Subject: PARC Forum: "Benetech, Silicon Valley's Deliberately Nonprofit Tech Company ", Jim Fruchterman, President and CEO of Benetech, Thursday April 20th, 4:00PM

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:52:49 PDT

Open Forum 

[email-masked]

PARC FORUM

Thursday, April 20th

4:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Title: "Benetech, Silicon Valley's Deliberately Nonprofit Tech Company" 

Abstract: 
Jim Fruchterman will talk about his transitions from rocket scientist to
tech entrepreneur to social entrepreneur. Benetech's nonprofit structure
allows it to tackle less lucrative but socially critical applications of
technology. These range from a digital library of books for the blind,
to human rights database, project management software for the
environmental movement and humanitarian landmine detectors. Find out
more about how the latest Valley technology gets directed towards
serving more of humanity! 

Bio: 
A technology entrepreneur, Jim Fruchterman has been a rocket scientist,
founded two of the foremost optical character recognition companies, and
developed successful social enterprises. Jim co-founded Calera
Recognition Systems in 1982. Calera developed character recognition that
would allow computers to read virtually all printed text. In 1989, Jim
founded Arkenstone, a nonprofit social enterprise, to produce reading
machines for the disabled community based on the Calera technology.
Following the sale of the Arkenstone product line in 2000, Jim used all
of the resulting capital to fund Benetech, with an explicit goal to use
the power of technology to serve humanity. Jim has also been active in
public service, with two stints on U.S. federal advisory committees. He
was named as an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur 2003 by the Schwab
Foundation and, as such, participated in the World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland in January 2003, 2004, and 2005. He also received the
Robert F. Bray Award from the American Council of the Blind in
recognition of his outstanding efforts to make literary works accessible
to people who are blind or visually impaired. Jim believes that
technology is the ultimate leveler, allowing disadvantaged people
achieve more equality in society. He notes with pride, "I'm an advance
scout for social applications, finding exciting technology waiting to be
turned into non-commercial tools for disadvantaged groups." 

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