Recent press releases:

Benetech Scientists Publish Analysis of Indirect Sampling Methods in the Journal of the American Medical Association

August 2, Palo Alto, CA - Scientists from the Benetech Human Rights Program have published a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which examines how researchers measure the impact of violent armed conflict on public health. Demographer Romesh Silva and statistician Megan Price note in their comments that while armed conflict creates difficult conditions for researchers, valid scientific measurement can help guide the design of humanitarian assistance programs and strengthen human rights truth and accountability mechanisms.

The JAMA commentary notes that public health researchers acknowledge limitations in their traditional sampling methods and have begun to explore alternative approaches such as indirect sampling. Silva and Price discuss the tradeoffs of using indirect sampling to measure the health consequences of armed conflict in diverse settings from the Thai-Burmese border area to Tanzania, Uganda and Northern India. The commentary notes that indirect sampling provides public health researchers with a potential low-cost method to sample difficult-to-reach populations during armed conflicts and their aftermath, but emphasizes that questions remain about the reliability and validity of the data collected via indirect sampling. Read more about the JAMA article here.

Data Analysis By Benetech Scientists Aid in Arrest of Former Guatemalan Police Chief

June 27, 2011 Palo Alto, CA — Analysis of police documents by Benetech scientists provided critical information used to support the arrest of the former chief of the Guatemalan National Police who is accused of complicity in the 1984 disappearance of a union leader. The arrest of Hector Bol de la Cruz, 70, at his home in Jutiapa southwest of Guatemala City on June 9, is the latest step in an ongoing investigation of former police officials accused of disappearing and murdering Edgar Fernando García and other political activists during the country's 36 years of armed internal conflict. Expert testimony by Benetech statistician Daniel Guzmán, based in part on Benetech's analysis of a random sample of 31.7 million documents in the Guatemalan National Police Archive, provided key evidence in the conviction last year of two former police officers who served under de la Cruz in the Guatemalan National Police. Read more about the arrest here.

Bookshare Showcases Student Technology and its Free, Federally Funded Accessible Book Initiative

May 16, 2011, Washington, DC — Students with print disabilities and administrators from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), along with library and government officials, shared their stories and progress toward improving academic equality and lifelong learning through the use of technology at an event last week at the DC Public Library.

Robert Wexler Joins Benetech Board of Directors

April 28, 2011, Palo Alto, CA — Benetech is pleased to announce that attorney Robert Wexler has joined its board of directors. Wexler is a principal at Adler & Colvin, a firm specializing in the law of nonprofit organizations. His practice focuses primarily on tax and corporate matters for nonprofits and their donors. Wexler is also a lecturer in law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches the Law of Nonprofit Organizations.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Signs Agreement to Provide Titles to Bookshare

April 14, 2011, Palo Alto, CA — John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (JWa, JWb), a leading publisher serving the professional, consumer, scientific, technical, medical and academic communities worldwide, has agreed to provide Bookshare with digital files of professional and trade titles for their collection. This agreement will broaden the access of people with disabilities to Wiley content.

Benetech Releases Accessible E-book App for Apple Device Market

January 31, 2011, Palo Alto, CA — Benetech has announced Read2Go, a new accessible e-book reader for Apple iOS devices. Developed in partnership with Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd, which is known for its PLEXTALK® brand of digital talking book players, Read2Go is the most full-featured, accessible DAISY reader available for the Apple device market. Read2Go is an easy-to-use app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod that connects directly to Benetech's Bookshare service and DAISY 2.02 and 3.0 materials from other sources. Read the full press release here.

Literacy Instruction for Adolescent and Adult Beginning Readers

January 25, 2011 — Literacy experts at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies (CLDS) of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in partnership with Benetech, have introduced a subscription version of Route 66 Literacy this winter. Route 66 Literacy is a flexible, dynamic, internet-based instructional program that provides literacy instruction to adolescent and beginning adult readers. Read the press release here.

View entire Press Release Archive.

Recent announcements:

Benetech Founder Jim Fruchterman Receives 2011 CASE Award for Enterprising Social Innovation

January 10, 2012, Palo Alto, CA — Benetech Founder and CEO Jim Fruchterman has received the 2011 CASE Award for Enterprising Social Innovation from the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurs (CASE) at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business. CASE launched the Award for Enterprising Social Innovation (ESI) to recognize outstanding individuals, organizations, or companies whose innovations blend methods from the worlds of business and philanthropy to create sustainable social value that has the potential for large-scale impact. CASE awarded the inaugural recipient of the CASE Award in the spring of 2009 and accepts nominations from the public each spring. Past recipients have included E&Co (2009) and VisionSpring (2010). Second year MBA student and CASE Fellow Joanne Sprague has written an extensive blog post profiling Jim and Benetech's pioneering social enterprises. You can read the post here.

