Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

Mayrie was a Bookshare member, volunteer and staff person, who contributed hundreds of books to the Bookshare collection and provided invaluable guidance to our volunteer crew for many years. She was an impeccable proofreader and scanner, and helped recruit the help of other wonderfully dependable volunteers.

Teen 129

Teen Cancer Volunteer Accessibility 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

SocialCoding4Good brings together individual software professionals as well as corporate social responsibility teams from companies such as Cisco, Google, Hewlett Packard, LinkedIn, and VMware to volunteer their technical skills to nonprofit partners that develop and maintain free and open source software addressing critical social problems.

Open Source 183

Open Source Africa Zimbabwe Malawi 183

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 3, 2014

I know that she would benefit from more help: she''s asked me if I know how she could get more volunteers to assist her with her work. She would welcome English-speaking volunteers. It''s a big set of goals, but she''s pulled off the improbable before! And though she doesn''t ask, I''m sure she could use more donors, too.

Morocco 199

Morocco Literacy Europe History 199

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 14, 2013

This true story was written by two Bookshare volunteers, Evan Reese and Lissi Deren. She was a proofreader in Ohio who saw a new Welsh name, Evan Reese, on the Bookshare volunteer list. They worked on projects with many other Bookshare volunteers at the same time. He moved to Pennsylvania to be closer to her.

Story 123

Story Ohio Ireland Pennsylvania 123

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 10, 2013

He volunteered for the Army Air Corps in World War II and was a friend and adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. It was an incredibly memorable meeting—one I took much away from. Jim Fruchterman meeting with Sen. Harris Wofford Sen. Wofford is remarkable, having performed so many exemplary deeds of service for our nation.

Technology 172

Technology India Washington America 172

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.

Library 164

Library Student eBook Accessibility 164

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Thousands of ebooks are pouring into the collection each month thanks to the dedication of our volunteers around the world and partnerships with more than 500 socially responsible publishers who donate their digital files. Bookshare titles range from vocational to research to teacher-recommended reading.

Literacy 129

Literacy eBook Global Audio 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 30, 2009

One donor made a special offer to our top volunteers, those who have provided at least 150 books to Bookshare: that they could request any one book and we'd (not they!) Our Volunteer Coordinator, Pavi Mehta, sent me this email last week and I thought it was definitely blog-worthy! I am so happy to be able to volunteer for bookshare.

Gift 100

Gift Accessibility Giving Volunteer 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 30, 2013

Whether you''ve volunteered your time, made a financial contribution, attended one of our events, or helped to spread the word about the work we’re doing – thank you! Dear Friends of Benetech, As we wrap up another busy year, full of milestones and exciting accomplishments , we’d like to take a moment to simply say thank you.

Volunteer 138

Volunteer Ideas Business Support 138

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 28, 2014

Gerardo helped Benetech dramatically increase our capacity to benefit larger populations by scaling our services, revamping our innovation process, and establishing a thriving network of industry partners and volunteers.

Open Source 184

Open Source Literacy eBook Empowerment 184

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

This comment came to our volunteer email list today, and I got permission to repost. So my husband told his friend about Bookshare, and how Bookshare staff and volunteers and outsourcers get books scanned and proofed and available. Thank you, Bookshare and volunteers! My husband went out to dinner last night with a friend.

Volunteer 100

Volunteer Accessibility Sound Comment 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 15, 2012

Bookshare is seeking volunteers who can apply their expertise in specific subject matters to describe images. Once volunteer describers sign up as Bookshare volunteers, they can log into the Poet tool, select books, view the images, and enter descriptions for a variety of texts.

Images 133

Images Student Accessibility Content 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 17, 2013

I’m delighted to share with you today a wonderful success story from our Volunteer Program. 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!

Student 191

Student Volunteer Impact Classroom 191

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 9, 2012

I started volunteering so that I can give back to an organization that has touched my life so and can only hope that my volunteer work is as excellent as some of the veterans’ work. Our staff and volunteer team is dedicated to equality of access, and you remind us very well that we're making progress on that goal!

Comment 124

Comment Audio Files Evaluation 124

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 7, 2009

Thanks to tremendous work by our volunteers, our publisher partners, our proofreading partners and our staff, we've added more than 4,000 books in the last two months and broken the 50,000 titles barrier. Tags: print disabled volunteer books Puerto Rico Bookshare. Another exciting milestone has happened with the Bookshare collection.

Puerto Rico 100

Puerto Rico Rate Volunteer Team 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 19, 2009

We've been getting lots of questions about the article, including volunteer offers (yay!) Tags: visually impaired print disabled volunteer blind seniors Bookshare AARP. We had a nice piece on Bookshare in the latest AARP Bulletin, entitled: Making Books Accessible for Those With Disabilities.

eBook 100

eBook Children Press Stream 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 16, 2011

This makes it possible for people describing graphics (publisher production people, illustrators, alternative media producers like Benetech, and volunteers) to work from a standard web browser and interactively add image descriptions to DAISY books. I saw an initial demonstration of a web-based image description tool, called Poet.

Images 194

Images Alternative Student Accessibility 194

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 7, 2010

An Insider Reveals How the Latest Hot Books Are Added to Bookshare’s Collection of Accessible Titles A Guest Beneblog by Liz Halperin After working for many years as a volunteer for Bookshare, I became a paid proofreader for the collection about two years ago. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).

