2009

Colombian Press Covers Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis — November 2 , 2009

The Colombian news magazine SEMANA has published an article citing research by the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) estimating the number of people who have disappeared in the Colombian department or state of Casanare. The article, entitled "The Invisible Crime," (English translation) reports that the Colombian Prosecutor's Office has confirmed 25,000 cases of forced disappearance throughout Colombia including 591 disappearances in Casanare.

The article notes that HRDAG estimated in its 2007 study "Missing People In Casanare" that the total number of missing persons in Casanare from 1986-2007 is 2,553. HRDAG's analysis suggests that between thirty and forty percent of missing persons in Casanare were unreported during this period. Read more about HRDAG's analysis of disappearances in Colombia.

BBC and Business Press Cover Benetech's Guatemalan National Police Archive Project — May 9, 2009

Palo Alto, CA — The BBC has aired an extensive two-part investigative report on the Guatemalan National Police Archive project entitled The Atrocity Archives.

The story includes comments from Dr. Patrick Ball, Director of Benetech's Human Rights Program. The archive project was also covered in a recent story about Benetech by Investor's Business Daily. Benetech's Martus and HRDAG teams have provided technology to collect, organize, secure and back up data collected from the archive which includes an estimated 80 million records. The recovered police records, which were the subject of Guatemalan government report last month, could provide critical information about the estimated 200,000 people dead or missing during Guatemala's 36-year civil war and help bring perpetrators to justice.

2008

ABC-7 News Interviews Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman — October 29, 2008

The San Francisco ABC News Affiliate ABC-7 featured Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman in its story about the recent Social Capital Markets Conference in San Francisco. The conference, which was attended by over 650 people, featured Benetech as a socially responsible business. Reporter Teresa Garcia also interviewed Kevin Jones of the Good Capital venture capital firm and Tim Freundlich who of the Calvert Social Investment Foundation who is also a founding principal of Good Capital.

Bookshare™ Covered By Indian Press — October 26, 2008

Several media organizations in India recently covered Benetech's new partnerships with Indian organizations to support the Bookshare library and provide accessible digital texts. These partnerships will help International Bookshare begin to serve India's ten million blind people, three million of whom are children. The Times of India posted a story titled For Print-Disabled Reading Best Sellers Is Just A Click Away and the Hindustan Times ran a story about the Online Library for The Blind.

The story in the Indian Express, Bookshare Inks Pact With Three Organizations in India, quoted Dr. Taraporevala, Director of Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC) in Mumbia which will manage the registration of qualified Bookshare members in West India. "Print disabled persons cannot be kept away from the printed books and hence the partnership will play a key role," said Dr. Taraporevala.

High Technology For Low Vision

September 22, 2008, Palo Alto, CA — The Health Journal section of the Wall Street Journal included Benetech's Bookshare service in a story entitled High Technology For Low Vision. The story notes that readers with low vision can use the text-to-speech engine in the BookCourier portable reading device to read books from Bookshare. The story quoted Eleanor Roth who has lost much of her vision to retinitis pigmentosa and now volunteers with Lighthouse International, a nonprofit organization that offers vision rehabilitation services. "It's the best thing ever invented," said Roth of the books on her portable device.

Benetech Cited at Web 2.0 Expo

September 18, 2008, New York, NY — Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc, mentioned Benetech as one of several innovative nonprofit organizations during his keynote at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City. O'Reilly said that these nonprofits upheld lasting values that he recommended that engineers embrace. He told the attendees to: follow your heart, work on the the problems that matter, and create more value than you capture. You can read a blog entry from a blogger who attended.

HRDAG Work in Chad Cited

September 15, 2008, Washington, DC — Key analysis from Benetech's Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) was cited in a statement from Human Rights Watch regarding a complaint filed by torture survivors and the families of those who died from torture during the regime of former Chadian leader Hissène Habré. The complaint charged Habré with crimes against humanity and torture and asked prosecutors to file formal charges. The case is based on the testimony of victims and documentary evidence including tens of thousands of documents from Habré's police force discovered in an abandoned police headquarters. A preliminary analysis of the data by HRDAG showed that a total of 12,321 different victims were mentioned in the documents, including the deaths in detention of 1,208 individuals.

