Technology for Social Good
Benetech, Silicon Valley’s deliberately nonprofit technology company, has been busy using to technology to deliver large-scale social change in its three major program areas: literacy, human rights and the environment. Benetech’s Bookshare online library for people who are blind or print disabled recently passed 100,000 members, and recently announced plans to pilot Arabic language content for its library.
A Benetech statistician provided expert witness testimony in a recent trial in Guatemala that led to the conviction of two active-duty police officers for the disappearance of an activist leader more than two decades earlier, thanks to extensive work with the archives of the former National Police there. And Dr Patrick Ball, the head of Benetech’s Human Rights Program, spent most of 2010 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, working with the UN on its human rights efforts in that country. Benetech’s Miradi software helps environmentalist deliver results-based management in their stewardship of natural areas all over the world, helping protect biodiversity.
“We’re always looking for creative ways to make dramatic change when it comes to using technology for social good!”
Jim Fruchterman
President and Chief Executive Officer, Benetech, USA; Social Entrepreneur, Schwab Fellow of the World Economic Forum
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