BENETECH HONORED AS LAUREATE IN PRESTIGIOUS GLOBAL 2003 TECH MUSEUM AWARDS COMPETITION

Benetech Selected as The Awards’ First Two-Time Laureate

Top five laureates to share $250,000 award for applying technology to improve quality of life around the world

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San Jose and Palo Alto, CA, September 15, 2003: The Benetech Initiative (“Benetech”) was recently named one of 25 laureates for the prestigious 2003 Tech Museum Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity, presented by Applied Materials, Inc. The Tech Museum of Innovation (The Tech), located in San Jose, California, announced the laureates. In Silicon Valley, where technology is considered a way of life, The Tech Museum Awards were developed to recognize the need to bridge existing technology in emerging countries and emerging technologies in developed countries.

Benetech has been selected a laureate for the Knight Ridder Equality Award for its development of the Martus Project. Martus — Greek for witness — enables grassroots NGOs to securely document social justice violations and store their records on off-site servers with easy-to-use software, preserving crucial evidence for research, investigation and prosecutions. This achievement represents Benetech’s second selection to this particular category and to The Tech Museum Awards overall — feats accomplished thus far by only Benetech in the three-year history of the awards. In 2001, the inaugural year of the awards, Benetech was also selected as laureate in the Knight Ridder Equality category for its Bookshare.org project, an online library of accessible digital books for people with disabilities.

“It’s both a tremendous thrill and distinction for Benetech to be recognized by our peers in Silicon Valley for our landmark Martus initiative,” stated Jim Fruchterman, President and CEO of Benetech. “We’d like to thank those involved — including The Tech, sponsors of the awards, the judging panel and our nominators — for demonstrating such support for our organization. Being selected for the second time in three years represents a strong endorsement of the Benetech social enterprise model of developing technology projects to empower a diverse, global array of disadvantaged communities.”

Marc Levine, Senior Product Manager of Martus, added, “We accept this honor on behalf of the NGOs deploying Martus internationally, including many individuals who work in adverse conditions to combat the proliferation of human rights abuses. We are continuing to extend the global reach of Martus to other social justice organizations and sectors.”

Benetech was founded in 2000 as a Silicon Valley nonprofit with the purpose of developing innovative technology projects to address pressing social issues faced by disadvantaged communities worldwide. The Martus Project is a free and open source technology tool developed by Benetech to assist social justice organizations in collecting, safeguarding and disseminating information about social justice violations such as human rights abuses. Social justice organizations in over 30 countries — including Colombia, Guatemala, the Philippines, Russia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and the United States — use Martus, which was launched and made freely available in January 2003.

Benetech as Tech Museum Awards Finalist/2

On October 15, at a black tie Awards Gala, Silicon Valley leaders and delegates from the United Nations will join together to honor all 25 laureates, and one laureate from each category will be awarded a $50,000 cash honorarium.

The awards, presented in partnership with the American Council for the United Nations University and Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society, are designed to honor individuals, for-profit companies and public and not-for-profit organizations from around the world who are applying technology to profoundly improve the human condition in the categories of education, equality, environment, economic development and health.

This year, an esteemed panel of judges considered more than 500 nominations, representing 70 countries. The 25 2003 Tech Laureates come from Bangladesh, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nicaragua, Nepal and the United States.

“Reflecting the mission of The Tech Museum of Innovation, these awards recognize the innovators who use technology to improve people’s lives,” says Peter Giles, president and chief executive officer of The Tech. “Through these awards, The Tech inspires future scientists, technologists and social entrepreneurs to harness the incredible power and promise of technology to solve the challenges that confront us at the dawn of the 21st Century.”

For more information on the awards and laureates, visit http://techawards.thetech.org.

About Benetech

The Benetech Initiative is a Silicon Valley nonprofit that develops sustainable, technology-based solutions to address pressing social challenges in areas such as disability, human rights, education and literacy. Many beneficial technologies have compelling social applications that are not developed because such efforts do not meet for-profit investors’ financial expectations. Benetech specifically pursues endeavors with a strong social, rather than financial, rate of return on investment, bringing commercial technology and private sector management techniques to bear in creating innovative, non-traditional solutions to challenging social issues. More information on Benetech and its projects can be found at www.benetech.org or by calling (650) 475-5440.

About the Tech Museum Awards

The concept for The Tech Museum Awards and its five categories was inspired in part by The State of the Future at the Millennium report of The Millennium Project of the American Council for the United Nations University, which recommends that award recognition is an effective way to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and technological applications to improve the human condition. The Awards were inaugurated in 2001.

Judging for The Tech Museum Awards is independently conducted by Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society, a global network of academic and industry experts dedicated to understanding and influencing how science and technology impact society. They assemble five panels of judges from around the world, recruited from research institutions, industry and the public sector, who judged the nominations on five set criteria.

The Tech Museum Awards Partners

The Tech Museum Awards represent a collaborative effort among educational institutions and business. Among Silicon Valley’s leaders supporting The Tech Museum Awards are presenting sponsor, Applied Materials, Inc. and Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society. Category sponsors are the NASDAQ Stock Market, Knight Ridder, Intel and Accenture.

About The Tech Museum of Innovation

http://www.thetech.org
Located in the heart of downtown San Jose, Silicon Valley, Calif., The Tech, a non-profit organization, engages people of all ages and backgrounds in exploring and experiencing the technologies affecting their lives and aims to inspire the innovator in everyone. For more information, visit www.thetech.org or call (408) 294-TECH.

Other contacts:
Gary Summers, The Tech Museum of Innovation, 925-284-7004; [email protected].

Ryan Donovan, Ketchum Public Relations, 415-984-6138; [email protected]

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