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

Jim Fruchterman
Benetech President and CEO

January 2002

The world has changed since September 11. As the technology community considers its position, and debates the best ways to help, we recognize that technology can play an increasing role in addressing the world's problems.

The Benetech team is convinced that bringing technology to the service of humanity is now more important than ever. By focusing on literacy, human rights and humanitarian challenges, we are working on solutions that can make the world a better and safer place. The New Year is bright with promise as Benetech moves forward on numerous initiatives.

In spite of the dislocation of the past few months, Benetech has made tremendous strides, including:

Successful kickoff of our major fund raising campaign
Three major projects currently under development
- Bookshare.org, an on-line library for the disabled
- Martus, technology tools for the human rights community
- Sonorus, a talking handheld device we are developing jointly with Sun Microsystems
Two exciting new projects in development
- The Landmine Detector Project
- Literacy Link, web-based literacy curriculum
Addition of exceptional new board members:
- Dr. J. Leighton Read, a biotechnology executive, inventor, venture capitalist and accomplished scientist; and
- Kurt Akeley, co-creator of the OpenGL graphics technology and co-founder of Silicon Graphics
Recruitment of a talented and experienced chief financial officer, Madeleine Buckingham
Relocation to affordable (!) new office space in Palo Alto

Fund Raising Success

Benetech has successfully implemented its first-round fund raising campaign, garnering close to $500,000 in the last three months, including significant support from individuals, foundations and corporations. We especially appreciate the financial support of our new board members.

Our largest commitment to date is a $250,000 grant from the Open Society Institute towards the development of our Martus human rights project. OSI has been especially helpful in making connections around the world for Benetech, and its affiliate Open Society Archive of Budapest is a likely host site for Martus servers.

Fund raising will be a critical part of our expansion plans. The $3 million we raised from the sale of the Arkenstone business in 2000 provided the seed funding for our projects to date. We are now looking for continuing support for the launch of bookshare.org and Martus, as well as development support for our newer initiatives.

Benetech has also begun to work with technology companies directly to support our growing portfolio of projects, including:

A partnership with Sun Microsystems to develop Sonorus, a talking handheld device for the disabled
Fujitsu's donation of high speed scanners to Bookshare.org

Major Projects: Bookshare.org

Bookshare.org, our new on-line library for the disabled, is rapidly approaching launch. A unique blend of the Napster peer-to-peer concept with digital talking books, Bookshare.org brings the world of books to the fingertips of people with disabilities. Fully legal under U.S. copyright law, access to these books is limited to those with legally qualifying disabilities. We are committed to striking a reasonable balance between ensuring greater access for the disability community and safeguarding books from wider distribution. Our close cooperation with the Association of American Publishers offers the publishing industry the opportunity to influence our efforts.

The volunteer portion of the Bookshare.org web site went live two months ago, and we have received over 14,000 scanned books to date. The section of the web site that allows blind and dyslexic people to download the books is now in beta test, with full operation scheduled for February 2002. One of the unique aspects of Bookshare.org is the opportunity it provides to be a "virtual volunteer" anybody with a computer can volunteer from home to help bring greater access to literacy to the disabled community.

Finally, Bookshare.org was honored by the San Jose Tech Museum with one of their "Technology Benefiting Humanity" Awards, and we're delighted to have this prestigious award in our offices. It's an imposing solid silicon ingot topped with a crystal globe!

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Major Projects: the Martus Project

We've made rapid progress in developing the Martus software, which is designed to provide grassroots human rights NGOs (nongovernmental organization: the international term for nonprofit) with the information technology tools they need to fight human rights violations. Martus enables the broader application of the most powerful weapon against human rights violators: credible information. The Martus client software is now 65% complete, and the backup server is 40% complete. Our agile development methodology enables us to continually expose human rights groups to the prototype software as it is developed, thereby providing critical feedback to our development team in a timely way.

To view a private demonstration of how the Martus software will work when complete, visit www.martus.org/martusdemo. Thanks to the generous OSI grant, support from an anonymous individual, and internal support, Martus now has over $600,000 of its $1,000,000 budget committed.

