Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

The DDD student staff people work half days at DDD, proofing textbooks to make them accessible to students with print disabilities. Phab is on a mission: she believes strongly that she is building her country by helping her students acquire the skills they will use to help advance Laos in the future.

Laos 235

Laos Data Digital New York City 235

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 20, 2015

She runs a for-profit social enterprise named Daproim that provides data entry services using disadvantaged students as their primary workforce. Bookshare is our large digital library for students with disabilities such as blindness or dyslexia. Daproim has more than 7600 applications from Kenyan students who want to work there.

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Kenya Social Student India 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 13, 2015

I liked this quote: In addition to enabling students with disabilities to use content and participate in activities, the concepts also apply to accommodating the individual learning needs of students, such as English language learners, students in rural communities, or students from economically disadvantaged homes.

Education 100

Education National Technology Student 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2013

You see, several months later, the federal Department of Education challenged us to compete against a well-respected national nonprofit 60 times our size in a bid to provide accessible educational materials for US students who are blind, dyslexic, or otherwise print disabled. million contract to do just that.

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Advocacy Change Literacy DC 176

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 29, 2011

Steve hires people from disadvantaged backgrounds, both from the poorer parts of Nairobi as well as university students with impoverished rural backgrounds and people with disabilities. It was talking about the university students where Steve, a highly animated entrepreneur, gets even more enthusiastic.

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Kenya Student Africa University 228

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 30, 2012

CASE offers a tremendous program for MBA students and alumni interested in applying their business skills for social purposes. I hope that in my lecture, I convince my listeners, especially students, that they don’t need technology degrees to succeed in high tech.

Award 154

Award Lecture Social Student 154

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 3, 2011

Today I’m delighted to share the exciting news about the new award we just received from OSEP to build upon Bookshare’s success and significantly improve access for students with disabilities. Bookshare is allowed to serve only students with a legally qualifying print disability per the Chafee Amendment to the Copyright Act.

Impact 140

Impact Technology eBook Student 140

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 16, 2011

The goal of the DIAGRAM R&D Center is to greatly improve access to graphical information for students with print disabilities (for example, helping blind students get access to important graphics inside textbooks). The goal is to be able to gain access to the same learning a sighted student would get from that diagram.

Images 194

Images Alternative Student Accessibility 194

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

Chuck had been suggesting for quite a while that I come to Boulder both to speak to Naropa students and connect with the vibrant local tech scene. The majority of Naropa students in the class were working on their own social enterprise concepts. So, we go way back in our shared commitment to growing the social enterprise movement.

Impact 100

Impact Colorado Social San Francisco 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 26, 2011

The universities I visit tend to be full of students and faculty committed to doing important and innovative work. Caltech faculty and students are especially focused on sustainability. My student host, Cole Hershkowitz, demonstrated this sustainability focus. The students are, of course, the treasure of a place like Caltech.

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Student DC University Washington 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

From people in Latin America who face severe water scarcity to at-risk human rights defenders and students with disabilities, our users and their families are the ones who best convey the impact of our work. Consider third grade student Brennan Draves. Brennan Draves and his mother, Lindsay Draves, at school.

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Open Source Africa Zimbabwe Malawi 183

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 4, 2015

Tomorrow is an exciting day for our Bookshare online library for students with dyslexia or visual impairments. Each year, we provide more than a million books that are spoken aloud, enlarged or made into braille for students who can't pick up a print book and read it because of a disability.

Giving 100

Giving United States Student Grant 100

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

SEPTEMBER 3, 2011

What blew my mind in the demonstration was how the Zerofootprint team took a metro area’s schools, and mashed the energy consumption data together with student census data to demonstrate how much the energy costs by dollar per student per year. Are they running the heat with the windows open during the winter?

Classroom 162

Classroom Demonstration Student Contest 162

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 26, 2009

We're signing up students for Bookshare at a rate of more than 3,000 per month, and this means we're well ahead of our goal which was about 1700 students a month to hit our 100,000 students over five year goal. Tags: print disabled students disability AAP Bookshare Adler. The entire Bookshare team is very proud of this!

Student 100

Student DC Washington Press 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

which get Bookshare at no cost when serving students with qualifying disabilities (thanks to funding from the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. The most common error is a school signing up all of their students with visual impairments and all learning disabilities. Department of Education).

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Copyright Social Law Student 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

What began as a small online library, with a collection built in large part by its users, is now the primary national supplier of electronic accessible educational materials for students with print disabilities. At the close of 2012, we are five years into our work in education and are serving over 230,000 students.

Literacy 166

Literacy Program United Arab Emirates Student 166

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

JANUARY 5, 2015

Frankly, it didn’t go as well as we had hoped, and Lavelle worked with us to retarget the grant to focus on students with visual impairments. This experience helped us prove the potential of Bookshare to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Even in the United States, this was true of probably a quarter of our student users.

