Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

It became a burden to his family and caregivers to constantly drop what they were doing to turn a page, so he began seeking out ebooks. It also demonstrates how each ebook that is added to the Bookshare collection is a brick in our members’ foundation of independence and inclusion. Eventually he had to ask others to turn pages for him.

Life 147

Life Gift eBook France 147

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

People with print disabilities around the world have a right to high-quality ebooks that they can read with assistive technology. Benetech’s Bookshare library continues to expand its international service providing accessible books and publications to members in more than 30 countries.

International 166

International Brazil Austria eBook 166

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. The DDD student staff people work half days at DDD, proofing textbooks to make them accessible to students with print disabilities.

Laos 235

Laos Data Digital New York City 235

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.

Fund 100

Fund India United States eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 3, 2013

Betsy Beaumon I recently had the honor to speak at the first-ever Braille Summit , hosted on June 19-21, 2013 by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) and Perkins School for the Blind. Guest Beneblog by Betsy Beaumon, VP and General Manager, Benetech’s Global Literacy Program. Accordingly, U.S.

Literacy 208

Literacy eBook Images Accessibility 208

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2014

How can we use technology in a new way to improve people’s lives that is an order of magnitude better? Can we help stimulate the creation of far more technology-for-good ventures? Technology currently serves privileged groups through tools that provide access to education, literacy, health, and justice.

Literacy 158

Literacy eBook United Kingdom Accessibility 158

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.

Kenya 100

Kenya Social Student India 100

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.

Open Source 183

Open Source Africa Zimbabwe Malawi 183

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. By partnering with all these stakeholders, we reinvented the traditional library for people with print disabilities and brought modern ebook technology to this underserved community.

Library 164

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!

Literacy 166

Literacy Program United Arab Emirates Student 166

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.

Celebrate 145

Celebrate Google Literacy Library 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Someone who has no disability, or someone who has a disability but is able to pick up a print book and read it, doesn't qualify for these services. 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.

Copyright 158

Copyright Social Law Student 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

In my contribution to Ron’s book, I discuss the framework that guides us at Benetech, the technology nonprofit I lead. When I first started pursuing the idea of using technology to solve challenging social problems, it was a pretty radical idea. We are always exploring new projects with the hope of launching a new product each year.

Develop 144

Develop Social Library eBook 144

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.

Data 168

Data Classroom Measure Accessibility 168

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.

eBook 203

eBook Accessibility United States Student 203

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

The Bookshare promise to American students with disabilities is that if they need a book for education, Bookshare will ensure that they have it. Under our copyright exception, we simply buy a copy of the needed print book, scan it using optical character recognition, and create an accessible ebook.

Copyright 100

Copyright United States Library eBook 100

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. In the U.S.,

Copyright 196

Copyright Law Accessibility Library 196

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?)!

Copyright 158

Copyright India Library United States 158

Connection Cafe

MAY 28, 2015

And the topic is one of my favorites – pro bono service or, in layperson’s terms, how employees at companies large and small give their time and professional talents to help nonprofits thrive. We’re gathering to talk about “Pro Bono Service: Harnessing Time and Talent for Social Good.”. I’m off to the White House today.

Companies 20

Companies Service Blackbaud Social 20

Tech Soup

JUNE 4, 2014

The finalists are an impressive roster of charities from diverse fields doing great work in nonprofit technology. This early childhood program initially serves 400 preschoolers and their families, providing them with up to 40,000 eBooks and learning apps. Google then invited the public to vote for the top winners.

San Francisco 61

San Francisco Award Google Challenge 61

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2016

They put most nonprofits in the direct action without systems change box: groups that do a good (or even excellent) job of delivering services under the existing system. The common link among our projects is information technology, which can be applied to just about every aspect of the social sector. The first was the ebook.

Change 100

Change eBook United States Conservancy 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

We provide accessible ebooks that can be spoken aloud, turned into Braille or large print. We serve over 150,000 students with disabilities alone with free online services funded by the Department of Education (however, nothing contained in this post has anything to do with our funders). We do it for human rights groups.

eBook 277

eBook China Copyright Library 277

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

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 8, 2011

We provide accessible ebooks that can be spoken aloud, turned into Braille or large print. We serve over 150,000 students with disabilities alone with free online services funded by the Department of Education (however, nothing contained in this post has anything to do with our funders). We do it for human rights groups.

eBook 107

eBook Copyright China Law 107

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 11, 2013

Developing Open Source Software For Social Good For example, in the last few months, individual employees have used volunteer hours to create fun interactive, online learning tools for educators and students using Mozilla’s Webmaker. And, in so doing, we can help amplify the real, global impact they have on the lives of real people every day.

Open Source 118

Open Source Lesson Tech Project 118

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