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We are delighted to share that USAID, World Vision, and the Australian Government awarded Benetech a 2015 grant to improve literacy for primary school students who are blind in India. The new grant, under the three partners’ All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development literacy innovations competition, funds our proposed winning project to provide Indian students who are blind with mother tongue instruction and reading materials through Bookshare, our digital library of accessible books.

Silicon Valley technology nonprofit Benetech today announced the appointments of Betsy Beaumon as president and Mark Roberts as chief operating officer. Founder Jim Fruchterman continues as Benetech’s chief executive officer, evangelizing Benetech and advancing the technology-for-good field. The goal of the senior appointments is to increase Benetech’s social impact at scale and its capacity to create new social enterprises that use technology to deliver social good.

Benetech is one of select U.S. nonprofit organizations to receive seed funding under Google.org’s Global Impact Awards program. Google.org has awarded Benetech the seed grant for the development of secure, open technology tools to advance human rights abuse research and action. Benetech will lead a human rights technology and data consortium and advisory committee to devise technical requirements for a comprehensive human rights information platform. It will also develop open source prototypes for testing in the field. This project will serve social justice groups, civil society organizations, journalists, activists, and researchers.

The impact of the SocialCoding4Good global volunteer community is best told through the enhanced capacity of our project partners. Case in point is how SocialCoding4Good-enabled tech volunteerism helped project partner FrontlineSMS improve its product and better serve its users.

At Benetech, we’re fortunate to have had long-time support from funders who have been willing to bet on us. One foundation that has been a committed supporter of our work is the Lavelle Fund for the Blind. Over and over again, it has allowed us to pilot and eventually scale technology solutions that empower disadvantaged communities. The Fund demonstrates the incredible social impact that private philanthropy can create through smart investing strategies and risk tolerance.