Bay Area ABC New Affiliate Covers HRP

July 21, 2008, Palo Alto, CA — The local ABC News affiliate KGO-TV Channel 7 has broadcast a story about Benetech's Human Rights Program and it's work at the Guatemalan National Police archive. You can watch the report here.

Benetech's Frontline Report Featured in Film Festival

The Frontline/World annual "Heroes From A Small Planet" Film Festival will screen the recent PBS Frontline/World Report on Benetech's Guatemalan National Police Archive project. The festival focuses on stories involving social entrepreneurs and will feature a discussion with Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman who won a 1996 MacArthur Fellowship for his role as a pioneering social entrepreneur. The Skoll Foundation, which supports Benetech, is underwriting the Frontline/World broadcasts and online segments about social entrepreneurs. The event will take place Monday, June 23 at the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco. The reception begins at 6:00 pm followed by screening and discussion. Admission is free, but space is limited. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Frontline/World at rsvp@flworld.org.

Frontline Airs Story on Guatemala National Police Archive Project

May 27, 2008, Palo Alto, CA — The PBS television series Frontline/World aired an investigative report on the Guatemala National Police Archive project which includes interviews with team members from Benetech's Martus and Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG). Martus and HRDAG provide technology to collect, organize, secure and back up data collected from the archive which includes an estimated 80 million records. The largest known human rights archive in the Americas, the recovered police records could provide critical information about the estimated 200,000 people dead or missing during Guatemala's 36-year civil war and help bring perpetrators to justice.

The archive segment aired on the East Coast on May 27th and in the San Francisco Bay area on KQED Channel 9 on June 10th.

Benetech Cited In New York Times Social Enterprise Story

April 14, 2008, Palo Alto, CA — Benetech has been cited in a New York Times story about "hybrid" technology organizations that are defining a path between the nonprofit world and traditional for-profit ventures. Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman provides the lead quote for the article entitled, "When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission," which appears in the Technology section of the newspaper. The story also appeared in the International Herald Tribune and on the Slashdot web sit. "There is a lot of discussion taking place right now about a whole new organization form around social enterprise," said Fruchterman in the article. "Many of these efforts can make money; they will just never make enough to provide venture capital rates of return."

eSchool News Covers Bookshare Text Reader

April 4, 2008, Palo Alto, CA — eSchool News has covered the recent partnership between Benetech's Bookshare service and Don Johnston to provide qualified print disabled students with a free text reader to access electronic books from the Bookshare library. Entitled, "Free Text Reader to Help Print-Disabled Students," the story notes that the Read:OutLoud Bookshare Edition Text Reader will serve an estimated 1 to 3 percent of the total K-12 student population-specifically, those who receive special-education services and who are unable to read standard print materials owing to physical limitations.

HRDAG Included In Science News Report on Humanitarian Statistics

March 29, 2008, Palo Alto, CA — Dr. Patrick Ball and Romesh Silva of Benetech's Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) are included in a Science News story about statistical tools that help guide responses to human rights crises. The report, entitled "Humanitarian Statistics," describes HRDAG's analysis of deaths during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste from 1974-1999. HRDAG's analysis for the Commision for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation concluded that the country suffered more than 100,000 deaths beyond what would have been expected in peacetime and that this rate of mortality was not driven by direct violence but rather famine-related deaths.

The New York Times Magazine Profiles Dr. Patrick Ball

Palo Alto, February 17, 2008 — Dr. Patrick Ball, the director of Benetech's Human Rights Program, was described by the The New York Times Magazine as "one of the most admired figures in the field." The article, entitled The Forensic Humanitarian, documents Dr. Ball's ongoing analysis of homicide rates in Colombia and describes how statisticians calculate human rights violations that have not been counted. "Statistical methodology has parted the veil of indifference and ignorance, and the true state of affairs . . . has begun to emerge," writes Dr. Ball and his colleagues in an earlier study in Peru cited by the magazine.

