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

Jim Fruchterman
Benetech President and CEO

January 2001

Benetech seems to accelerate daily as we attract fresh talent and move forward rapidly with our new projects! Major accomplishments in the last two months include:

Completion of our Project Management system
Completion of the Bookshare.org business plan and project technical design
Three key technical hires
Positive reception of our Martus project demonstration by international human rights organizations
Transfer of the OPENBook development responsibilities to Freedom Scientific

Project Management System

Benetech’s management process resembles a cross among a high tech startup, an incubator and a venture capital firm. Paul Losch of Internet Business Consulting, Ltd., worked with us to create a project management process to guide ideas through Benetech. We have set portfolio investment goals for 2001 based primarily on social return measures. These goals focus on the sectors of adaptive technology, education and literacy, and humanitarian action. Although we have not launched our press relations efforts, Benetech already is receiving many excellent project ideas that are well matched to our structure and aspirations. Our web site will showcase those projects that have been funded internally for the development of a technology demonstration and business plan.

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Bookshare.org Progress

Bookshare.org is rocketing forward with the completion of a business plan, in addition to the complete initial web site and system design. Bookshare.org is already beginning to take form, and we have been deluged with electronic book contributions for the project. Benetech has had good conversations with the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress (NLS), Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D) and the Association of American Publishers, as well as leading organizations of and for people with disabilities. We are moving forward quickly to work with these key groups in implementing Bookshare.org in a way that delivers major benefits to the disability community while protecting important intellectual property rights of authors and publishers.

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New Hires

Benetech has been lucky to secure the services of three senior technical contributors, who significantly enhance our technical team, especially in the web services and ASP field. They are:

John Stolan, Senior Software Engineer, who joined us from the NuvoMedia Rocket eBook team, has a Ph. D in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University and brings over 20 years of software and web development experience to Benetech.

Tristan Colson, Senior Software Engineer, also comes from NuvoMedia, where she developed the web-based server infrastructure that handles the registration of customers and the management, loading, and distribution of titles for sale to retailers.

Kevin Smith, Senior Software Engineer, comes to Benetech with over fifteen years experience in software development in diverse environments, including dot-com, shrink-wrap, embedded, system-level and corporate IT. His roles have also been varied, including individual contributor, consultant, team leader, VP of engineering, software development manager and program manager. He excels in object-oriented development, especially in Visual C++.

John and Tristan are working primarily on Bookshare.org, but will also be involved in initial design work on the Martus Project. Kevin will be active across several different projects, including Bookshare.org and the WYNN 3 development effort to provide an improved reading package for people with dyslexia.

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Martus Human Rights Technology

Marc Levine and Patrick Ball, our senior advisor on human rights technology, successfully managed the design and completion of our Martus Project prototype. In mid-December, we met with several leading international human rights organizations and funders to present the prototype and discuss the Martus concept. We received positive responses as well as thoughtful critical advice on needed improvements.

In January and February, we will visit Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Guatemala to present an enhanced demonstration to, and receive feedback from, grassroots human rights organizations. We strongly believe that it is important to talk directly to the activists on the front lines to learn how technology can make the biggest positive impact on promoting human rights.

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Transfer of OPENBook Development Responsibility

One of our key milestones in the transfer of the Arkenstone product lines to Freedom Scientific was accomplished by the handoff of OPENBook and VERA reading systems source code responsibility to a capable Freedom Scientific engineering team. Benetech remains responsible for software development of the WYNN learning disability project, and development of the newest version is now fully underway.

These are just a few of the highlights of what’s happening at Benetech. We hope you’ll find a way to get involved and support our work with your contributions.

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