Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

While our activities often creates jobs beyond the core high technology jobs around software development and user support, we don't see it as our core competency. When we do something that creates entry level jobs in quantity, we reach out to social enterprise partners who specialize in job creation and training.

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Laos Data Digital New York City 235

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.

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Literacy eBook Images Accessibility 208

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2015

The Lavelle Fund exemplifies the tremendous social return that bold philanthropy can create. 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. 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

OCTOBER 15, 2012

With technology, you can do incredible things, but with a galvanized community of supporters who work together toward a greater good, we can do anything. It is the Power of We that changes the way we create transformative positive change. It is the Power of We that changes the way we create transformative positive change.

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Library Student eBook Accessibility 164

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

The Year That Was and the New Year Ahead Guest Beneblog by Betsy Beaumon, Benetech's VP and General Manager of the Literacy Program 2012 was a year of titanic shifts in the fields of consumer technology, education, and publishing, along with the requisite challenges brought about by such rapid change. Thanks again!

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Literacy Program United Arab Emirates Student 166

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

My personal goal is to channel the aspirations of the technology community to do more social good. More and more of my time is spent around both raising money and raising awareness of how much more could be done with technology to increase social impact. Consider third grade student Brennan Draves.

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Open Source Africa Zimbabwe Malawi 183

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 2, 2012

Betsy Beaumon, Benetech VP and General Manager of Bookshare During the event, our Bookshare staff offered demos of our Bookshare library and our Go Read accessible ebook reader for Android. They also demoed Read2Go, the accessible ebook application for the Apple OS and Route 66 Literacy, Benetech’s online literacy instructional program.

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Celebrate Google Literacy Library 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

I was delighted when Ron Schultz invited me to collaborate with him on his latest book Creating Good Work – The World’s Leading Social Entrepreneurs Show How to Build a Healthy Economy. What I liked most was the idea to create a body of knowledge that’s truly helpful to prospective and emerging social entrepreneurs.

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Develop Social Library eBook 144

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. Employ "Social Digital Rights Management" technology.

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Copyright Social Law Student 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 26, 2014

In the United States, there are all too many students like Kevin, who are denied equal opportunity to engage in the same curriculum as their peers without disabilities. In 2004, the United States passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , requiring schools to provide special education services to eligible students.

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eBook Accessibility United States Student 203

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

It also underscores just how critical a balanced copyright law is for technology innovation. As a different kind of Silicon Valley tech company—a nonprofit with a pure focus on social good—our goal is to see that the best of technology gets applied to social needs left unaddressed by for-profit businesses. copyright law.

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Copyright Law Accessibility Library 196

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Bookshare was created under the Section 121 U.S. The Bookshare promise to American students with disabilities is that if they need a book for education, Bookshare will ensure that they have it. With the advances in publishing and technology, it is now within reach to ensure equal access to books for all.

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Copyright United States Library eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 10, 2014

This reality changed when both Kevin and Sophia learned about the accessible online library Bookshare , an initiative of Silicon Valley technology nonprofit Benetech. With its rapidly growing collection of over 225,000 (and counting) accessible ebooks, Bookshare is the world’s largest library of its kind.

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Data Classroom Measure Accessibility 168

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 10, 2009

But, it's a dream that the commercial ebook vendors keep dashing. We have an action by Amazon that sets back years of work to make ebooks accessible. If Kindle ebooks were available on the Web, other developers could fix many of its limitations such as lousy support for images, problems with complex layouts, inaccessibility.

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Amazon Accessibility eBook Problem 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

If our Bookshare team is trying to help a blind student in India get a book she needs for university, make it easy for us to do that. The ability of that Indian blind student shouldn’t depend on whether she can get her university or a local blindness charity to do it for her. That’s so 20th Century (or 19th?)!

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Copyright India Library United States 158

Tech Soup

JUNE 4, 2014

The finalists are an impressive roster of charities from diverse fields doing great work in nonprofit technology. " Program is creating new distribution channels for affordable produce to low-income people. Bring Me a Book is creating a "literacy ecosystem" via social media in Alameda and Santa Clara Counties.

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San Francisco Award Google Challenge 61

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2016

The common link among our projects is information technology, which can be applied to just about every aspect of the social sector. Yet, nonprofits frequently lag behind the for-profit world in applying technology to their work. Benetech has a unique opportunity to repeatedly use technology as a social change agent.

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Change eBook United States Conservancy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 11, 2013

We have a framework by which we assess new projects at Benetech (one which I describe in Ron Schultz’s book Creating Good Work ), but because flexibility is named as one of our truths, we never approach our projects with a rigid agenda or a “we need to make our idea catch on” mentality. In fact, it can mean you’re upholding them.

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Open Source Lesson Tech Project 118

Care2

AUGUST 7, 2007

57) Mobile (15) Nonprofit Benchmark Studies (15) Nonprofit Events (36) nptech (8) Online Advertising (5) Online Advocacy (47) Online Fundraising (97) Online Marketing (59) Online Organizing (32) SEO (3) Social Networking (109) Technology (31) Trends (51) Video (27) Volunteering (2) Web 2.0 (60) Response: Should you social network?

Causes 48

Causes Facebook Social Media Advocacy 48

Care2

JULY 24, 2007

57) Mobile (15) Nonprofit Benchmark Studies (15) Nonprofit Events (36) nptech (8) Online Advertising (5) Online Advocacy (47) Online Fundraising (97) Online Marketing (59) Online Organizing (32) SEO (3) Social Networking (109) Technology (31) Trends (51) Video (27) Volunteering (2) Web 2.0 (60) Response: Should you social network?

Causes 48

Causes Facebook Social Media Advocacy 48

Eric Jacobsen Blog

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Surges in technology made virtually anything seem possibly if we just give it enough time and effort. They Have the Information More information has been created during the Millennials’ lifespan than in the history of the world – many times over! You can be ahead of the management curve – but don’t wait till they arrive. You can do it!

Classroom 40

Classroom eBook Generation Leadership 40

Connection Cafe

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Even though we’ve had an account for over two years, we only became serious with our Instagram strategy last spring and have seen a rapid growth in engagement from students and local brands. Let Students Run Your Instagram Account. And the best part – this idea came from a student. What’s Next?

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Student Social Media Photo Application 44

Connection Cafe

DECEMBER 22, 2013

Tech Impact echoes words from BBCON and The Nonprofit Times in their post: 6 Tips For Creating A Better Donation Form. From finding the obvious prospects to creating thoughtful thank you’s, this carnival has a treat for every palate. Consistently finding and creating content that resonates with your audience can be a struggle.

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Story Nonprofit Social Media Content 54

Museum 2.0

MAY 28, 2014

It’s not every day that a science center releases an ebook about wrongful conviction in rape and murder cases. This interview is not really about an ebook. One of his students reflected: Using the interactive iPad book to test my own reliability in crime scenes and investigations was really powerful. You can find it here.

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Help Museum eBook Project 45