Dr. Patrick Ball Recognized as Cutting Edge Human Rights Statistician — Palo Alto, CA, January 29, 2008

Palo Alto, February 13, 2008 — The Christian Science Monitor has published a lengthy profile of Dr. Patrick Ball, the director of Benetech's Human Rights Program. The story entitled A Human Rights Statistician Finds Truth In Numbers documents Dr. Ball's role in analyzing some of the most prominent large scale human rights violations in recent history - including the migration of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Kosovo. Dr. Ball presented this data as an expert witness in the case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Bookshare Student Users Profiled by Assisitive Technology Organization — Palo Alto, California, February 6, 2008

A group of accomplished middle school students who use Benetech's Bookshare service to help improve their reading comprehension, have been profiled by the assisitive technology organization Closing The Gap. The group's newspaper, which reviews assistive technology for children and adults with special needs, has published a story about Bookshare members at the Corte Madera School in Portola Valley, California. Written by Ann Harrison, Benetech's Director of Communications, the story documents the school's successful efforts to download Bookshare texts to student laptops and introduce a software program that reads the books aloud in a human voice. "I was amazed to see how engaged they were. And the types of books they have, I have never seen them reading before," said Joel Willen, principal of the Corte Madera School. "I have been in education a long time and I think this is something incredibly powerful that I wish I had as a teacher a long time ago. It is really going to revolutionize learning a for a certain group of kids."

Press Coverage of Patrick Ball — Palo Alto, CA, January 29, 2008

Dr. Patrick Ball's presentation at the Technology in Wartime conference has been covered in a story by the San Francisco Chronicle. Dr. Ball, who serves as Chief Scientist and director of Benetech's Human Rights Programs, was invited to speak by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) which hosted the conference at Stanford University.

John Glass Radio Interview — Palo Alto, CA, January 23, 2008

The Kentucky Council of the Blind (KCB) radio talk show interviewed Bookshare's Customer Support Manager John Glass about the expansion of Bookshare's services to print-disabled readers. The broadcast is available online.

2007

New York Times Quotes Benetech CEO On Charitable Giving For A Financial and Social Return — November 12, 2007

The New York Times has quoted Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman in a holiday Giving Section story on Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who are using their business acumen to transform their charitable giving to mission-oriented investing for both a financial and social return. The story, "With Sudden Wealth, the Desire for Sudden Impact" includes Fruchterman's observation that an increasing number of people are deploying capital in for-profit initiatives that have a social outcome.

"Within a 10-mile radius of Palo Alto, there are a couple of thousand families that could give $50 million to a social cause and fundamentally change some issue," Fruchterman said. "You could do a lot with $50 million, or even $10 million. You could cure a disease, or revolutionize services to an impoverished part of the world."

Hadley School for the Blind partners with Bookshare —November 1, 2007

A local newspaper in Winnetka, IL recently covered Bookshare's partnership with The Hadley School for the Blind, which provides tuition-free distance education programs for 10,000 blind students and their families each year. The story notes that Hadley has established a volunteer program that will create a scanned library of recommended reading from Hadley courses and books about Braille. Bookshare will include these texts in its online library that lets people with print disabilities, such as blindness or low vision, scan books and exchange them legally through its website. Hadley students have free access to Bookshare thanks to a $32 million five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education that gives all U.S. students with print disabilities access to this library without charge.

Bookshare Award Covered in the San Jose Mercury News — October 19, 2007

The San Jose Mercury News has published a lively story about the U.S. Department of Education's $32 million five-year grant to Benetech's Bookshare project. The article gives well-deserved credit to Bookshare alpha volunteer Carrie Karnos and collection Development Manager Claire O'Brien who see to it that Bookshare members have access to the latest bestsellers and educational books. Bookshare remains the world's largest accessible collection of scanned books and periodicals for use by those with a qualifying print disability such as blindness, severe dyslexia or a mobility impairment. The story quotes Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman who notes that thanks to the grant, Bookshare will likely be adding more than 500 books a week to its site, or more than 100,000 new volumes over the next five years.

