Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 11, 2013

In this third installment of our blog series, I’d like to focus on that achievement and share some of what we learned throughout the process of creating Bookshare’s first offerings in Arabic. Our team also had various adventures in learning about the complexities involved in computer processing of the Arabic diacritical marks (Tashkeel).

United Arab Emirates 162

United Arab Emirates Qatar eBook Language 162

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 15, 2013

Benetech’s Bookshare initiative was founded to improve the lives and learning of people with some of the biggest challenges—those with visual impairments, physical disabilities and/or learning disabilities that prevent them from reading books and information in most standard formats.

Support 179

Support United States Literacy Brain 179

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

The first one shows the Special Education category on iTunes, with the Read2Go logo being used to represent the Literacy and Learning section. And, the second one shows why: our Read2Go application is at the top of the Literacy and Learning section!

Literacy 133

Literacy Chart eBook Application 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 28, 2012

A Guest Reflection by Dr. Patrick Ball, Benetech's Chief Scientist I am terribly sad to learn today of the untimely death of a friend and mentor, Dr. Karen Ramey Burns. Kar was a forensic anthropologist who specialized in human rights cases, and she was a founders of our Colombian partner organization EQUITAS ).

Colombia 133

Colombia Guatemala Haiti Mentoring 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

What did I learn last night? I learned that in some parts of India everyone has a cell phone but few have indoor plumbing or access to clean water – change is happening. The impacts these people and their organizations make are being felt world-wide. Using technology as a base for knowing change is possible, change is happening.

Award 145

Award Tech Technology Benefit 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 18, 2014

We’re a nonprofit technology company on a mission to address unmet social needs by providing targeted software tools and services to groups left underserved by the market, such as human rights activists and students with learning differences.

Challenge 180

Challenge Open Source Work Time 180

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 30, 2014

You can learn more about Mark and what led him to Benetech from his bio on the Benetech site. As Vice President of Service Operations and CMS Web Development and General Manager of the Canadian MSO (Management Services Organization) partner, Mark saw the company through rapid subscription growth.

Award 186

Award Roles Leadership Profile 186

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 9, 2014

Roy emphasized that The MasterCard Foundation will be focusing on evidence-based approaches and will capture and disseminate lessons learned to key stakeholders. The Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education’s 2014 call for proposals remains open through June 13.

Education 164

Education Philanthropy Africa Foundation 164

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

To learn more and get involved, please submit the Team-Up for Textbooks volunteer form or contact our staff via email: volunteer [at] Bookshare.org. Together, we can not only speed up the delivery of needed textbooks, but also build awareness to strengthen the web of support for students with disabilities. Thank you for your support!

Student 171

Student Volunteer Team Help 171

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 1, 2011

Externally, Benetech is committed to open standards in software to ensure others are able to learn from and contribute to our work. Benetech seeks to create leaders by fostering personal learning, growth and service. Benetech assists employees with courses, degree programs and other relevant learning experiences.

Literacy 145

Literacy Articulate Open Source International 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 11, 2010

Maria was raised by the sisters of the local Chennai Church, given a basic education and was sent off to Worth Trust to learn life skills. However that did not stop them from trying, learning and working hard. The Worth Trust-Bookshare project provided her with an opportunity where she could work hard and learn a lot.

Skype 168

Skype India California Chart 168

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

As my internship ended several weeks ago, I’ve reflected on lessons learned over the last 6 months, chief among them a sensitivity to how data gets handled and the importance of flexibility in this line of work. While I’ve grown exponentially as a statistician and a coder, the biggest benefit has been learning from the fantastic people here.

Guatemala 137

Guatemala International Project Statistics 137

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 29, 2011

Perkie Cannon is currently listed as the state’s NIMAS/NIMAC coordinator at the CAST website: generally we would point schools to the person with this responsibility to learn more about that state’s process for assigning NIMAC books to be converted. Does Bookshare work with the Kurzweil products for students with learning disabilities?

Student 145

Student Accessibility New Jersey Learning 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

From left to right: panelists Enrique Piracés, Iain Levine and Sam Gregory As I went around talking to human rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International , however, I learned there already was a Witness project in the human rights field. Dave suggested we rename our idea Martus, the Greek word for “witness.”

Burma 168

Burma Analysis Guatemala Law 168

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

students with visual impairments, physical disabilities, and severe learning disabilities like dyslexia, but we also serve international members in nearly 50 countries and are working to extend Bookshare’s reach to veterans who need access to books and information. The majority of our members are U.S.

Literacy 129

Literacy eBook Global Audio 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

One very cool thing I learned was that the Unreasonable Institute will be hosted at Naropa for the next couple of years. I knew a little about Naropa’s Buddhist roots, but I came away understanding much more about its nondenominational approach and why social entrepreneurship was an important part of its future plans.

Impact 100

Impact Colorado Social San Francisco 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

If it works, libraries like Bookshare would mainly be put out of business.

eBook 100

eBook United States Literacy Library 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 22, 2007

Just got some information on this cool program: The Hadley School for the Blind has launched an innovative program of English language learning and empowerment which spans the Pacific Ocean. Chinese are still eager to learn English, because it remains the language of business. Hadley's international branch is located in Fuzhou, China.

