Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

We realized that our humanitarian free and open source software (HFOSS) partners had important roadmap projects with tremendous potential, but in many cases lacked the resources to design, prototype and develop them.

International 209

International San Francisco Open Source Global 209

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Helped environmental leaders design, manage, monitor, and evaluate global conservation projects and campaigns with the first open source conservation project management tool. Ensured that thousands of human rights activists could securely document human rights abuses.

News 189

News Syria Conservancy eBook 189

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.

Internet 142

Internet Copyright Law Open Source 142

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 13, 2011

I just spent a couple of days in Vancouver with the team at the Public Knowledge Project , a terrific example of an open source social enterprise. Their largest project is Open Journal Systems, software for running a scholarly journal. It was great to see another social enterprise successfully meeting the needs of a community!

Accessibility 133

Accessibility Project Open Journal 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 19, 2014

Encrypt all personally identifiable information with strong, open source crypto, and take a big step on the road towards doing no harm while bringing the benefits of technology to the world''s most vulnerable populations!' As software developers entrusted with sensitive information, we have a duty to protect the people we serve.

Open Source 137

Open Source Government Reflection Software 137

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 30, 2014

of Martus —our free, open source, secure information collection and management software—which includes major updates and usability improvements. Last week, the Benetech Human Rights Program released version 4.5

Literacy 164

Literacy Journal Open Source Digital 164

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 6, 2013

Why You Do Want this Job: All the above. If you’re up for the challenge and want to change the world, or know someone who might fit the bill, please check out or share this job posting.

Job 238

Job Open Source Global Government 238

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 28, 2013

That support includes the sharing of best practices in accessible book production, model agreements for readers with disabilities, and open source access technology for reading the books.

Library 225

Library Government United States Accessibility 225

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Our strong cryptography technology, Martus —a free, open source, secure information management tool-makes it easier for groups working with vulnerable populations keep the sensitive information they collect confidential.

Technology 192

Technology Open Source Data Exercise 192

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 8, 2011

All interested nonprofits or social enterprises will be able to leverage SocialCoding4Good by posting their open source software development projects for social change and inviting volunteers to work on them. We also want to enable effective information sharing among agencies about what does and doesn’t work.

Guatemala 159

Guatemala Literacy Qatar Open Source 159

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 17, 2012

Many thanks to Thushan Ganegedara for this guest post about his summer open source project. I’m Thushan Ganegedara, a 3 rd year undergraduate from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. My interests are Mobile Development and Computational Intelligence.

Sri Lanka 124

Sri Lanka Google API Mentoring 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Not the typical SROI calculation, but the dramatic point was that Flat World is making impact the center piece of their foray into Open Educational Resources (OERs). OERs are the open source equivalent of open source software.

Conference 100

Conference Social Utah Open Source 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 13, 2014

To make strong security accessible to the community involved in human rights documentation, we developed Martus —a free, open source, secure tool for collecting and managing sensitive information.

Data 176

Data Empowerment United States Government 176

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 22, 2005

I came to Amsterdam yesterday to attend a summit meeting of open source foundations. There seem to be dozens of these groups, each built around one or more open source software project. Picture of the open source foundations summit. And, the desire for peer learning was strong.

Open Source 100

Open Source Europe License Sponsor 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 3, 2004

It's exciting to have one of our own honored by the technology community, and for the open source software that Patrick has so passionately advocated for. Patrick Ball has just been awarded the ACM's 2003 Lawler Award for humanitarian contributions using computer technology.

Open Source 278

Open Source Award Software Professional 278

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 20, 2013

From capturing the stories of human rights violations in Guatemala, Burma, Syria and Uganda, to helping a biologist plan a better restoration of a wetlands, or matching up an open source geek with the social good project of his or her dreams, Benetech’s team is using technology to make the world a better place.

eBook 221

eBook Award Copyright Syria 221

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 19, 2013

One such idea I brought up is reshoring—that is, bringing well-paid factory jobs back home from overseas, and particularly to the South Bronx as a hub of local sourcing and production. 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

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

That work includes updates and upgrades to Martus , our free, open source software that enables human rights fieldworkers to securely document abuse that is occurring in dangerous environments. Benetech will of course continue the software and technology development that is the primary focus of our Human Rights Program.

Analysis 174

Analysis Project Open Source Analytics 174

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

We’re deep believers in the benefits of openness, which means we publish open source software and create open content under Creative Commons licenses. We’re operating at the forefront of copyright limitations and exceptions, both in the United States and globally.

United States 134

United States Library Copyright License 134

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 3, 2011

Here’s a glimpse at what we’re delivering: Open-content, publicly available and freely shared image descriptions and reusable graphical models to improve accessibility of NIMAC textbooks and Common Core content (this is so cool, I'm going to write another blog just on this aspect: look for the Triple Play blog!)

