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Wondering how you can make a real difference in the life of a veteran? Join us in week 2 of our Bookshare for Veterans crowdfunding campaign on CrowdRise! We’re on a mission to improve the quality of life for US veterans with print disabilities by giving them the gift of reading through Bookshare. In addition to one of the grand Challenge prizes worth up to $50,000, we’re also trying to win the weekly Bonus Challenge cash prizes. If you aren’t already a Challenge team member, just go to our campaign page, click “Fundraise for this Campaign” and follow the steps to get started.

My name is Anuruddha Hettiarachchi and I am a senior at the University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka majoring in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering. My Google Summer of Code 2013 project was to integrate Benetech’s Go Read tool and “Tecla Access.” Making Go Read Tecla-accessible will greatly improve its usability for people who cannot read standard eBooks due to mobility impairments. This was my first experience with open source development and I had the opportunity to learn how much collaboration and teamwork are central to real world open source software projects. It was a pleasure to work with such a flexible and supportive team as Benetech’s Google Summer of Code crew.

Against the Grain, an online magazine focused on the issues, literature and people that impact the world of books and journals, quoted Betsy Beaumon, VP and General Manager of our Global Literacy Program, in an article titled The Challenge of Accessibility & New Media. In a section titled “Ending the Book Famine,” the article quotes Betsy on the future of reading and education for people with disabilities.

The ubiquity and penetration rate of mobile phones increasingly makes them the documentation tool of choice for those who research, witness and record human rights abuses. At Benetech, we see this as an opportunity to bring some of the strong encryption we offer in the desktop closer to the field. Last week, we released Mobile Martus 1.0—Benetech’s free, open source secure Android-based mobile documentation application, built on our Martus technology.

Please help us give the gift of reading to veterans with print disabilities by supporting our Bookshare for Veterans crowdfunding campaign on CrowdRise. Our goal is to extend Bookshare services to our veterans and provide them with access to the books they need for education, employment and inclusion in society. To support this, we just launched a crowdfunding campaign as part of the Skoll Foundation’s Social Entrepreneurs Challenge on CrowdRise. The Challenge is an 8-week campaign geared towards helping the world’s leading social enterprises raise money, awareness and resources for their causes. Join us! Support our Challenge—Benetech’s Bookshare for Veterans. Because everyone deserves the right to read.