Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship names Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman One of World's Top Social Entrepreneurs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Palo Alto, CA, October 23, 2002: The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship has announced the annual selection of its top Social Entrepreneurs of the Year for 2003. Jim Fruchterman, President and CEO of The Benetech Initiative, has been selected as one of this year's outstanding individuals. The other US winners were Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, and Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America.

Social entrepreneurs identify practical solutions to social problems by combining innovation, resourcefulness and opportunity. Deeply committed to generating social value, these entrepreneurs identify new processes, services, products or unique ways of combining proven practice with innovation, driving through pattern-breaking approaches to seemingly intractable social issues. Most importantly, they act as social alchemists, converting under-utilized resources into productive assets by working with, and motivating, groups of people and communities.

The Schwab Foundation works through a worldwide network of confidential nominators to identify potential Schwab entrepreneurs. This year, 136 candidates were submitted for consideration to the 2003 network. All nominated candidates underwent an extensive in-depth due diligence process to ensure that the most accomplished are selected. The Foundation selects approximately 20 social entrepreneurs every year. There are five criteria for selection:

Innovation: has brought about demonstrable, high-impact social change by transforming traditional practice.
Sustainability: has generated the social conditions and/or institutions needed to sustain the initiative.
Reach and Scope: has spread beyond its initial context and been successfully adapted to other settings.
Replicability/Expandability: aspects of the initiative can continue to be transferred to other regions and are scalable.
Ethical fibre: the entrepreneur is an individual who can serve as a role model for future social entrepreneurs and the general public.

The Schwab Foundation identifies and supports a global community of stellar social entrepreneurs because their know-how and insights can be shared with others seeking to solve similar problems elsewhere. It uses its leverage to attract the notice of governments and business leaders so that the scalable solutions of social entrepreneurs can be replicated, improved and expanded, and so that their practical insights can be incorporated into government policy and business initiatives.

Opportunities provided to Schwab entrepreneurs selected to this exclusive network include among others, participation at renowned events such as the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and the annual Social Entrepreneurs Summit in Geneva. These venues put them in contact with leading business entrepreneurs, heads of corporations and governments, academic and other thought leaders, as well as with other stellar social entrepreneurs. The Foundation supports Schwab entrepreneurs as they strengthen and expand their organizations, mobilizing financial resources as well as the vast experience and knowledge of leaders in academia, strategic management and planning, as well as communications and public relations.

The term "social entrepreneurship" refers to a distinct approach to catalysing social transformation that is independent of sector or discipline. Whether they focus on health, enterprise development, education, environment, labour conditions or human rights, social entrepreneurs are people who seize the problems created by change as opportunities to transform societies.

About Jim Fructherman

Jim Fruchterman, President, CEO and founder of The Benetech Initiative, is one of the twenty outstanding social entrepreneurs selected by the Schwab Foundation. Benetech is an innovative Silicon Valley nonprofit founded by Fruchterman in 2000 that develops technology projects addressing major social problems in areas such as disability, human rights, literacy, education and the digital divide. Its first two projects are Bookshare.org, an online library that offers accessible digital books to people in the US who are blind or have significant reading disabilities, and the Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, a new technology tool to assist grassroots human rights workers worldwide to collect, safeguard and disseminate human rights violation information.

Fruchterman founded Benetech’s predecessor organization, Arkenstone, in 1989 to provide reading tools for people with disabilities. For over a decade, Arkenstone helped over 35,000 individuals in 60 countries to live and work independently. The sale of the Arkenstone business operations in 2000 to a for-profit company provided the initial capital to launch Benetech.

“I am honored to have been selected by the Schwab Foundation,” Fruchterman said. “This recognition is a tremendous success for Benetech and a validation of our mission of using technology to help disadvantaged people and communities. I look forward to working with the support of the Schwab Foundation and the other Schwab Social Entrepreneurs to spread this message worldwide in the coming year.”

In 1982, Fruchterman co-founded Calera Recognition Systems, which developed character recognition that would allow computers to read virtually all printed text. He is also a cofounder, director and the chief financial officer for RAF Technology, Inc., America's leading high-end OCR technology company, used by the United States Postal Service to route the mail. In addition, he is a member of the board of the National Gathering of Social Entrepreneurs, has served on two federal advisory committees and has been awarded the Access Award by the American Federation for the Blind (1996) and the Robert S. Bray Award from the American Council of the Blind (2002). Fruchterman holds a B.S. in Engineering and a M.S. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology.

About the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship (www.schwabfound.org) seeks to identify, recognize and disseminate initiatives in social entrepreneurship that have significantly improved people's lives and have the potential to be adapted to other settings. Founded by Klaus and Hilde Schwab in 1998, the Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. Klaus Schwab is the President and Founder of the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. A list of the other 2003 Social Entrepreneurs will be available at the Foundation website.

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Contact: Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship: [email protected]

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