Blog

The Benetech Human Rights team has recently returned from Johannesburg, where we convened multiple Southern African partner organizations in the LGBTI community whom we have been supporting in establishing human rights documentation initiatives. We were very excited to organize this event, as it is the culmination of a four-year, collective effort to build a culture of systematic, evidence-based documentation of human rights violations against LGBTI individuals in Southern Africa.

The Benetech Human Rights team is always seeking new opportunities to connect with grassroots human rights activists and share experiences and lessons learned to help strengthen and defend freedom of expression around the world. We were therefore delighted to host the 2015 cohort of The Internet Freedom Fellows program at our Palo Alto offices earlier this month.

At Benetech, we always seek new opportunities to strengthen existing ties and establish new contacts with our community. We were therefore delighted to partner with the NewCo business festival and proud to have been selected as a host company in the 2015 NewCo Silicon Valley, which was held earlier this month. The session we hosted, led by Vice President of Benetech Labs, Anh Bui, focused on open innovation and tech-for-good, and included demos of our MathML Cloud and 3D Printing for Education projects, which received excellent feedback from our audience.

The tech industry has been successful at figuring out ways to make things faster, easier, and cheaper, and now it is changing the philanthropy and nonprofit sectors, too. In a story that examines the ways in which wealthy, young tech entrepreneurs are turning to philanthropy and transforming nonprofits, the Chronicle of Philanthropy cites CEO Jim Fruchterman on what he has identified as successful models for engaging tech donors.

We are seeking visionary leaders to join Benetech in applying technology to advance the rights of disadvantaged people around the world. Technology is playing an ever larger role in increasing respect for human rights and delivering better services, and we have two rare opportunities to lead world-class tech-for-good programs. Benetech is hiring new Vice Presidents for our Global Literacy and Human Rights programs.