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Major Projects: Sonorus, the Talking iPaq

We've had a business plan for developing talking handheld devices for the disabled in readiness for some time. Thanks to the leadership of Sun Microsystems, we have now launched development in this area. We are convinced that in five years a used cell phone will be the most important platform for adaptive technology for people with disabilities worldwide, especially in the developing world. It will have the processing power to speak for those who can't speak, read for those who can't read, and remember for those who have memory challenges. We're excited about kicking off this area of development, which we are certain will lead to a range of self-supporting products in the disability field.

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Projects On Deck: Landmine Detectors and Online Literacy

Benetech is structured to move projects from concept to plan to development to sustainability. There is no lack of new projects for us to work on following our current three projects! At the very top of our list are two projects that exemplify the power and opportunity of the Benetech concept.

The Landmine Detector Project will adapt the latest military mine detecting technology into a humanitarian demining tool. While the nonprofit market is too small to entice a military contractor to build a version for the humanitarian effort, tens of millions of dollars has already been invested by the U.S. Department of Defense. We believe what it would be relatively inexpensive to adapt the military technology and create a break-even social enterprise. We are in discussions with one of the leading commercial manufacturers of military technology that is eager to partner with us in a humanitarian adaptation.

The second project, Literacy Link, is closely related technically to Bookshare.org in bringing literacy to the disadvantaged. Its focus is on web-based literacy education for teenagers and adults who are learning to read with the assistance of an instructor such as a literacy volunteer, special education aide or family member. Literacy Link will be an invaluable tool for the developmentally disabled, autistic and severely physically disabled, as well as meet the literacy needs of adult learners and people learning English as a second language.

Both projects fill an important gap between what is possible technically and what is profitable to pursue. The social return for creating this technology is very high relative to the investment.

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New Director: Dr. J. Leighton Read

Leighton Read is a General Partner at Alloy Ventures, a private equity firm focused on information technology and the life sciences. He is chairman and founder of Aviron, a development-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on prevention of disease. In 1987, Leighton co-founded Affymax N.V. serving initially as its executive vice president and COO and later as president of the Pharma Division and as a managing director of the parent company. Prior to that, he was a partner in Interhealth Limited, an investment partnership.

Leighton brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to Benetech's board, and we're delighted that he has joined with us in building Benetech.

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New Director: Kurt Akeley

Kurt Akeley was a member of the founding team and formerly Senior Vice President of Silicon Graphics, Incorporated, and is now with nVidia Corporation. He has been a key technical contributor, with primary design responsibility for most of the high-end graphics architectures in SGI's product history. His special interest and role with Benetech is as an expert technologist. For example, Kurt participated along with Leighton Read and Jim Kleckner in the brainstorming session that came up with the design architecture for the Martus Project. Benetech is enriched by his commitment to our technical excellence.

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CFO and Vice President, Finance, Madeleine J. Buckingham

A high-energy financial executive with over 13 years of experience in senior management positions in the high tech industry, Madeleine Buckingham brings to Benetech a deep understanding of the needs of early-stage high tech companies, including management of financial logistics and operations. Most recently, Madeleine was the VP, Finance at campsix, a leading eBusiness incubator designed to accelerate the development of new economy ventures into sustainable and scalable businesses.

Benetech's blend of the heart of social action with the brains of high technology management requires financial discipline and accountability. With Madeleine on board, we can look forward to delivering on our socially beneficial technology objectives while keeping a close eye on the financial bottom line.

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New Location: Palo Alto

For the past few years office space in Palo Alto was beyond our means as a nonprofit. The unique real estate market and a supportive landlord willing to lease to a nonprofit at a lower rate than other offers have made it possible for us to relocate to 480 South California Avenue, Suite 201, Palo Alto, CA 94306. We will move into our new space on January 14, and would be delighted to have you visit our new offices. Our new telephone and fax numbers will be posted on our Web site the week of January 14th (phone company willing).

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Conclusion

Benetech continues to gain traction, even in these recent difficult times. Our missionary messages about the power technology has to benefit mankind are finding a receptive audience, enabling us to attract the capital, staff and advisors we need to deliver on our promises. Your assistance and involvement are invited: please contact us to learn more about what you can do to assure that technology more fully serves humanity!

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