Benetech is pleased to announce that we have finalized a contract with the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR) of Timor-Leste (East Timor). Benetech will conduct statistical analysis of the Commission's four databases, including personal testimonies, gravesite registries, military unit deployment records and a retrospective mortality survey. Our goal is to assist the Commission in making scientifically defensible findings about the total extent, patterns, and levels of responsibility for fatal violations which occurred between 1974-1999. Our analysis extends the fieldwork and technical advice in information management, data collection and data processing that Benetech field consultants have provided to the CAVR over the past 18 months. Our analysis will complement the CAVR's legal, qualitative and historical findings.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Proud Father and Husband: Concert in Palo Alto

Image
Every once in a while, the Beneblog features something of personal importance to me.

I'm very excited (and proud) about an exciting concert coming up soon in Palo Alto. My daughter, Kate Fruchterman, will be returning briefly to the area the evening of June 17th to give a concert.  Kate will be heading to Europe this fall to sing professionally in Italy for the Turin Opera Company, as the winner of one of three Opera Foundation Scholarships.

As I said at the Skoll World Forum this year after hearing Monica Yunus, the famous opera singer and daughter of leading social entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus, Kate is another proof point of the proposition that geeky social entrepreneur dads can have beautiful opera singer daughters. 


But, there's more!  The accomplished pianist Virginia Fruchterman (who I happen to be married to) will be the main accompanist at the concert at St. Mark's Church.  In addition, Lauren Osaka, flautist, and Phil Kadet, the NYC-based jazz pianist and compos…
Read more

Open Source Means Strong Security

Image
“Your secure software is open source: doesn’t that make it less secure?”

This is a recurring question that we get at Benetech about Martus—our free, strongly encrypted tool for secure collection and management of sensitive information, built and provided by the Benetech Human Rights Program. It’s an important question for us and for all of our peers developing secure software in today’s post-Snowden environment of fear and worry about surveillance. We strongly believe not only that open source is compatible with digital security, but that it’s also essential for it.

Let me explain with the following analogy:

Think of encryption as a locked combination safe for your data. You may be the only one who has the combination, or you may entrust it to select few close associates. The goal of a safe is to keep unauthorized people from gaining access to its content. They might be burglars attempting to steal valuable business information; employees trying to learn confidential salary informati…
Read more

Mr. Jim Goes to Washington (and New York, and Nairobi, and Seoul, and Kampala, and Boston…)

Image
Like many other leaders of nonprofit organizations, I travel an unreasonable fraction of the time. I recently hit three million lifetime miles on American Airlines. Not sure whether to celebrate or mourn this milestone.
Why do I do it? Why do my peers do it? We know that the carbon impact of all that travel is bad for the planet, and the personal impact of all that travel is bad on our bodies.
We travel because we think it’s the most effective way to spread social change. We travel because there is no substitute for human interaction. We travel because we need to raise money, and we won’t get it unless we get in front of the donors.
For the more senior social entrepreneurs, we can travel because we have leaders and teams that are usually better than we are at running the organizations we head and/or have founded. We travel because it‘s the best use of our time in finding the partnerships, insights, and the money our teams need to create more social change. Lastly, we travel to advoc…
Read more