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Fund India United States eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 2, 2012

This summer, we will have three students working on Bookshare software for our users underwritten by Google’s Summer of Code program. Our vision is to provide equal opportunities for students with disabilities and help them overcome a major barrier to accessing to the most valuable prize in society: a great education.

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Celebrate Google Literacy Library 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 15, 2012

I’m excited to contribute to this topic in honor of the multitudes who work together to make a difference in the world through Bookshare, a global asset we have built with joint efforts of education, technology, publishing, student, parent, and volunteer communities.

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Library Student eBook Accessibility 164

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

I recently was sworn in by Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter as one of nineteen people serving on the Advisory Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials in Postsecondary Education for Students with Disabilities. Opportunity to higher education is a crucial need for all students, and especially students with disabilities.

Instruction 100

Instruction Instructional Student Law 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 10, 2013

We don’t know if the student ever gets past Chapter 1. Last month we launched a new feature for Bookshare that allows students to read books within a web browser, instead of needing additional software or tools.

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Profit Data SWF Syria 171

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 10, 2011

Graduate student Maria Georgakarakou, who is blind, gave us a rave review for the Read2Go app which allows those with print disabilities to listen to books in the DAISY audio format. Maria also noted that students like herself are finding more scholarly books on Bookshare which expands her ability to research.

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Audio Boston Student Music 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

We had just won the national contract to supply ALL disabled students in the United States, with ALL the books they needed to read to succeed in school, for free. About the dozens of tributes we read at Bookshare from students, from teachers, from leaders, from publishers, all appreciating Robin’s work.

eBook 100

eBook United States Literacy Library 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 17, 2013

UC Santa Cruz students who participated in our volunteer pilot project— proofreading textbooks for our Bookshare collection—have done a fantastic job proofreading over a short period of time three entire textbooks! This means more than 2,300 pages of text and an amazing gift for the 250,000+ Bookshare student members we serve.

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Student Volunteer Impact Classroom 191

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 15, 2010

Her students at Rice University have been busy inventing new tools and equipment for global health. Their students actually go into the field, work with local medical professionals, and learn their real problems, their real pain points. Rebecca was looking for help with a familiar problem.

Global 178

Global Technology Marketing Kenya 178

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 25, 2016

She and one of her graduate students demonstrated their Emerald technology, and it was the first time I’d seen this capability. There were too many awesome talks to do them justice, but you are welcome to sample the session titles here. The talk that especially blew my mind was by MIT professor Dina Katabi.

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Connecticut New York Demonstration Sample 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 8, 2015

We use technology today to help hundreds of thousands of students with disabilities succeed in school, as well as help human rights activists around the world document abuses and seek justice. Along the way, we expect to drive innovations that will make learning better for all students around the world.

Technology 100

Technology Literacy Social Uganda 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 12, 2007

My long-time friend Professor Mari Ostendorf (who was a grad student with me at Stanford) was running a summer research program for engineering students with disabilities. It was well received, and I had lunch with the students and talked about disability rights and technology. These kinds of visits are really energizing.

Washington 100

Washington University Student Seattle 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 2, 2007

This will further the objectives of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), by supplying high quality textbooks and educational materials to students with special needs. As of October 1, 2007, we have ceased charging these schools and students anything to join Bookshare.org.

Student 100

Student United States Education Award 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Most of the books I work with are books requested by students and titles from the New York Times (NYT) bestsellers list. We also picked up books Carrie had previously ordered - including special requests from students who need specific texts for their classes. students thanks to support from the U.S.

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Community Files Student Language 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 24, 2009

One of the board members from the Y, Gunilla Hastrup, heard me waxing eloquent about why I loved the Y as a student and why I still do. It doesn't have a pool or a gym, but it does provide Caltech students, staff and faculty with a vibrant link to the outside world. And, I agreed to write up why I am so enthusiastic.

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Student Activities Active Activism 104

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

Benetech has already solved this problem for students in the United States. I have good news: For $5 million a year, we can build a global library that provides tens of millions of people around the world who are blind, low vision, or dyslexic free access to books that will work for them.

Global 109

Global eBook Library United States 109

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 8, 2011

We’re thrilled that students and other readers who have disabilities that keep them from reading standard print can now read the same books as their peers, using the same devices. With our Read2Go app, Bookshare members can now search, download and read Bookshare books and periodicals on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices.

Guatemala 159

Guatemala Literacy Qatar Open Source 159

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 3, 2013

In what is known as the “ braille provision ,” the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 mandates that the teams who help write educational plans for students with disabilities presume that all blind and visually impaired children should be taught Braille unless it is determined to be inappropriate. Accordingly, U.S.

Literacy 208

Literacy eBook Images Accessibility 208

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 12, 2009

But, our new Bookshare for Education project with its likely prospect of increasing our student users one hundredfold meant we needed a rebuild. We're dedicated to making sure that lack of access to books is no longer a barrier to success for print-disabled students! I'm also excited about our new logo! in the next few years.

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Student Accessibility Library Software 100