Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 19, 2009

We've been getting lots of questions about the article, including volunteer offers (yay!) It's always exciting to be covered in the press, and AARP is an organization that has long been on our list of places from which we'd love to get coverage. Tags: visually impaired print disabled volunteer blind seniors Bookshare AARP.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 18, 2014

Success in this position means you have built and delivered products that have scaled in the marketplace, understand the ins-and-outs of the technology sector, and are able to foster collaborative environments between diverse groups and organizations. Do you like taking on big challenges?

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 22, 2010

After her surgery, Viji left her job at the startup company Net6 and volunteered for Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic in Palo Alto, California. In 2005, she started volunteering for Bookshare, which is also based here at the Benetech headquarters in Palo Alto. In countries outside the U.S.,

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 1, 2014

When it comes to data, rights, and privacy, first do no harm Vulnerable groups served by social justice organizations-such as victims of human rights abuse, refugees, LGBT individuals, or survivors of gender-based violence-deserve the same kind of respect for their sensitive information as citizens of wealthy countries expect for theirs.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 13, 2011

Rob is also a lecturer at Stanford Law School where he teaches the Law of Nonprofit Organizations. He has served as a board member and officer on several nonprofit boards and has donated his time for the Volunteer Legal Services Program of the Bar Association of San Francisco.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

And, Benetech is committed as an organization to all of these six principles. Without the rights the Chafee Amendment grants to Bookshare and our volunteers and partners, our work would be substantially curtailed and the materials made accessible to people with print disabilities would be significantly restricted.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2010

with print disabilities, with more than 70,000 copyrighted works in our library, the majority of which have been created under the US copyright exception by volunteers, mainly people with disabilities themselves, helping each other. • We now have global permissions for around 8,000 copyrighted books out of our 70,000. •

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 22, 2009

When as the Bookshare librarian I fill out membership forms for different library organizations, I want to check all the boxes, as Bookshare is at once a school library, a public library and an academic library. Our volunteer list is long, but the active volunteers get to know one another virtually very quickly.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

We’re not an advocacy organization, but our technical insights are in great demand from advocates. An intellectual property manual done from the standpoint of an organization that is dedicated to openness, rather than proprietary approaches. Human Rights Program policies: what are contingency/crisis plans for our staff?

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 8, 2006

Our volunteer community just keeps scanning in books, and we're happy to announce that Bookshare.org has hit 30,000 books! conference (Patrick has been attending it this week) and Patrick mentioned a nugget he heard from Tim O'Reilly, the conference organizer. Patrick Ball, our CTO, and I were discussing the Web 2.0

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 20, 2013

The support and inspiration I found here in the vision field made today’s Benetech possible: our nonprofit organization that now works in other fields as well, fields like human rights, the environment and volunteerism. We hope you’ll join us on this journey.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 15, 2009

Do we want people with disabilities, volunteers or teachers losing their internet access without due process because they were handling copyrighted materials in ways that are permitted today in the U.S.? Why have a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)? The secret nature of the negotiations is disturbing.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 3, 2013

As organizations,” Osborne said, “we must liberate spending to focus on the promotion, learning and innovation around braille,” and recognize that we ought to embrace today’s changing economics and technology so that braille can be part of an equation which delivers access to information for all, not just to those who can afford it.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2007

It's great when one of our team is honored for their work, and Carrie Karnos has been one of our top Bookshare.org volunteers for years, including being Volunteer of the Year. Working for an organization with a long, illustrious history, I am always curious about how other organizations got their start.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 15, 2007

This moved me to volunteer to be on the founding board of what has turned into the Social Enterprise Alliance, a foolhardy move I still don't regret! Not only was this a community of people like me (after eleven years of feeling like a real weirdo), but they were talking about the issues I had been, was then and would be facing.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 3, 2008

Reflections on an internship with Bookshare.org in Chennai, India Made possible through support from the Amherst College Center for Community Engagement Anna Reid, religion major, class of 2010 Anna Reid with employees of Worth Trust, a South Indian organization that provides vocational training and employment for people with disabilities.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 26, 2009