Stanford Magazine Profiles Jim Fruchterman —July/August 2007

The Stanford Magazine has published a profile of Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman entitled Geeks For Good. Fruchterman was a PhD student at Stanford and together with another Stanford student, built a reading machine for the blind that became the first of many social technology projects from Benetech. The article presents Benetech's Bookshare, Route 66 Literacy, Miradi, Martus and Human Rights Data Analysis Group projects which "harness Silicon Valley's engineering expertise for social benefit." It also talks about the landmine detector project, which was recently put on the back burner at Benetech because of political difficulties getting access to and exporting the needed technology. The article concludes with Jim's vision of giving back to society through technology delivering social benefits.

South African Webzine Features Martus and Analyzer — March 21, 2007, South Africa

Independent Online Technology, a South African webzine, features Benetech technologies Martus and Analyzer in its article, Open Source used in fight for human rights.

Benetech Tools Highlighted In Guatemala Police Archive Project — March 3, 2007

The San Francisco Chronicle has published a feature article highlighting Benetech's role in providing technology tools to collect, organize and back up data from the ongoing Guatemalan National Police Archive project. The story, Guatemala Struggles To Find War Crimes Justice, notes that the recovered police records could provide critical information about the estimated 200,000 people dead or missing during Guatemala's 36-year civil war and help bring perpetrators to justice.

Benetech's Bookshare Service Profiled On CBS News — February 22, 2007

Benetech's Bookshare project was profiled in a feature story on the CBS Evening News today. Appearing as part of the CBS "American Spirit" series on innovations that scale to meet social needs, the program, entitled Tech Entrepreneur Helps Blind To Read, included Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman, Bookshare Customer Service Manager John Glass, Bookshare volunteer Carrie Karnos and Bookshare members Brian Miller and Priscilla McKinley of Alexandria, Virginia. Miller was pictured listening to his daily newspaper via Bookshare enroute to work on the Washington D.C metro. CBS producers say they have received many calls in support of the program. Benetech congratulates all those who appeared in the broadcast and helped to make millions of CBS Evening News viewers more aware of the Bookshare community.

• View CBS Evening News Interview Tech Entrepreneur Helps Blind To Read
• View CBS Evening News Internet Coverage
• View additional interview footage A Different Measure of Success

ITWorld Article Highlights Martus Project in Guatemala — February 7, 2007

The IDG News Service has posted a story about the Guatemalan National Police Archive project and its use of Benetech's Martus software. The story, Digging For the Truth which appears in the IDG publication ITWorld, features Jorge Villagrán of the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman Office which is examining the archive to determine the role of the National Police in Guatemala's 36-year armed internal conflict. Villagrán introduced the Martus tool to manage, analyze and encrypt a portion of the estimated 80 million documents in the archive. The story quotes Tamy Guberek, Benetech's Latin America projects coordinator, who notes that the Guatemalans were keen to secure their information with Martus. "They're very strict on data security," said Guberek. "They've taken a huge initiative to understand the tool and get the most out of it."

AccessWorld Interview

An interview with Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman is featured in the January 2007 issue of AFB AccessWorld. Celebrating the Naming of a Genius: An Interview with Jim Fruchterman covers Fruchterman's 2006 MacArthur Fellowship and the expansion of Bookshare. Writer Deborah Kendrick also touches on Benetech's Route 66 Literacy service and Fruchterman's dream of of an inexpensive cell phone that delivers audio books and GPS coordinates. AFB AccessWorld: Technology and People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired, is published by the American Foundation for the Blind.

Network Philanthropy — January 21, 2007
Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman is quoted in Network Philanthropy, a feature story that appeared this week in West, the Los Angeles Times magazine. The article, written by New American Foundation Fellow Douglas McGray, profiles the work of venture philanthropy pioneers Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll. Benetech receives support from the innovative foundations launched by these two technology entrepreneurs, The Omidyar Network and the Skoll Foundation.

2006

Bookshare Volunteer Praised By Hometown Newspaper — December 6, 2006

Bookshare volunteer Matthew Devcich, who created an Eagle Scout service project that scanned and proofread 24 books, has been profiled by his hometown paper. The Fairfax County Times published a story entitled, "Helping Everyone Read," which described how Devcich recruited a group of volunteers to scan in his favorite books on thoroughbred racing. We congratulate Devcich for this well-deserved recognition.

