enetech has announced the addition of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yogen Dalal to its Board of Directors. Dalal is an engineer and former managing partner at venture capital firm Mayfield Fund. Over the last 20 years he has invested in the communications, enterprise software, and Internet consumer and infrastructure sectors. “Yogen Dalal will provide Benetech with invaluable guidance as we strengthen our leadership role at the intersection of the technology and social change sectors,” says Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman.
I’m thrilled to announce that Benetech has filled two key positions: Nadine Apelian Dobbs as Communications Director and Elaine Wallace as General Counsel. I think they will both make big contributions to building our ability to deliver greater impact in the technology-for-good field. We are incredibly fortunate and excited to have both Nadine and Elaine joining Benetech!
Members of our Engineering/ Product/ Project Management / Design teams recently participated in a hack day, where they came up with some valuable proof of concepts for our Human Rights and Global Literacy initiatives and experimented with microcontrollers. Granted, hack days are no panacea for solving the world’s problems. Did we complete the proof of concepts we worked on? Of course not. But did we make great progress on various fronts and are we using what we learned to design our way forward? YES!
Inside Silicon Valley, a weekly public affairs program on radio station 1590 KLIV in San Jose, CA, featured our CEO, Jim Fruchterman, in a conversation about his journey as a social entrepreneur and Benetech.
The Nominet Trust, a United Kingdom leading social tech funder, included Bookshare, our Global Literacy initiative, on its list of 100 global ventures using digital technology to solve some of the world’s biggest social problems. “It’s a life-changing service” for those with visual impairments or other print disabilities, states the Bookshare listing on the Nominet Trust 100.
