Benetech

How can a social enterprise engage effectively in founder succession planning, and what are some of the benefits that may occur when a founder is able to share the ownership, control, and culture of the business with a successor, or even a wider group of social leaders? This was one theme of a plenary session at this year’s annual Social Capital Markets Conference (SOCAP14) in San Francisco. Benetech CEO, Jim Fruchterman, and VP of the Benetech Global Literacy Program, Betsy Beaumon, joined moderator Penelope Douglas, SOCAP Board Chair, for a dynamic conversation titled “Make Yourself Invaluable, Not Irreplaceable.”

We’ve just wrapped up a second successful year of Benetech’s Summer Internship Program. Today we’re pleased to introduce you to three excellent interns who worked with our Bookshare team: Priyanka Amin-Patel, Derek Slone, and Tara Singh. Their efforts went towards getting the word out about Bookshare and expanding the collection.

This is the second year of our formal Summer Internship Program. Once again, it’s been our pleasure to work with a group of fantastic students who have supported multiple teams across Benetech’s programs. Today we’re pleased to introduce Pascal Pepin, who has agreed to share with us highlights of his internship experience and biggest takeaways.

Benetech Labs is where the Benetech team and our social impact partners incubate new software-for-good applications. Within the arena of startup incubators, however, Benetech’s social enterprise business model and Benetech Labs’ approach are unique.

How can we use technology to help social entrepreneurs collect and use their data more effectively and securely? We are exploring this in Benetech Labs. The solution we have been exploring is a semi-customized, open source, secure, data collection and analysis application that makes it easier for social sector users to safely gather and use information more efficiently.