Reporting from Oxford, England, where the Skoll World Forum is underway, a Reuters article quotes CEO Jim Fruchterman’s discussion during a Forum’s session that focused on the promise and peril of big data. “As non-governmental organizations and social enterprises gather data on the communities and people they help,” she cites Jim, “they need to be keenly aware that ‘we should treat other people’s data the way we want our data treated.”
In Reuters, Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman advocates for a human-centered approach to data in the social sector. This article was published ahead of the 2014 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, where Jim will be discussing the impacts of “datafication”— the notion that aspects of the world can be rendered into a data format and put to social or policy use. “Even in a world of big data,” he concludes, “creativity and intuition still require the human touch.”
We kicked off 2014 in Benetech Labs by convening our inaugural Labs brainstorm meeting. It was a delight to bring together a great group of leaders from the technology, philanthropy, social innovation and education sectors—for a deep-dive on two of our pipeline projects. The first is a clean water project, in collaboration with Avina, a Latin American foundation that advances sustainable development in the region. The second Labs pipeline project that we examined was 3D print-on-demand for students.
As news broke on Monday that Google Chairman Eric Schmidt will donate $1 million to help solve global issues through technology, an article penned by TechCrunch journalist Gregory Ferenstein cited Benetech among select companies that are already using technology to empower individuals and address challenges like oppressive censorship.
From supporting human rights groups to advancing math accessibility, our staff is busy this month! Our VP of Engineering Gerardo Capiel spoke on a panel discussing accessibility standards at the EDUPUB2 Workshop on Digital Publishing for Education. Our Human Rights team will be heading at the end of the month to the Lesbians Who Tech Summit in San Francisco.
