Benetech :: About Benetech :: President's Update Archives

Jim Fruchterman
Benetech President and CEO

April 2001

I’m delighted to report significant progress on our new project development and additions to our management team.

Key events in the first quarter of 2001 include:

Commencement of Bookshare.org development, with the server development now more than 60% completed
Delivery of several highly successful public presentations of Bookshare.org
Completion of the Martus Project field market research and business plan
Addition of two key staff to our senior management and marketing team
Development of more than a dozen new brief business plans that will be used to determine which projects to further fund
Creation of a Benetech brochure to use to communicate our mission to prospective strategic partners and funders. Write to [email protected] to request a copy of the brochure.

Bookshare.org Progress

We now have a working prototype of the Bookshare.org site working internally, and beta testing will start by May. We have had a critical meeting with the Copyright Committee of the Association of American Publishers, and have agreed to continued cooperation with the AAP as part of launching Bookshare.org. In addition, major presentations have been made on Bookshare.org to the DAISY Consortium and the CSUN Technology for Persons with Disabilities Conference, which is the largest disability technology show of the year in the U.S., have been very successful. Currently, we are concentrating on building our electronic book collection for a Bookshare.org launch by year-end.

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Martus Human Rights Technology

During our initial field research, we visited with human rights activists in Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Guatemala to gain real-world insight into the need for technology in the human rights field and specific input for our Martus prototype. The message came back loud and clear: the world needs simple yet powerful tools to empower human rights groups! From women’s rights to election rights, from genocide to police misconduct, many groups have shaped the design of the Martus Project to meet their specific needs. In March, we presented Martus to the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference and got terrific support from the technology community. Our next step is to begin initial development and fund raising to build the Martus solution.

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New Hires

With a strong technical team, Benetech’s recruitment focus has shifted to fundraising and marketing. Our two new staff have already made significant contributions to Benetech:

Kathy Meyer, Vice President, Business Development, holds an MBA from Stanford and has over 25 years experience in strategic planning and marketing in Fortune 500 companies, including Bank of America and Crown Zellerbach, as well as in the venture capital and the nonprofit sectors. For over a decade, Kathy served as the Executive Director of The Business Enterprise Trust, which promoted role models from business who combined sound management practice with social vision. The Trust’s business school cases, video profiles and educational materials are used in hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Kathy is spearheading our fundraising and corporate marketing efforts.

Brendan Nyhan is the Product Manager for new ventures for Benetech. Previously, he served as Deputy Communications Director for the Bernstein for US Senate campaign in Nevada. Nyhan started his career in socially beneficial technology as a marketing intern with Arkenstone, the predecessor to Benetech. He holds a BA with high honors in political science from Swarthmore College.

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New Project Pitches

Benetech has many more ideas than we can possibly implement, with a majority of our ideas coming from potential users and technologists. Our new project efforts distill these innovative ideas into the two or three new projects we can undertake each year. We have spent this last quarter developing short project plans for review by our board and management team, and we will measure these opportunities against our current portfolio objectives. A handful will receive funding for the development of detailed business plans, and, of these, one or two new projects will be funded later this year.

This is a tremendously exciting time for Benetech as we undertake new projects that have the potential to improve thousands of lives worldwide — projects that would not attract traditional funding or high-tech resources. We welcome your feedback, comments and participation in our efforts!

Jim Fruchterman
President and CEO, The Benetech Initiative
Email: [email protected]