They see this as a big deal, and expect to upgrade Volunteer.gov to really rally more volunteer service. They are the organization charged with national service and will be hosting the Social Innovation Fund. Michelle Obama was a big part of Public Allies and is a huge fan of national service Public Private partnerships.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

It’s why the great majority of accessibility work is done by volunteers, charities, and with government support. Don’t create a global Swiss registry of nonprofit organizations qualified to use exceptions. Bureaucratic barriers to utilizing a copyright exception, as proposed by some publishers, makes the cost even greater.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

The Bookshare Library Experience I am the CEO of Benetech, the nonprofit organization that provides the world’s largest online collection of accessible books, for people with disabilities that interfere with reading, through our Bookshare library. Bookshare was created under the Section 121 U.S. exception model works well here.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

We see tremendous innovations in social enterprise, but these are merely part of larger, global changes in the ways in which society organizes itself to create public goods. With support from stakeholders in the education, technology, publishing, student, parent, and volunteer communities, Benetech changed that reality.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 22, 2005

Bar camps seem to be a new phenomenon, modeled after the FOO camps organized by Tim O'Reilly. It was fascinating for me, as I realize this is yet another vibrant and growing community of social enterprises. There seem to be dozens of these groups, each built around one or more open source software project.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 24, 2009

The Y also organized hikes and other recreational activities. It was my first volunteer board service, and little did I guess at the time that I was destined to be a social sector leader and sit on nonprofit boards!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 3, 2008

I was surprised to see a teenaged boy wearing an American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) soccer jersey: AYSO is the soccer league where I volunteer as a referee during the fall. Soon, we reached the home of the blind girl we were visiting. Like Aleckson, Freda Phillip had been born without eyes and was about 4 years old.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

The publishing industry and disability organizations both agreed on this provision of copyright law. We stay in regular touch with the AAP about any major changes to policies at Bookshare and review our legal agreements (for end users, schools, and volunteers) with them. through the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 16, 2011

Her love of reading led to a position on the board of directors of Bookshare, an organization making accessible books and periodicals for readers with vision disabilities. I was especially surprised at the prominence Bookshare had in Melanie's life, by what her family chose to share with the newspaper.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Benetech, like many nonprofit organizations building open source software for social good, often relies upon the contributions of experienced software developers to help its solutions grow and scale. Often there's a mismatch between the skills of a volunteer and the skills required by our projects.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 11, 2013

But for an organization like Benetech, naming them as part of our values and putting them into action has led to better ideas and stronger products. We realized as we worked with more partners and volunteers that the process of matchmaking required a higher touch for it to be a quality match — and quality was the key here.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 2, 2007

A key feature of Route 66 is the Teacher Tutor, which helps the inexpert but motivated teacher (parent, volunteer, teacher's aide, rehab professional) teach reading. Our initial focus is on serving people with cognitive disabilities who want to learn to read.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 11, 2014

Mobile devices are breaking down the barriers to direct connections to staff, volunteers, clients, partners, communities, and the general public. It must be protected from governments, organized crime, and others who may misuse it. The world is undergoing a data revolution, and the social sector is no exception.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 13, 2012

It also helps with recruiting employees, volunteers, and donors! Open Over Proprietary We’re an open source organization. Telling the Benetech story better is crucial to our future: crucial to making the social change at scale that we consider the essence of innovation.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 16, 2006

Department of Homeland Security's National Response Plan, which defines the roles in disaster management through the definitions of the Emergency Support Functions (ESF) and defines that there is definitely a role for nonprofit organizations within disaster management. and there are probably more. Information management on a large scale.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2016

Even though I’m a Skoll Award winner, it really made me think about my organization, Benetech, and what we are trying to accomplish. Before Benetech was founded, blind people were read to either in person by a family member, volunteer, or paid reader, or via audio cassette tape.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 15, 2004

Her group uses volunteers as the main engine of activities. At the same time, it was very interesting to see the expansion and strengthening process in a small effective organization. They provide food, buy medicine, fix up houses, train the (typically single) mothers with job skills, encourage school attendance, etc.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 13, 2011

For years, our extraordinary cohort of dedicated volunteer scanners has provided Bookshare with most of its new content. Our volunteers, together with these socially responsible publishers, are making sure that our members have the content they need. With your help, we will!

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