Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

Patrick Ball and I have often discussed the risks to social justice groups from using unlicensed proprietary software. A government could suppress a group using "piracy" as a reason, rather than criticism of the government. We've seen this happen in places like Russia. That's why it's heartening to read an article like this in the Christian Science Monitor, Russia rights groups get help from unlikely champion: Microsoft . It doesn't help Microsoft to be associated with suppression of environmental and human rights groups, and it's great to see them do the right thing!

Last week I was invited to attend Microsoft’s Citizenship Accelerator Summit. This was an opportunity for Microsoft’s management, including Steve Ballmer (Microsoft’s CEO) and other senior executives, to share what socially beneficial activities Microsoft is up to. Some of this was either predictable (but laudable) such as supporting volunteerism or the United Way, or activities I was aware of and have admired in the past. This latter category included such great projects as Tech Soup Global, which distributes donated Microsoft products at a deep, deep discount (a service we’ve used at Benetech for years) as well as support for the efforts of NetHope in disaster relief. NetHope is the organization of the CTOs/CIOs of the major global humanitarian NGOs, and gets a fair amount of support from Microsoft, Cisco and other tech companies. The most interesting project I saw was in the admittedly dark and unpleasant topic of combating child porn on the Internet. As the Microsoft staff poi...

I just returned from a couple of days at the Council on Foundations annual meeting in Seattle. I was part of a panel that included Orlando Ayala of Microsoft, Linda Segre of Google.org, Sally Osberg of the Skoll Foundation and was moderated by Akhtar Badshah of Microsoft. The title was "Changing Poverty through Profit." It was very interesting, hearing a blend of corporate positioning from Microsoft and Google combined with real interest in social issues. Of course, Sally Osberg kept the social side of the equation by providing real examples of social entrepreneurs making impacts (while working with corporations). I followed up with examples from my journey from tech entrepreneur to social entrepreneur. The questions from the audience were great, and it was one of the better panels I've been on (thanks to good prep work from the Microsoft team that organized the panel, especially Jane Meseck). I was also able to talk to many people from major foundations, and had ...