Blog

Here in the United States, our Bookshare initiative is having a tremendous impact, especially on the lives of students. We now provide over 200,000 accessible books to more than a quarter-million people who are blind, dyslexic or have other print disabilities. And yet, while we’ve made significant progress in the U.S., we’ve only scratched the surface of meeting the global need. The sad truth is that there are millions of people with print disabilities around the world that continue to be left behind.

This year we launched Benetech’s first formal Summer Internship Program. From June 17 to July 19, three hard-working and motivated students—Allison Clabaugh, Martin Esquivias and Nestor Frutos—provided support to our Bookshare Marketing, Collection Development and Volunteering teams. They assisted with daily duties at Bookshare and participated in various learning opportunities, including educational brown bag lunches, […]

On behalf of the Benetech team, including our Board of Directors, I’m delighted to welcome you to our new website and formally introduce our newest program area: Benetech Labs! At Benetech, our goal is to create positive social change through technology. Telling our story is an important way we’re able to accomplish that goal—it allows us to generate the interest and support necessary to develop technology that helps countless people around the world. With this new site, we hope to better share our story and the impact of our work in a clear and consistent way across our four program areas, which encompass a diverse set of initiatives, products and services.

In recent years, the possibilities of what can be achieved with human rights fieldwork and advocacy has expanded as the worldwide use of mobile phones has increased and significant advances have been made in Internet and mobile technology. We’re excited to share that our Human Rights Program has been awarded a two-year, $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) to realize some of those possibilities.

Benetech’s Human Rights Program, as the lead partner in a consortium that includes The Guardian Project and Internews, has been awarded a two-year, $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) to enhance and expand our suite of digital security tools. Named “On the Frontier of Secure Technology for Human Rights Monitoring,” it is the largest individual grant in the history of Benetech’s Human Rights Program.