Benetech
Self-portrait
A nonprofit organization that empowers communities in need by creating scalable technology solutions.
Benetech is a different kind of technology company. We’re a nonprofit whose mission is to empower communities in need by creating scalable technology solutions. Our work has transformed how over 425,000 people with disabilities read, made it safer for human rights defenders in over fifty countries to document violations, and equipped environmental conservationists to protect ecosystems and species all over the world. Our Benetech Labs is working on the next big impact. We’ve assembled a unique team of tech leaders, nonprofit social enterprise change makers, and experts in the fields of human rights, technology, education, and the environment. Our team is committed to bringing the power of technology to bear on today’s most pressing social needs and ensuring that those who would benefit most from technology have access to it.
Description
Was founded in 1989 by high technology entrepreneur Jim Fruchterman in Palo Alto, California. Benetech is a nonprofit social enterprise organization. It was created to provide reading machines 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.org and Martus projects. Other projects arte: the Route 66 Literacy Project, the Miradi environmental project management software, Martus (human rights abuse reporting), and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, which provided statistical evidence in the trial of Slobodan Milosovic.
Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.benetech.org/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benetech
