Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

I just returned from a great trip. One of my stops was to the attend the Sixth Gathering of Social Entrepreneurs, organized by the Social Enterprise Alliance , and held in Milwaukee. It was great to have roughly 600 people all getting the energy of social enterprise. The biggest supporter of the conference was Steve Case's Foundation (the founder of AOL). I was able to introduce him, and it was great to hear from his presentation how he gets social enterprise. He encouraged us to found a new sector that isn't nonprofit and isn't for profit, but is somewhere in the middle. I've heard other people advocate for a "for-benefit" sector before. Here's an article from the Milwaukee press on the event: When non-profits cash in.

I was just at the Council on Foundations meeting in San Diego, courtesy of one of our funders (and generally cool people) , the Community Technology Foundation of California . We had a session on the applications of information technology to helping communities of color. I was talking about our human rights work and had some great discussions about working for immigrant rights and against trafficking. CTFC's grant to us is enabling us to add more than 1,000 books in Spanish to Bookshare.org, and we were able to announce this (in English and Spanish) at last month's CSUN conference on adaptive technology.

Awesome announcement! Patrick Ball, our Director of Human Rights Programs, will be awarded one of EFF's Pioneer Awards next week. Since Patrick is busy working with the Truth Commission in East Timor, I think they are trying to connect him to the ceremony over the Internet! Electronic Frontier Foundation Announces Pioneer Award Winners I think this is a great recognition of Patrick's incredible contribution to the international human rights movement.

Oxford last week for the Skoll Summit was really great. I hadn't seen a city so focused on Fair Trade and social causes, but the Oxfam offices may have been a giveaway. I came away from the Forum with a bunch of ideas, which I have to reduce to something written: hope to link to some of those concepts here soon. Near-term travel plans for this month include: Council on Foundations Annual Conference Wealth and Giving Forum in Greenbrier, WV Sixth Gathering of the Social Enterprise Alliance in Milwaukee, WI Bridging the Divide 2005 The University of California, Berkeley