Benetech is a
nonprofit social enterprise
A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.
Social enterprises ca ...
organization that empowers communities with software for social good. Previous projects include the Route 66 Literacy Project, the Miradi environmental project management software, Martus (human rights abuse reporting), and the
Human Rights Data Analysis Group
The Human Rights Data Analysis Group is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that applies rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations around the world. It was founded in 1991 by Patrick Ball. The organization has published findi ...
. Current program areas include global education, human rights, and
poverty alleviation
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics clas ...
.
About
One of Benetech's key education program initiatives is
Bookshare
Bookshare is an online library of accessible ebooks for people with print disabilities, such as visual impairment, severe dyslexia, and cerebral palsy. An initiative of Benetech, a social enterprise organization based in Palo Alto, California, it ...
, an
e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
library for people with
print disabilities A print-disabled person is "a person who cannot effectively read print because of a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability". A print disability prevents a person from gaining information from printed material ...
such as
dyslexia, blindness, low vision, and physical disabilities.
Another project is Benetech Service Net, an
open standards data exchange platform that makes it easier to share and maintain information on local social and human services. Organizations providing referrals or referral technology (such as 2-1-1s, Healthify, or Health Leads) and agencies providing information about their services (such as community-based shelters, food pantries, or government agencies) can work together to make better data available for everyone.
History
Benetech was founded by technology entrepreneur
Jim Fruchterman in
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
, California, under the name of Arkenstone in 1989. It was initially created to provide
reading machine A reading machine is a piece of assistive technology that allows blind people to access printed materials. It scans text, converts the image into text by means of optical character recognition and uses a speech synthesizer to read out what it has ...
s for
blind people. During the period 1989-2000, over 35,000 reading machines were sold in sixty countries, reading twelve different languages. In 2000, the Arkenstone reading machine product line was sold to
Freedom Scientific, and the nonprofit's name was changed to Benetech. The funding from the asset sale was used to start the Bookshare initiative and Martus project in 2001.
Benetech and its Martus software were featured on the
PBS NewsHour
''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS member stations. It airs seven nights a week, and is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events.
Anchored by Judy Woodruff, the pro ...
.
In 2019, Benetech announced the expansion of its inclusive education initiatives, creating new partnerships with organisations such as
Vision Australia, the
Royal National Institute of Blind People
The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is a UK charity offering information, support and advice to almost two million people in the UK with sight loss.
History
The RNIB was founded by Thomas Rhodes Armitage, a doctor who had eye ...
in the
UK,
National Council for the Blind of Ireland, Canada's Center for Equitable Library Access and the
Dubai government.
See also
*
Guatemala National Police Archives
In July 2005, in an abandoned warehouse in downtown Guatemala City, Guatemala, delegates from the country's Institution of the Procurator for Human Rights uncovered, by sheer chance, a vast archive detailing the history of the defunct National P ...
Notes
External links
BenetechBookshare: accessible online library for people with reading barriersBenetech Service NetMartus Human Rights Database SoftwareHuman Rights Data Analysis GroupMiradi Environmental Project Management Software
{{Authority control
Social enterprises
Non-profit organizations based in California
Companies based in Palo Alto, California
Free and open-source software organizations