Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

The social entrepreneurship movement is very important to me: after being a social entrepreneur for ten years (and not knowing the term), I found out that there is a vibrant national and international community around this. Although we are doing a myriad of different things, these are the people I feel are my community. We have common challenges and a common interest in changing society. Peer learning is the most valuable part of participating in these groups: I learn a great deal from my peers and hope to have some learning to offer in return. I'm between two major events in the field at moment. I recently came back from the Social Enterprise Alliance Stoweflake Funder's program. I was able to attend a funder meeting by virtue of being on the SEA board, and because our methods of choosing social enterprises to invest in are similar to those of other funders. The meeting was exciting because it focused on building a capital market for social enterprise (with a North Americ...

Benetech's human rights programs are going to be a key part of the Technology for Human Rights: International Colloquium being held in Amherst early next month. It's part of the growing movement to use technology to support the fight against human rights violations around the globe.

I've had many opportunities to give talks over the last few weeks, in a wide array of venues. Usually, I'm giving the general Benetech social entrepreneurship story, talking about how technology can be benefiting humanity even more, to audiences as varied as the Palo Alto Rotary Club, a Stanford Business School class, and a cocktail party for one of our funders. At the Venture Philanthropy conference, Robert Levenson of Social Profit Network and I talked about the relationship between venture philanthropist and investee. At the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley, I was on a panel with three other nonprofit CEOs talking about board relationships (Benetech's board is much more like a venture capital company's board than a typical nonprofits!). At the National Repository Summit held in Princeton, we covered the challenges faced by organizations trying to serve disabled students with textbooks. Last week in Kansas City, I talked to college reading centers about the ...