"There is nothing wrong with a normal Eagle Scout beautification project, but he really went above and beyond to find something that will impact countless of people," said Debra Wright, a Boy Scout mother and volunteer for Devcich's project who was quoted in the story.

Benetech's Jim Fruchterman Profiled By IEEE Spectrum — December 2006

The IEEE Spectrum magazine has published an extensive profile of Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman in its December issue. Together with an introduction by Senior Editor Tekla S. Perry, the story "Doing Well by Doing Good," offers a detailed history of Benetech, its current projects, and Jim's role in promoting social entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley.

The IEEE Spectrum story quotes Chris Eyre, managing director of the Palo Alto venture capital firm Legacy Venture, who notes that 30 years from now, Benetech may be viewed in the same light as Fairchild Semiconductor which spun off many other companies and creative people who made their mark on the high tech community. "But why shouldn't Silicon Valley do for the social sector what it did for the private sector?" asks Eyre in the final sentence of the story. "Perhaps once again, one smart engineer with a little Palo Alto company will change the world."

Jim Fruchterman Urges Silicon Valley To Address Global Concerns — November 13, 2006

Benetech Founder and CEO Jim Fruchterman published an OpEd in the San Jose Mercury News urging Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and technologists to apply their skills to solve pressing social problems. Fruchterman's essay, Build Great Companies, Then Help Build A Great World points to current projects launched by high-tech philanthropists and encourages social entrepreneurs to link up with like-minded people. Fruchterman will be speaking at the Silicon Valley Challenge Summit: Sharing Technological Innovation for Global Benefit at Santa Clara University on November 16. More information on the summit is available at www.scu.edu/sts/Events/rios/.

Benetech Attracts Increasing Local And National Press — October 12, 2006

Since Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship last month, both he and Benetech have been the focus of increasing media coverage. In addition to reports about the MacArthur winners in The New York Times and USA Today, profiles of Jim have appeared in San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News which published a news story on the three Bay Area MacArthur winners, a business section feature story and an exceptional column by Mike Cassidy entitled An Executive Does Well By Helping Others.

Betsy Corcoran, a columnist at Forbes also wrote about Jim noting that he is "one of a handful of people at the forefront of starting not-for-profit technology companies."

This month, the Social Enterprise Reporter published Jim's essay entitled High Tech Approaches for Building Social Enterprise. NewsForge has published an informative story about Benetech's use of free software. Just this week, Patrick Ball, the director of Benetech's Human Rights Program was interviewed again by NPR for a story about the Johns Hopkins University report estimating that 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war. Watch for upcoming stories about Benetech in Science Magazine, Wired Magazine, the IEEE Spectrum magazine and the Bloomberg.com financial news site.

Benetech Reaps Benefits From Free Software — October 6, 2006

Patrick Ball, Benetech CTO and Human Rights Program Director, was interviewed by NewsForge about Benetech's use of free software. The story, High-tech Social Enterprise Reaps Free Software's Benefits notes Benetech's use of Ubuntu and other well-designed free software tools. NewsForge is the online newspaper for the Linux and Open Source community.

NPR Covers Guatemalan National Police Archive — August 28, 2006

National Public Radio's Morning Edition program broadcast an extensive feature story on the Guatemala National Police Archive project, which is supported by Benetech's Human Rights Program (HRP). Benetech helped the Guatemalan government and local NGOs develop a plan to analyze the archive's 80 million documents which document murders and disappearances during Guatemala's 30-year civil war. The story featured HRP director Patrick Ball, who noted that the archive contains..."by far, the largest single cache of documents that's been made available to a human rights process in history." A transcript and audio file of the story reported by NPR's John Burnettt is available at NPR - Guatemala Police Archive Yields Clues to 'Dirty War'.

OSI Profiles Martus Use in Africa &mdash February 2006

The Digest of the Open Society Initiative for South Africa has posted an extensive story about Martus use in Southern Africa. The story, Information Communications Technology For Human Rights in Southern Africa, points to a recent survey that assessed the use of Martus in Southern Africa by human rights organizations, particularly women's NGOs.