China 100

China Skype Student Empowerment 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

The most common error is a school signing up all of their students with visual impairments and all learning disabilities. The majority of students with a learning disability don't qualify under the copyright exception, because their learning disability doesn't have a major impact on reading.

Copyright 158

Copyright Social Law Student 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 22, 2010

Since I'm following the Skoll World Forum hashtag (#swf10) on Twitter, I learn about the conference as it gets pulled together, scheduled, grab tickets, etc. I learned about TEDxVolcano and became a speaker within a couple of hours: a process for normal TED or TEDx conferences takes weeks. Opening doors to speaking gigs.

Twitter 118

Twitter SWF Social Media Literacy 118

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

He reads accessible ebooks from Benetech’s Bookshare library in braille format, and learns as quickly as his peers without disabilities. And Brennan’s mom, Lindsay Draves, adds, “Bookshare has made it possible for my son to be excited about learning.” Bookshare has made my homework easier,” Brennan says.

Open Source 183

Open Source Africa Zimbabwe Malawi 183

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 29, 2009

Meghani came with his two hosts and daughter, and at 86 is still keenly interested in learning how technology can help bring books to the disadvantaged. From his side he was thrilled to learn more about Bookshare’s work and keenly interested in all parts of the tour (including a Braille Note demo from John Glass).

India 104

India Classroom Hosting Picture 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

I’m honored to join my fellow contributors in sharing practical lessons we’ve learned throughout our journeys towards actualizing positive social change. We’re learning new ways to create and sustain social value. I look forward to continuing the conversation the book has opened.

Develop 144

Develop Social Library eBook 144

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 9, 2018

The print book doesn’t work for people who are blind, partially sighted, dyslexic, have physical limitations, people who haven’t learned to read, or people who can’t read the particular language of a specific book is written in. Features like books that will read aloud, or have graphics that explain what you are supposed to learn from them.

Accessibility 135

Accessibility eBook People Copyright 135

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 28, 2014

As Gerardo explained in a recent blog post , Schema.org—the organization that keeps a list of agreed-upon tags that all search engines can use in common—adopted our proposed standards, so that search engine users can refine their searches to easily find accessible learning resources online.

Open Source 184

Open Source Literacy eBook Empowerment 184

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Learn more at and sign up for your local event on the Random Hacks of Kindness website. 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. Are you ready to RHoK with Mifos?

International 209

International San Francisco Open Source Global 209

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 15, 2011

One of the first areas was a budget tracking tools for Kenya, to make it easier for people to learn about budgeted amounts for their areas. They felt these new initiatives would all contribute to a better human rights environment in the region.

Africa 151

Africa Tanzania Kenya Ghana 151

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

What a thrill to see our software used to figure out how to conserve an exciting nature area I've only just now learned about! They have just released their management plan (in English). And, we're getting reports from all over the world of Miradi being used in countries like Indonesia and China, among many others.

Greece 100

Greece Indonesia China Conservancy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 31, 2008

Hundreds of millions of people now see these videos, eager to learn the words of their favorite videos and becoming literate along the way. The team I met were working on multimedia literacy content as part of Bookbox, and were busy using Adobe products to deliver cool ways to learn to read. Another example of scale, South Asian style!

Literacy 104

Literacy Adobe India Language 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 4, 2009

A project based environment where they can interact with others, pursue their passion, learn, and have fun doing it. Their website, freshBrain.org , provides a social networking based platform where teens can innovate, create and share using a variety of technologies. FreshBrain is already making great progress.

Utah 133

Utah Teen Skills Mobile 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 6, 2011

Even as early as the third grade I had learned to sit quietly and observe everything with the whole of my body, all senses. Even now I can still see the sunlight filtering through the oak trees, the shadows, the life that surrounded me as I read poetry under the oaks in front of Crown Point Country School.

Japan 133

Japan Artist Alternative Sound 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 16, 2011

The goal is to be able to gain access to the same learning a sighted student would get from that diagram. 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

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

The book discusses how this is done: an epic story line(we're saving the galaxy from the Crumlons) clear paths to advancement, with transparency about your skills and performance intensely meritocratic societies called guilds that work together in groups to accomplish major tasks strong social interactions with other people the ability to try, fail (..)

Game 150

Game Roles Virtual Skills 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 3, 2008

I visited the One World Shop and learned about the history of the fair trade movement. I also learned about devolution here in Scotland, which means that the Scottish national government now has responsibility for issues that used to be controlled by the UK central government.

San Francisco 100

San Francisco Social Government Conference 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 14, 2012

Our mandate, broadly speaking, was to engage in “blue-sky dreaming” and learn from our shared experiences to make Martus a more robust tool. It was surreal and incredibly exciting to see these inspiring people, my colleagues and friends, assembled in one place to launch the next generation of Martus.

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. Elaina learned how to use Miradi while working on a Guam watershed plan with CMP member The Nature Conservancy.

Guam 124

Guam Conservancy Software Help 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

But, the weight of evidence is that they can associate learning management system data with an increased likelihood of failure, and then intervene. For example, a really bright student who can pull everything together just before the exams might present with a red light a third of the way into the quarter, but still be ok.

Student 113

Student France Blended University 113