Impact 140

Impact Technology eBook Student 140

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 18, 2012

We use free and open source software whenever possible, but we're pragmatic and work with what our human rights monitoring and advocacy partners need, so our environment is a pretty eclectic mix. Maintain and develop our data deduplication (entity resolution) framework written in python and Java.

Analysis 150

Analysis Statistics Chart Language 150

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 18, 2008

John Crossman (Benetech's Director of Engineering) and I attended an interesting and exciting Google Open Source talk on AxsJAX at Google this week, by Charles Chen (the developer of FireVox) and T.V. Raman (the developer of EMACSpeaks). They are tackling the challenge of making the richer Web more accessible.

Google 100

Google gMail Open Source Application 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 15, 2012

This week, Benetech’s DIAGRAM Center has announced the release of an open source web application for creating and editing crowdsourced image descriptions in books used by students with print disabilities. Benetech has long been a pioneer in providing innovative services to people with print disabilities.

Images 133

Images Student Accessibility Content 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

Guest blog by Pavi Mehta, Volunteer Coordinator Open source champion Mozilla.org kicked off seven days of service earlier this month: September 14-21st thousands of people donated over 6000 hours of their time to good causes in their communities as part of Mozilla Service Week.

Volunteer 100

Volunteer Tutorial Open Source Info 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 1, 2011

Benetech seeks to be open internally and externally. While respecting individual privacy and our other values, we foster a collaborative work environment through open communication. We rely on open source tools for information exchange and development tools, as appropriate.

Literacy 145

Literacy Articulate Open Source International 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 13, 2007

Because Martus is free and open source software that does not require users to register with Benetech, these educated estimates of users are almost certainly underreported.

Guatemala 100

Guatemala Burma Philippines Iraq 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 23, 2006

They are doing a big project in Guatemala around open source software for the Maya community (including translating Open Office into Kiche), as well as several technology initiatives including Application Service Provider (ASP) implementations for NGO IT needs.

Tech 100

Tech Spain Guatemala NGO 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 29, 2004

Imagine if you will, a group of free/open-source software internationalization/translation/localization evangelists gathered in an artist's studio in snow-covered Warsaw, heated by a wood-stove, but with high-speed wireless internet access! Laptops roasting by a wood fire. We're actively translating Martus into roughly ten languages.

Poland 100

Poland Open Source Wiki Laptop 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 8, 2005

Plus, we recently spotted this article on the Open Source Africa site. Susan Bazilli, an international human rights attorney, recently brought Martus to the attention of the women's rights community in Africa, through a posting to the Women's Information Technology Transfer site.

Colombia 100

Colombia Nigeria Uganda Africa 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 20, 2011

The free and open source software, which is a joint venture between Benetech and the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) , guides users through a series of step-by-step interview wizards, based on the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation.

Guam 124

Guam Conservancy Software Help 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

A free, open source software application that allows users anywhere in the world to securely gather and organize information about human rights violations, Martus enables human rights defenders on the front lines of fighting abuse to stay safe and protects the identities of those who would face violence and repression for telling their stories.

Burma 168

Burma Analysis Guatemala Law 168

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. Guest Beneblog by Vijaya Tripathi The first ever Martus users group meeting took place earlier this month in Chiang Mai, the capital of Northern Thailand.

Global 157

Global Group Thailand Burma 157

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 3, 2013

Through this R&D Center, we are working to revolutionize the availability of accessible images and tactile graphics by targeting standards and developing open source tools that help close the gap between what technology can do automatically and what requires expert human work.

Literacy 208

Literacy eBook Images Accessibility 208

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

We now have a free, open source reading app for you called Go Read. We introduced new formats and new readers to give users not only what they want, but also a choice in how and where they want it. Have an Android device? And more than 20,000 of our users now use Read2Go , our reading app for iOS introduced in 2011.

Literacy 166

Literacy Program United Arab Emirates Student 166

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 6, 2006

I quite enjoyed our discussions, which ranged from Bookshare to the need for open source screen readers. Dinesh has programmed for Freedom Scientific and now works for the Codefactory in Spain, and Madhu works for IBM.

University 100

University India Spain Student 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 27, 2006

Apache, the open source web server), as well as sitting next to John Wood, founder of Room to Read, and next to him was an gold medal winning Olympic athlete who works to help poor kids in war-torn countries learn to and have access to play.

India 100

India Open Source Advice Issue 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 10, 2011

Here’s a sample of our accomplishments: Martus , our secure, open-source information management software for human rights defenders continued to empower many human rights groups worldwide to secure thousands of stories of human rights violations and to use this information strategically to advance their causes.

International 150

International Guatemala Colombia Analysis 150