Articles highlight the Martus project in the Philippines

'High tech' reporting focal vs human rights violations -CHR, Minda News

"Martus" project is back, Philippine Information Agency

RP ahead in human rights observance, says CHR, Philippine Information Agency

Human rights agency gets software for database of cases, Sun Star

African Open Source Mag Features Martus &mdash February 13, 2006, South Africa

Tectonic, Africa's first open source magazine, features Martus and Martus users in Kenya in the following article. Free software working for human rights

Wired — February 9, 2006
The citizens of East Timor who perished during Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation of their island nation might have died unaccounted for, but a group of determined programmers and statisticians refused to let that happen. Read Wired Magazine's story on how Benetech's HRDAG documented over 102,000 civilian deaths in the former Portuguese colony.

2005

KPIX (CBS 5) Newscast — August 9, 2005
San Francisco-based television station presents a news story that highlights the work of Benetech’s Bookshare. Read the KPIX broadcast transcript.

Wall Street Journal Online — August 5, 2005
Article by Carl Bialik: Counting the Civilian Dead in Iraq. Features quotes from Benetech’s Dr. Patrick Ball. Read the Wall Street Journal article.

San Francisco Chronicle — July 15, 2005
Article by Maura Thurman: Books ripped up, fed to online library for the blind. Focuses on Bookshare library containing more than 24,000 books. Read "Books ripped up..." article.

OneWorld.net Highlights Martus — July 15, 2005, Washington, D.C.

OneWorld, an online media gateway for informing a global audience about human rights and sustainable development, has highlighted Martus in the following article: Martus - Technology for Human Rights.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Newsletter — Summer 2005 Article highlights Benetech's Human Rights Programs and the impact they are having throughout the world. Read the MacArthur Foundation newsletter.

Stanford Business School Case Highlights Benetech — 2005

In this case, Benetech is used as one of three examples of how social entrepreneurs are counteracting market failure by "discovering and implementing new ways of creating social and environmental value by serving the needs of poor, disadvantaged, and neglected communities."
Read the Benetech Extract.

Access Full Case information.

2004

Open Source Africa Covers Martus — December 2004

OpenSourceAfrica has written a case-study about Martus use by the Kisima Peace & Development Organisation, a human rights group in Somalia. Read the case study here.

Bangkok Post on Martus in Thailand — July 8, 2004

Thai newspaper the Bangkok Post recently published an article announcing the introduction of Martus to Thai NGOs. Read about Martus in the Bangkok Post.

Martus Makes Technology Headlines — May 31, 2004

The San Jose Mercury News features a major article on the Martus Global Social Justice Monitoring System in its Technology section. Read the article here (may require free registration).

eSchool News Online: Bookshare offers 17,000 royalty-free texts — May 7, 2004

Thanks to the aid of Bookshare, a non-profit digital book service based in Palo Alto, Calif., educators have access to a library of thousands of titles... Read the eWorld News Online article .

Technology Benefiting Humanity — April 2004

The Association of Computing Machines' Ubiquity magazine featured this piece by Jim Fruchterman, offering an in-depth look at the vision of "Technology Benefiting Humanity" that drives Benetech. Read Technology Benefitting Humanity.

GeoWorld on Martus and GIS — April 2004

GeoWorld magazine looks at how the combination of Geographical Information System technology and the Martus Human Rights Bulletin System can fight human rights abuses.

The Power of Technology Social Enterprises — February 2004

An article by Jim Fruchterman providing an overview of the social enterprise model and its potential in combination with high technology. Published as part of the N-Ten Forecast Series.

2003

Business Week Highlights Martus — August 19, 2003

In its review of "Technology with Social Skills," Business Week Online takes a look at the impact Martus is having in the civil war-torn Philippines, where human rights groups use the system to bring abuse reporting into the computer age. Read Business Week Highlights Martus.

Placing People Before Profit — April 14, 2003

The San Francisco Chronicle discusses how Benetech's Martus Project helps social justice groups manage their information more effectively. Read Placing People Before Proit.