Amstat News Mentions Account of Testimony By Benetech Statistician

December 2011, Palo Alto, CA - Amstat News, the membership magazine of the American Statistical Association, noted that Benetech statistician Daniel Guzmán authored the lead article in the current issue of CHANCE, the Association's publication for people interested in the analysis of data. CHANCE Executive Editor Sam Behseta, wrote that this "remarkable account" describes Guzmán's testimony as an expert witness in a Guatemalan human rights case. Guzmán's story details how multi-stage sampling methods were used to select relevant documents in the Guatemalan National Police Archive and verify the authenticity of documents related to the case. "The court's ruling, which resulted in the conviction of the involved police forces, is not only a triumph for human rights, but also a reflection of the crucial role statisticians can play in serving justice globally," wrote Behseta.

The Benetech Martus Project Receives a Grant From the MacArthur Foundation

November 30, 2011, Palo Alto, CA — Benetech got some good news recently about our Martus software project that we launched back in 2003. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has provided a generous multi-year grant to the Benetech Human Rights Program (HRP) to develop the next generation of Martus which has been downloaded in more than 120 countries. Martus — which is Greek for "witness" — is secure, open-source information management software used by human rights groups to gather, protect and communicate stories about human rights violations. Read more about this announcement here.,/P.

Bookshare Wins Award to Extend Innovative Tools and Content

U.S. Department of Education Funds Leveraging Impact Through Technology (LIT) Project

November 16, 2011 Palo Alto, CA — The Benetech Bookshare service has received a 1-year, $3M award from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to launch 'LIT' or Leveraging Impact Through Technology. The LIT project, in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), will advance the Bookshare for Education (B4E) initiative that provides Bookshare's online library of copyrighted books free to all qualified U.S. students with a print disability.

Originally funded by a 5-year OSEP award granted in October 2007, the Bookshare for Education project has exceeded its membership and collection targets. B4E now serves 150,000 students and offers 80,000 new educational titles in Bookshare's total collection of more than 125,000 books. The LIT project will use innovative technologies to scale up these services by providing new content, tools and enhanced utilization in the following areas:

• Open-content, publicly available and freely shared image descriptions and reusable graphical models to enhance accessibility in NIMAC http://www.nimac.us/ books and Common Core http://www.corestandards.org/ titles.
• A free, open source Android ebook reader and a free web-based ebook reader along with an accessible bookshelf in the cloud that allows teachers to more easily assign books to students and enables parents and students to add books that are accessible from multiple devices.
• Access to Bookshare books in MP3 and DAISY audio.
• Free professional development for selected districts across the country to increase utilization, leveraging AIR's experience in practice and delivery and Bookshare's hands-on Professional Development Workshops.

For more information about the LIT project, read the press release here.

The Benetech Martus Project Receives a Grant From the MacArthur Foundation

November 30, 2011, Palo Alto, CA — Benetech got some good news recently about our Martus software project that we launched back in 2003. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has provided a generous multi-year grant to the Benetech Human Rights Program (HRP) to develop the next generation of Martus which has been downloaded in more than 120 countries. Martus – which is Greek for "witness" – is secure, open-source information management software used by human rights groups to gather, protect and communicate stories about human rights violations. Read more about this announcement here.

Recent publications:

Guzmán, D., (2011) Speaking Stats to Justice: Expert Testimony in a Guatemalan Human Rights Trial Based on Statistical Sampling, CHANCE, American Statistical Association, 24, (3), Alexandria, VA. 

Françoise Roth, Tamy Guberek, and Amelia Hoover Green. "Using Quantitative Data to Assess Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Colombia: Challenges and Opportunities." A report by the Benetech Human Rights Program and Corporación Punto de Vista. 22 March 2011.

Tamy Guberek, Daniel Guzmán, Megan Price, Kristian Lum and Patrick Ball, “To Count the Uncounted: An Estimation of Lethal Violence in Casanare,” A Report by the Benetech Human Rights Program. 10 February 2010. (Available in Spanish)

Silva, Romesh, Jeff Klingner and Scott Weikart, "State Coordinated Violence in Chad under Hissène Habré: A Statistical Analysis of Reported Prison Mortality in Chad's DDS Prisons and Command Responsibility of Hissène Habré, 1982-1990." A Report by Benetech's Human Rights Data Analysis Group to Human Rights Watch and the Chadian Association of Victims of Political Repression and Crimes. 29 January 2010. (Available in French)

Fruchterman, James R., Developing Infiormation Technology to Meet Social Needs, published in Innovations, a journal published by MIT Press, Summer 2008.