Community 129

Community Files Student Language 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

It’s an impressive web-based application for helping multi-national corporations engage their employees and customers in social sector activities such as volunteering or donating. Tags: Farris ammado Conlon charity CSR volunteer. It’s the brainchild of an Irish tech entrepreneur, Peter Conlon.

Platform 100

Platform Singapore Asia Social 100

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.

San Jose 109

San Jose Profile India United Kingdom 109

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 29, 2006

Bookshare.org is built on the efforts of great volunteers. One of our terrific volunteers is Matthew Devcich, who chose to do his Eagle Scout project on scanning for Bookshare.org. One of the key ways we can help reward volunteers is to help acknowledge their efforts.

Help 100

Help Volunteer Course Director 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 22, 2012

Bookshare , Benetech's online library for people who are blind or otherwise print-disabled, is fortunate to have a variety of summer interns and volunteers working in our Palo Alto office this year. We are sincerely grateful to our enthusiastic and dedicated group of volunteers. Here is more about each one in their own words!

Volunteer 129

Volunteer San Francisco Team San Jose 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 15, 2008

This is always a cause for celebration by our team, recognizing the incredible amount of work involved in bringing each book to our Bookshare.org members by our volunteers and collection development staff. Reading our volunteer email listserv this morning, I came across lyrics to a song about our volunteer community.

Listserv 100

Listserv Volunteer Celebrate Mail 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 15, 2010

Scott is helping with the Bookshare volunteer community as a Benetech Fellow. As I headed out the door, I ran into Scott Rains and we had a picture taken of Scott in his Brazil jersey (after the U.S., I'm a big Brazil fan too). I can tell World Cup fever is really hitting!

Brazil 113

Brazil DC Copyright Picture 113

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2011

Quite a few are hoping to volunteer for us in the future! In general the local chapter members were very excited about, and more than a little envious of, our work and the potential it has to impact human rights research.

Chapter 174

Chapter Local San Francisco Guatemala 174

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 22, 2009

Our volunteer list is long, but the active volunteers get to know one another virtually very quickly. The vast majority are members as well as volunteers; it’s the “virtual” neighborhood library. The Bookshare staff get to know the volunteers, too. Bookshare is no different.

Library 100

Library National India United States 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

We celebrated the tenth anniversary of Bookshare—both online and with in real life—with gatherings of users, volunteers, partners, employees, and friends throughout the year. Our outreach and volunteer efforts will grow, with a new parent program to match our incredible Mentor Teacher program. and a new audio option for Spanish titles.

Literacy 166

Literacy Program United Arab Emirates Student 166

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 10, 2011

In addition to being a Bookshare member, Maria is a book scanner and volunteer proofreader. Maria was especially excited about Read2Go’s navigation features that allow her to search and download accessible e-books from our Bookshare library directly to her iPad and iPhone.

Audio 145

Audio Boston Student Music 145

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.

International 209

International San Francisco Open Source Global 209

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Tags: print disabilities HuffPo volunteer Bookshare.

Student 100

Student Accessibility Blogger Attention 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Bookshare is the result of joint efforts of our partners in the education, technology, publishing, student, parent, and volunteer communities. Case in point: our accessible online library, Bookshare. Our technical tools by themselves don’t make change: it is these communities using our tools that create social good.

Technology 192

Technology Open Source Data Exercise 192

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 18, 2014

We’re looking for an innovator who can help us strengthen Benetech’s reputation, recruit the greatest talent to enhance our team, cultivate and forge new relationships with partners, funders, and technologists, and guide our growing community of open source developer volunteers. Do you like taking on big challenges?

Challenge 180

Challenge Open Source Work Time 180

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 27, 2014

Here are some examples of what we can accomplish with your contribution: Empower more individuals with disabilities to have equal opportunity to succeed in school, employment, and society; Embolden defenders of human rights in their fight against injustice and abuse; Match highly skilled tech volunteers with humanitarian organizations to deliver better (..)

Challenge 144

Challenge eBook Social Ohio 144

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 8, 2011

Led by Benetech’s VP of Engineering Gerardo Capiel, we will create an online space, SocialCoding4Good, where people in the tech community interested in social causes can volunteer ideas, connections, time and skills.

Guatemala 159

Guatemala Literacy Qatar Open Source 159

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 28, 2008

Now 1KG More has five full-time staff and a stable group of volunteers. The twin book project sold over 2000 fairy story books in 2007 and more than 1000 rural students benefited from it. In April 2008, 1KG More registered as a company and aimed to operate as a social enterprise model.

China 100

China Social Children Student 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 30, 2007

Any Bookshare.org user or volunteer now gets the chance to question the CEO of a service they care passionately about (and believe me, they do!). There were more than fifty people on-line with us, and the entire talk was recorded and placed on the web. I love this kind of opportunity that technology makes possible.

Audio 100

Audio Library Course Volunteer 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 14, 2009

Of course, the secret to Bookshare is that it's not Benetech making it so successful, it's our volunteers, our community, the schools, colleges, universities, authors and publishers that make it work so well for people with print disabilities so severe that they cannot read a standard printed book effectively.

Press 100

Press National University Washington 100