2002

Fruchterman Interviewed by The Technical Innovations Bulletin — September 2002

Vito Proscia, founder of Innovative Rehabilitative Technology, Inc. interviews Jim Fruchterman for the September 2002 issue of The Technical Innovations Bulletin.

Listen to the interview online (MP3).

Caltech News: From Smart Bombs to Reading Machines — 2002

One-time rocket scientist Jim Fruchterman ’80, MS ’80, now turned socially minded entrepreneur, says he wants to use existing technology to help people live their lives a little better. In some cases, a lot better. Read From Smart Bombs to Reading Machines. (PDF reprinted with permission.)

Blossoming of the eBook and What it Means to Visually Impaired People — 2002

What's the potential in ebooks and other accessible reading materials for blind or visually impaired people? They may just make the Internet the new bookstore and library for such readers. Read Blossoming of the eBook.

Doing a Number on Violators — March 14, 2002

The Los Angeles Timeshighlights the work of Patrick Ball in Kosovo, as he systematically culled data on civilian deaths from refugee reports, exhumations and witness accounts. The statistical portrait of the displaced, missing and killed reveals the timing and ferocity of fatal blows that fell across an entire province. Read Doing a Number on Violators.

Charity's First Project Puts Digital Books in Hands of Disabled — March 7, 2002

The Chronicle of Philanthropy article: Bookshare was inspired by Napster, but with one big difference. Unlike the embattled music-sharing service, Bookshare expects no legal fights over its use of copyrighted materials. Read Charity's First Project.... (PDF reprinted with permission.)

High-Tech Tooling Around: Entrepreneur wants to help those ignored by for-profit world — March 7, 2002

The Chronicle of Philanthropy article: Mr. Fruchterman reasoned that the same technology that was used in smart bombs could be used to build a device that would read text for people who are blind. Read High-tech Tooling Around. (PDF reprinted with permission.)

Entrepreneur applies high-tech to social problems — February 27, 2002

The Palo Alto Weekly article: Visiting the new quarters of Benetech, a technology nonprofit on California Avenue in Palo Alto, is a little like touring a technology incubator circa 1997. One element is missing from the usual dot-com formula, however: a profit motive. Read Entrepreneur Applies High-tech to Social Problems. (PDF reprinted with permission.)

Bookshare Opens up Choices for Disabled Readers — February 21, 2002

USA Today article: To call Rich Ring an avid reader is an understatement. In the past week, he has read five books -- and reading isn't a simple matter for Ring, of Portland, Ore., who is blind. But a new Web site called Bookshare should make Ring's life easier. Read Bookshare Opens up Choices for Disabled Readers.

Bookshare: A Community for Sharing and Reading — February 2002

Braille Forum article about Bookshare. Read Bookshare: A Community for Sharing and Reading.

Putting Books Online for the Visually Disabled — February 21, 2002

The Christian Science Monitor article: Benetech, a Silicon Valley nonprofit technology developer, has come up with Bookshare, a book-swapping website that brings more than 10,000 books to people with visual disabilities. Read Putting Books Online for the Visually Disable. (PDF reprinted with permission.)

Bookshare: An Online Library for the Print-Disabled — January 29, 2002

Large Print Reviews article: Bookshare is an innovative online community and book sharing program that is being shepherded into existence by Benetech, a nonprofit organization. Read Bookshare: An Online Library for the Print-Disabled.

The Soundproof Book: Exploration of Rights conflict and Access to Commercial eBooks for People with Disabilities — 2002

An article by George Kerscher, International Project Manager, DAISY Consortium and Jim Fruchterman, CEO of the Benetech Initiative on the heated rights controversy concerning the use of synthetic speech -- Text-To-Speech (TTS) as it relates to the use of eBook publications by persons with disabilities. Originally published by First Monday. Read The Soundproof Book.

2001

Bookshare: Books without Barriers — November 2001

Braille Monitor article about Bookshare. Read Bookshare: Books Without Barriers .

Open Source Plan Could Aid Torture Victims — April 9, 2001

CNET article describes the Martus Project and Jim Fruchterman's vision for Benetech. Read Open Source Plan Could Aid Tortune Victims.