Cibelli, Kristen, Amelia Hoover, and Jule Krüger. 2009. "Descriptive Statistics From Statements to the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission," a Report by the Human Rights Data Analysis Group at Benetech and Annex to the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia. Palo Alto, California. Benetech.

Critical Report Analyzes Sri Lanka's Disappeared —October 27, 2007

Romesh Silva, a statistician for Benetech's Human Rights Data Analysis Group, has co-authored a report that synthesizes the voices of 633 families and relatives of disappearance victims throughout Sri Lanka using descriptive statistical analysis. The report, "Clarifying the Past and Commemorating Sri Lanka's Disappeared: A Descriptive Analysis of Enforced Disappearances Documented by Families of the Disappeared" was written in collaboration with the non-governmental human rights organization, Families of the Disappeared (FoD) and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

The report is part of an ongoing initiative to create a massive, objective and undeniable statistical record of past and present human rights violations in Sri Lanka. This project aims to augment human rights monitoring and reporting by non-governmental groups in order to positively influence the Sri Lankan peace process. By ensuring that arguments about the total magnitude, pattern and levels of responsibility associated with mass violations are informed by science, human rights debates about truth and accountability will be enriched.

Benetech CEO Co-authors Groundbreaking Paper on Expansion Capital Strategies For Social Enterprises — April 3, 2007

Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman has co-authored a groundbreaking paper that analyzes the financial challenges faced by maturing Social Enterprises that seek access to expansion capital. Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Addressing the Critical Gaps in Risk-Taking Capital for Social Enterprise was co-written with Jed Emerson, a Senior Fellow with the Generation Foundation of Generation Investment Management and Tim Freundlich, the Director of Strategic Development at the Calvert Social Investment Foundation.

Benetech HRDAG Analyzes Key Data for Bangladesh Human Rights Report — December 14, 2006, New York, NY

A report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented abuses committed by Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite anti-crime force that has been implicated in alleged torture and unlawful killings of people in custody.

The statistical analysis presented in the report, "Judge, Jury, and Death: Torture and Executions by Bangladesh's Elite Security Force," was conducted by Romesh Silva, a statistician with the Benetech Human Rights Program. The report concludes that between June 2004 and October 2006, the RAB killed at least 367 people in Bangladesh and tortured hundreds more.

Benetech's statistical analysis helped HRW explain the statistical patterns of the killings over time and with respect to the specific units with the RAB that were most responsible for the violence.

Benetech Publishes Essay on Human Rights in China — July 5, 2006, Palo Alto, CA

The China Rights Forum published an essay in their July issue written by Patrick Ball, the director of Benetech's Human Rights Program and Ann Harrison, Benetech's Communications Director. The essay, entitled Asking and Answering Hard Questions: Technology in the Service of Human Rights noted that human rights analysts can use tools adopted from computer science, mathematics, statistics and demography to transform human rights arguments from political polemic to a scientific debate. The authors assert that the job of human rights investigators is to gather all data that can possibly be relevant and store it in a way that is accessible to colleagues, secure from perpetrators and difficult to destroy. The China Rights Forum is the Journal of the international Chinese non-governmental organization, Human Rights In China, which promotes universally recognized human rights and advances the institutional protection of these rights in the People's Republic of China.

Benetech Op-Ed on Violence in Timor-Leste — July 31, 2006, Palo Alto, CA

The Benetech Initiative today released an Op-Ed thanking the Australian military for defending the offices of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) during the recent violence in Dili and urging the United Nations not to squander the opportunity for accountability in Timor-Leste.

Recent articles and press coverage:

Open Source Site Covers Martus — November 14, 2011

LWN, an online technical news site popular with the Linux and open source software community, has posted an article about Benetech's Martus software. The author of the story, Dave Neary, reports that he spoke with Benetech's Dr. Jeff Klingner at the Open World Forum in Paris where Klingner was presenting. According to the story, Klingner noted during his talk that, "NGOs [Non-governmental organizations] who use Martus have confidence in the security of our software because it's open source."

