Benetech's Literacy program is revolutionizing access to educational materials for print disabled students (e.g. blind, dyslexic, quadraplegic). It is accomplishing this goal by leveraging and contributing to an end-to-end ecosystem of FLOSS technologies to make sure that as the educational content landscape rapidly evolves print-disabled students are as “plugged-in” as their peers.

1. Building an Ecosystem of
FLOSS to Educate Students
with Disabilities
OSCON 2012

2. Technology is Transforming Education

3. How Did I Get Here?

4. MIT Loans Paid, 2 Startups and 24 Years Later…
Come do social When can I
good with me! start?

5. What Does Benetech Do?
create software for solve large, critical problems
Maximum Social Benefit in Areas of Need
literacy
INNOVATION SCALE
human rights
environment

6. Technology Assists Students with
Learning and Physical Print Disabilities
Jessica, Steffon and
Shane are three of
200,000+ members
who can access
Bookshare’s library of
150,000+ books,
textbooks and
periodicals with reading
tools tailored to their
special needs
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sUMmzi3nmig

7. Open Source in Benetech’s Literacy Program
Build Upon Create & Contribute
Poet

8. Why: Economics

9. Why: Economics

10. Why: Innovation Needs Collaboration
Benetech'
Crea8ve'
Commons' DAISY'
Academia' IDPF'
LRMI'
Benetech Organizational Truths
● We prefer open to proprietary
● We think we can do more together
http://www.benetech.org/about/org_truths.shtml

11. Why: Harvest Passion of the Community

12. Why: Expanding our Impact
Bookshare / Chafee Qualified
Other Disabilities (e.g. ADHD,
Austism) and English Language Learners

13. Ecosystem of Open Source Solutions
Authoring Adaptation Discovery Delivery
• Inkscape' • Poet' • Learning' • Readium'
• Universal' Registry' • Go'Read'
Sub8tles' • LRMI' (FBReader)'
• Tobi' • Oleria'
• Amis'
• MathJax'
Need developers to build in or expand accessibility
Examples: Moodle, Sygil, BookType (FLOSS Manuals), EdX

14. Demo of the End to End Solution

15. Your Chance to Get Involved
● Contribute to a Project
– http://SocialCoding4Good.org/volunteer
– http://benetech.github.com
● Take into account accessibility in your projects

16. Q&A

17. Gerardo Capiel
gerardo@benetech.org
@gcapiel
benetech.github.com