The Knight News Challenge is looking for ways to make the Internet open, equitable, and free, so Benetech’s Human Rights Program has submitted an idea for a secureApp Generator to benefit journalists, citizen reporters, activists, and other organizations or individuals who need reliable channels for secure mobile data collection and information exchange over the Internet. Check out and support the full concept on The Knight News Challenge website.
I recently returned from a weeklong training in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where I worked with our partner, Housing Works, to set up a nation-wide human rights documentation project using Martus, Benetech’s secure, open source documentation tool. The new initiative follows on the heels of a spate of homophobic violence experienced by the Haitian LGBTI community earlier this year. By the end of our training week, we graduated 20 new Martus Human Rights monitors representing 10 organizations working across the country with the goal of ensuring that no human rights violation motivated by homophobia, misogyny or stigma based on HIV status goes undocumented.
Human rights groups face increasingly sophisticated attackers with the ability to exploit their growing digital surface. When a group documenting human rights abuses against the Tibetan community came to us last year with interest in Martus, they brought with them a deep mistrust of their own hard drives. Together we decided to use an implementation method that emphasized security at all stages and selected Tails to be the default environment for their use of Martus. The Martus-on-Tails model is an exciting new venture into human rights defenders’ protection. We look forward to exploring other models and developing this one into a more mature standard.
An Engineering for Change blog post about trends and takeaways from the third-annual IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC) highlighted a keynote address by our VP of Engineering, Gerardo Capiel.
This is an extraordinary time to be focused on technology in the service of social good. New apps and tools are being developed every day to help solve the world’s most pressing challenges, from education and environment to health and poverty. We’re thrilled to see so much energy and creativity being dedicated to this “technology-for-good” global movement, especially during pioneering events like Taproot Foundation’s Pro Bono Week! During this week, we’re excited to further support this impact by joining the Taproot Foundation Pro Bono Marketplace and introducing SocialCoding:ProBono.