Engineering for Change Interviews Benetech's Dr. Patrick Ball — October 17, 2011

An interview with Benetech's Chief Scientist, Dr. Patrick Ball, has been posted by the humanitarian group Engineering for Change (E4C). The article, entitled Five questions with Patrick Ball discusses the text-centric database that Ball is developing for the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and why it is important to account for selection bias when analyzing patterns of violence.

Statistical Journal Publishes Account of Testimony By Benetech Statistician — September 30, 2011
Daniel Guzmán Describes Analysis of Guatemalan Human Rights Data Used In Landmark Trial

CHANCE, a quarterly journal published by the American Statistical Association, has published an article by Benetech statistician Daniel Guzmán which recounts his testimony in a legal case that set a historic precedent for human rights in Guatemala. Speaking Stats to Justice: Expert Testimony in a Guatemalan Human Rights Trial Based on Statistical Sampling describes Guzmán's presentation of key evidence in the trial of two former Guatemalan National Police agents accused of forcibly disappearing 26-year-old student and union leader Edgar Fernando García in 1984. Both officers were later convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Guzmán's testimony to the court was based on his analysis of random samples drawn from the millions of documents in the Guatemalan National Police Archive. The archive was found by chance in an explosives storehouse in 2005 and contains an estimated 80 million sheets, of paper. Many of the police documents were created during the country's internal armed conflict from 1960 to 1996, during which tens of thousands of Guatemalans disappeared. Guzmán's article describes how he defended his statistical findings and worked with the archive staff, prosecutors and fellow members of the Benetech Human Data Analysis Group to present the data.

Geek is Chic — August 23, 2011

Forbes contributor Tom Coughlin talks about Benetech and CEO Jim Fructherman in his column about the IEEE Sections Congress.

How Benetech Slays Monsters With Megabytes and Math — April 10, 2011

A story in Fast Company describes how Benetech’s Human Rights Program specializes in cloud-based storage of corruption evidence and employs sophisticated statistical techniques that bring dictators to justice.

Human Rights Program Featured on PBS NewsHour — March 25, 2011

The PBS NewsHour has broadcast two extensive stories about Benetech and its Human Rights and Bookshare programs. The first story To Combat Human Rights Abuses, California Company Looks to Computer Code notes that Benetech's Martus software is used to secure sensitive human rights data such as the type of information about abuses that have recently been documented in the Middle East. The story also notes that Benetech's Bookshare library allows people with disabilities to access 95,000 copyrighted digital books in accessible formats. The second PBS story, The Panic Button: High-Tech Protection for Human Rights Investigators explains that Martus includes a "panic button" feature that allows users in threatening situations to delete all data and even the program itself with one keystroke. Unlike other "panic button" applications designed for cell phones, Martus allows users to securely back up their information to secure, remote, publicly available servers. This allows users to retrieve their data when it's safe to do so.

As the PBS stories note, the data collected by Martus is used to hold perpetrators accountable for large scale human rights violations. "The data itself can help build a case against a regime, and in some cases may be as valuable as eyewitness testimony, proving documented patterns of unethical behavior by police or the leader himself," PBS reports. "In Guatemala, which had a bloody civil war in the '80s and '90s, for example, Benetech's program, called Martus, was used to help sift through a huge secret police archive that included records of people killed or disappeared. Two police officials were tried and convicted — so far — as a result of the information gathered by the software program, and analyzed by Benetech experts."

Jim Fruchterman Profiled by San Francisco Chronicle — February 1, 2011

Benetech founder and CEO Jim Fruchterman has been profiled in a story by the San Francisco Chronicle. The article, which is entitled Technology His Launchpad for Literacy, Human Rights, looks at Jim's work as an engineer and his creation of Benetech. The story notes that Benetech only takes on projects where it sees the potential for revolutionary change, applying the technology and business strategies of Silicon Valley to social needs.

"The status quo approach in philanthropy is incremental change," Fruchterman told the Chronicle. "The nature of the tech industry is: How do we make people 5 times more effective? How do we give them capabilities they never had before?"

Large Print Books Profiles Bookshare Member Jessica Pinto — June 29, 2010

Large Print Books has profiled Bookshare member Jessica Pinto and linked to a YouTube video of Jessica and her mother.

Radio Canada Covers HRDAG Chad Report — May 23, 2010

In a story entitled "Hissène Habré, le Pinochet Africain," Radio Canada covered the study by the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) showing that former Chadian president Hissène Habré was well informed of the hundreds of deaths that occurred in prisons operated by his security forces. Read more about this report here.

