocialCoding4Good project: build awareness of technology serving humanity, engage technical volunteers to contribute their time and talents to design and develop it, and foster cross-sector collaboration to amplify its impact. Please join us in creating this transformative impact.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 10, 2014

But do they measure the real impact we’re making in the lives of our beneficiaries? Tremendous shifts in data availability, access, and use are rapidly transforming our lives, and numbers debates are taking center stage in the development, philanthropy, impact investing, and social enterprise sectors. Data is now a core resource.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Our board and I are looking forward to Betsy leading Benetech to even greater impact. Betsy is a recognized social entrepreneur who has dedicated much of her career to changing the world with software.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 8, 2015

You are someone who dreams about using your management and leadership skills and love of technology for social impact, exceeding the bounds of what a regular for-profit business can do. Our goal is not to make gobs of money, it’s to make maximum social impact while breaking even. You’ve come to the right place: Benetech.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 27, 2012

Lately Evan's been talking about how to expand their impact even more. He's joined forces with other social entrepreneurs in the field to found UpEnergy , a new for-profit social enterprise that wants to scale the impact of their successful pilot projects.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 11, 2014

Social enterprises are collecting more and more data: data about social problems; data about intervention outcomes; data for collective impact; data for learning; data for dashboards to better operate their enterprises; data for funders; and the list goes on. Yet, social enterprises arent typically made up of data geeks.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 19, 2013

With this new site, we hope to better share our story and the impact of our work in a clear and consistent way across our four program areas , which encompass a diverse set of initiatives, products and services. Look around—there’s a lot that’s new. You’ll also find information about several meaningful ways to support our work.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 4, 2010

We’re working on some of the biggest and toughest problems in the world, and we’re having a significant positive impact on the people we’re helping. And that’s the true measure of our impact: it’s what our partners and users do with the technology and the knowledge we provide that matters. Tags: Benetech impact New Year.

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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. 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

APRIL 30, 2012

The ESI Award recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations whose innovations blend methods from the worlds of business and philanthropy, and that challenge the status quo to create sustainable social value with a potential for large-scale impact.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

I think they will both make big contributions to building Benetech’s ability to deliver greater impact in the technology-for-good field. Developing a strong culture of communications is critical for expanding Benetech’s impact. We’re delighted Nadine has joined Benetech’s senior team to direct our communications program.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 13, 2016

He’s a geek (former Microsoft Research guy) who is making the case that technology doesn’t make the kind of social impact it claims to deliver. A mentor is going to have a more powerful impact over somebody than YouTube videos. There’s often more value to me in reading iconoclastic books than feel-good affirmations of popular icons!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 27, 2014

Please join us in the Skoll Foundation’s second annual Skoll Social Entrepreneurs Challenge —a fundraising campaign committed to strengthening the capacity of organizations like ours to accelerate impact on some of the most critical issues of our time. Now, with the Skoll Foundation’s matching support, your gift will have far more impact!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 9, 2014

I had the opportunity to speak with both Gallucci and Roy about this unique funder collaborative and more specifically about how the Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education would measure the impact of their investments. Educating girls especially makes for long-term positive impact.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

As a nonprofit, Benetech builds the impact of our programs and initiatives dollar-by-dollar, which is why a gift of any amount will make a difference towards ensuring that people with print disabilities have the books they need for their education, employment, and inclusion in society. Thanks so much for your help!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 27, 2011

Benetech has been expanding its impact rapidly over the last few years, and we need a dynamic executive to join our senior leadership team. That's our rocket fuel: how we grow our impact by another integer factor and get new ventures started. The remainder of our funding comes from grants and donations.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

While working alongside corporate social responsibility and innovation teams was part of our initial long-term vision, the immediate interest and active participation from the likes of Cisco, Google, HP, ThoughtWorks, and VMware has been tremendous, with very real impact.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 6, 2011

One of the great memories I have of last week's Skoll World Forum is Willy Foote of Root Capital kicking off the Skoll Convening (the grantee meeting just before the Forum) with this ash-cloud inspired song: “Floating in this Cloud” How can I scale the impact of my work? Should I partner or go it alone? How many funders do I really need?

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2015

And what are some of the social benefits and impact that may result from such a relationship? We are committed to increasing our impact in India by an order of magnitude. The Fund demonstrates the incredible social impact that private philanthropy can create through smart investing strategies and risk tolerance.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 20, 2015

Carol shared that they had received an Impact Sourcing grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and scaled up their capacity. They recruited their staff from Nairobi slums as well as students from poor rural backgrounds who had made it to Nairobi universities. Carol Wanjiku Daproim went on to great success.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Moreover, the students’ feedback on this pilot project will be instrumental in helping us make an even bigger impact with future volunteers. We’re grateful to Roberto and his students for their wonderful work.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 26, 2013

As a person who parlayed a Caltech education into social entrepreneurship (an atypical choice for Techers), I could sympathize with her desire to make social impact! She says it's because of her impatience to change society faster. And, I couldn't help remember that the famous director Frank Capra was a Caltech grad and Gnome Club member.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 29, 2016

We are looking for more than a dozen motivated individuals to make the leap to positive social impact. If you’ve been burning to use your considerable talents to make a difference, rather than make a lot of money, it’s time you considered joining our growing team.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 25, 2014

WithABillion agile innovation Joi Ito MIT Media Lab philanthropy scale social impact tech4good TechForGood TED2014' If we can do that, it could be the best and most powerful billion dollars ever spent! This post originally appeared on CSRwire TalkBack.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Here, we realized, was an opportunity to create real, lasting social impact. Other features and benefits might have been easier to build and market, but we decided to focus on doing the right thing where we could maximize impact at the service of the human rights community. Martus, we decided, would be that tool.

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Burma Analysis Guatemala Law 168

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 10, 2013

This post originally appeared as part of an online debate about How Big Data Can Have a Social Impact, which the Harvard Business Review Blog Network hosted jointly with the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. Right now I''m in Oxford, England, for the annual Skoll World Forum! Big Data is all the rage in Silicon Valley.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

I’m thrilled to share with you some of the recent amazing impact of Bookshare , a Benetech Global Literacy initiative and the largest accessible online library of copyrighted content for people with print disabilities.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2014

10X: ten times the impact. Our Bookshare online library is continuing to multiply its impact. I am especially excited, as I’ve been our Chair since our founding, and know that Christy’s leadership will be crucial in taking Benetech to that next factor of ten increase in impact. That’s what’s been on my mind lately.

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