Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

One of the main reasons for attending TED is to get new ideas for Benetech and for the Raising the Floor movement. Although our efforts on RtF are mainly around serving people with disabilities, we are open to thinking more broadly about how these technologies could benefit more people. After all, that's the whole point of universal design ! I ran into a Stanford MBA student at TED, Joy Sun. She had been working in public health in Africa before heading to Stanford. I questioned her about how technology could help the health field, and she quickly came up with where she thought maximum leverage could be applied: helping those who are students in the health field get access to the content/textbooks they need. She described a nursing school in Luanda (I think, could have been Lusaka) that lacked textbooks or journals, and had weak PC infrastructure. But, all the students had cell phones. Bing! I see an immediate overlap with the work we're doing with Bookshare and a new c...

I'm spending the week at the TED2009 conference, bylined The Great Unveiling . The last TED conference I attended was TED2, which was more than 20 years ago! Many people are aware of both the social focus and high quality videos that come out of TED. As a public speaker in the technology and social sectors, I think that TED represents the top of our craft. It's nonstop great talks, performances and presentations, from people at the top of their game. Yesterday was an amazing start on the week, hearing from Bill Gates, Al Gore, Seth Godin and many others mixed in with a fabulous vocal group (Naturally Seven) and my favorite, Regina Spektor. The MIT Media Lab showed off some really exciting technology that I immediately was thinking of disability applications. Many (most? all?) of these presentations will end up on the web soon. And, the networking is also great (because of who the performances attract). It's a place to plant seeds for future collaborations. Well, I ...