Foreign Policy Magazine Posts Story about HRDAG Chad Study — March 9, 2010

Reed Brody, counsel and spokesperson for Human Rights Watch, has written an article in Foreign Policy magazine entitled "Inside a Dictator's Secret Police," which cites an HRDAG report on human rights violations in Chad. The HRDAG study, "State Coordinated Violence in Chad under Hissène Habré, A Statistical Analysis of Reported Prison Mortality in Chad's DDS Prisons and Command Responsibility of Hissène Habré, 1982-1990," shows that former Chadian president Hissène Habré had detailed information about the hundreds of deaths that occurred in prisons operated by his state security force, the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS).

The HRDAG report is based on thousands of documents generated by the DDS itself. The analysis could be critical in the long delayed prosecution of Habré who has been accused of killing and systematically torturing thousands of political opponents from 1982 to 1990. Read more about this report here.

Colombian Press Reports on HRDAG Analysis of Violence in Casanare — February 23, 2010

The Colombia Reports news site has reported on an HRDAG study analyzing violence in the Colombian department or state of Casanare from 1998 to 2007. Entitled "NGO Seeks to Stop Conflict Victims Falling Through the Cracks," the story documents HRDAG's February 2010 study analyzing the patterns of violence in Casanare. The study uses a technique called Multiple Systems Estimation (MSE) to calculate the magnitude of these violations. By analyzing multiple datasets containing all known cases of violence, HRDAG analysts were able to estimate the number of killings and disappearances in Casanare that were never recorded. Read more about this study here.

AP Quotes HRDAG's Patrick Ball on Haiti Victim Statistics — February 11, 2010

The Associated Press has quoted HRDAG director Patrick Ball regarding efforts to estimate the number of victims impacted by the earthquake in Haiti. The story includes Ball's observation that accurate data on victims is extremely difficult to gather in such circumstances. "One of the things that distinguishes a disaster like this is a complete breakdown in communications infrastructure," said Ball. "So how are they going to know the difference between who is dead and who is missing?"

HRDAG Chad Analysis Covered In Huffington Post Story — February 10, 2010

In story for the Huffington Post news site entitled "Justice Denied In Africa," Human Rights Watch spokesperson Reed Brody cites HRDAG's study showing that former Chadian president Hissène Habré was well informed of the hundreds of deaths that occurred during his regime in prisons operated by the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS) state security force.

"A report on the documents released last week by the Human Rights Data Analysis Group of the Benetech Initiative found 'a clear communication and command link' between Habré and the DDS and showed that Habré received 1,265 direct communications from the DDS about the status of 898 detainees," writes Brody. "The documents listed 1,208 dead prisoners, confirming what victims told me — that most of those who entered Habré's dungeons, including one at the presidential compound, never came out alive." Read more about this report here.

Radio Netherlands Covers the Case Against Hissène Habré — February 10, 2010

Radio Netherlands has broadcast a story about the case against former Chadian president Hissène Habré. The report includes information about the recent study released by HRDAG showing that Habré received detailed information about the hundreds of deaths that occurred in prisons operated by his state security force, the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS). Read more about this report here.

Human Rights Watch Cites HRDAG Analysis — January 29, 2010

Key analysis from Benetech's Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) was cited in a press release from Human Rights Watch on a complaint filed by torture survivors and the families of those who died from torture during the regime of former Chadian leader Hissène Habré's. The complaint charged Habré with crimes against humanity and torture and asked a Senegalese prosecutor to investigate their claims and file formal charges against Habré.

The case is based on documentary evidence and well as the testimony of victims and those who worked for Habré. The complaint alleges that Habré created and controlled a political police force, the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS), which systematically tortured political opponents and members of ethnic groups perceived as hostile to his regime. In 2001, Human Rights Watch discovered a cache of DDS files in its abandoned headquarters in N'Djamena, Chad. Among the tens of thousands of documents were daily lists of prisoners and deaths in detention, interrogation reports, surveillance reports, and death certificates. 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.

Christian Science Monitor Covers HRDAG Comments on Human Security Report — January 25, 2010

The Christian Science Monitor has quoted HRDAG director Patrick Ball in a story which examines the recently released Human Security Report. The story, entitled "New Study Argues War Deaths Are Often Overestimated" notes that Ball agrees with the authors of the report who assert that estimates made by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) of deaths due to conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo are flawed.

But in the blog item posted below, HRDAG researchers question the HSR claim that "nationwide mortality rates actually fall during most wars" and that "today's wars rarely kill enough people to reverse the decline in peacetime mortality that has been underway in the developing world for more than 30 years."

Anita Gohdes, Megan Price, and Patrick Ball write that they are deeply skeptical of the methods and data used by the HSR authors to conclude that conflict-related deaths are decreasing. "We believe that the authors should examine their own data on mortality related deaths with the same rigor with which they critique the recent IRC surveys," write the HRDAG researchers. "If they did this, they would find that they have inadequate information to conclude anything about the trend in war-related lethality in recent decades." HRDAG's concerns about the estimates of war deaths by the HSR authors are discussed by noted statistician Andrew Gelman on his blog.

Jeune Afrique Publishes Story on Violations During Habré Regime — January 2010

The news magazine Jeune Afrique has published a story about the analysis of human rights violations which occurred during the regime of form Chadian president Hissène Habré. The story cites the report released by HRDAG showing that Habré knew about the hundreds of deaths that occurred in prisons operated by his state security force, the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS). Read more about this report here.

Mother Jones Covers Benetech's Martus Software — January 2010

In a story about ex-patriot Burmese men in Thailand who document human rights violations in Burma, Mother Jones included information about Benetech's Martus secure database software. The story, "For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question," reports that Martus is used by Bumese human rights activists to collect and encypt information about human rights violations in Burma. You can read the entire story here.

Congressional Quarterly Features Benetech in Truth Commissions Report — January 2010

A Global Researcher report on truth commissions published by Congressional Quarterly offers an extensive profile of Patrick Ball, the Director of Benetech's Human Rights Program. The report, entitled, "Truth Commissions: Can Countries Heal After Atrocities?" features a subsection on page ten entitled, "Finding Out What Really Happened: Statistician separates fact from fiction for truth commissions." The story reports that the essence of Ball's job is the ability to see ordinary material as statistical data. "'Everything is data to us," he says. "A pile of scrungy paper from border guards - 690 pages - that's data."

The story goes on to note that Ball's team finds data, codes it, analyzes and interprets it. But statistics is a world of careful hypotheses, not bold proclamations. "Data," says Ball, "is what we're able to observe. That's not the same as what is true."

Chronicle of Philanthropy Features Comments From Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman — January 7, 2010

In a story entitled, "Charity and Business Will Blend in New Ways by 2020," Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman is quoted about the future of nonprofit organizations. "'The for-profit whose job is only to make money or the nonprofit which is a charity, those are two poles. In reality there is an entire spectrum in between them,' says Jim Fruchterman, chief executive of Benetech, a nonprofit technology organization in Palo Alto, Calif. In the next 10 years, he expects changes in federal and state laws to foster the development of L3C's. 'Someone should be able to operate a business and have a social mission without getting sued by shareholders for not making the maximum [amount of] money,' he says."

View entire Articles and Press Coverage Archive.

Recent presentations:

Bookshare.org for Education (B4E) Presentation to OSEP — November 2007

Presentation by Jim Fruchterman and Lisa Friendly to the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education, which awarded Benetech $32 million to provide Bookshare.org to every student with a print disability in the United States.

View presentation here
PowerPoint version

HRDAG Statistician Advisors Speak In Guatemala City &mdash August 7, 2007, Guatemala City, Guatemala

August 7, 2007 — Statisticians Paul Zador and Gary Shapiro, who have provided pro bono technical assistance to Benetech's Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), gave a presentation today in Guatemala City entitled "The Application of Statistics to Human Rights Violation Research." They were joined by HRDAG statistician Daniel Guzmán who also spoke.

Zador and Shapiro, who are members of the American Statistical Association, have consulted to HRDAG on the scientific sampling method used at the National Police Archive project. The estimated 80 million records in the archive contain critical information about police procedures during Guatemala's 36 years of armed internal conflict that resulted in 200,000 deaths and disappearances. The archive is the largest single cache of documents made available to human rights investigators in Latin America.

The event was hosted by the United Nations Development Program and the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman which is overseeing the archive project.

World Summit on the Information Society — November 15, 2005

Text of remarks by Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia. The focus of the speech was on building a global digital library for people with print disabilities.
Read Jim Fruchterman's speech to the World Summit on the Information Society (PDF)

View entire Presentations Archive.

Recent white papers:

Comments on Accessibility of Google Print and Google's Library Project

Google's recent announcement of massive library digitization partnerships has generated a huge amount of interest and angst in the print disabled community, and brought focus on the Google Print program. This short white paper aims to illuminate the issues and set the stage for future discussions with Google. Google has not approved this paper, although we hope they will use it as a tool in advancing accessibility.

Download the article (PDF)

View entire White Papers Archive.