CENTER FOR BUSINESS
AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT

The Benetech Initiative is a non-profit venture that provides social benefits by harnessing the power of technology. It delivers these benefits using a new model of social entrepreneurship which combines market forces with philanthropic capital and entrepreneurial drive. Benetech focuses the efforts of technology and technologists to solve important problems facing society. A quick sampling of projects currently underway illustrates the power and promise of Benetech. Bookshare.org is a legal book-sharing community of people with disabilities, meeting the stringent copyright law exemption for providing accessible books. The Martus Project provides critical tools for the reporting and dissemination of human rights information, improving the effectiveness of the human rights sector worldwide. The Landmine Detector Project will transfer exciting new technologies developed by U.S. Department of Defense to applications to meet the needs of humanitarian landmine removal efforts around the world.

Blast Internet Services (Blast), a web development company, supports environmental issues, sustainable growth, family-friendly policies, and personal empowerment. Its community involvement activities range from sponsorship of an after school program to free web services to area non-profit agencies. Its headquarters has been built in an environmentally friendly building, and its employees embrace and practice the company philosophy of ecological responsibility.

For corporate law departments and the law firms that serve them, the DuPont Legal Model offers instructive principles and processes that can improve the practice of corporate law. Since 1992, the DuPont Legal Model has given the company a framework for meeting new challenges and guided them through a period of tremendous change. By applying “business discipline” to the practice of law, the Legal Model has focused Dupont’s resources and made strategic partnering, information technology, metrics, diversity and other initiatives the cornerstones of their approach. Through this Legal Model, Du Pont Legal has embraced a diversity agenda. This model makes it a requirement that DuPont’s various law firms meet specified diversity requirements. This strategy has prompted a shift in the legal community to embrace greater diversity.

Freeplay Energy Group of London has found a way to address global needs while making a profit for itself. Combining collaborative research and development with the desire to bring good to those at the bottom of the pyramid, the company grows its revenues while bringing tangible results to people in most remote locations. Freeplay has helped pioneer the windup radio. In 1996, Freeplay designed its first radio charged by cranking a handle so that Africans could listen to public-service broadcasts of health and agriculture information and school lessons. Freeplay has sold 3 million radios. In the West, where they sell for up to $100, they are popular among campers. But they're sold at a discount to aid agencies and governments in poor nations.

GrameenPhone has a dual purpose: to receive an economic return on its investments and to contribute to the economic development of Bangladesh where telecommunications can play a vital role. This is why GrameenPhone, in collaboration with Grameen Bank, is aiming to place one phone in each village to contribute significantly to the economic uplift of those villages. Grameen Phone’s basic strategy is coverage of both urban and rural areas. In contrast to the “island” strategy followed by some companies, which involves connecting isolated islands of urban coverage through transmission links, GrameenPhone builds continuous coverage, cell after cell. While the intensity of coverage may vary from area to area depending on market conditions, the basic strategy of cell-to-cell coverage is applied throughout GrameenPhone’s network.

Millions of personal computers sit idly on desks and in homes worldwide, but what if they could be linked into a power grid to help address the world's most difficult health and societal problems? IBM asked this question and answered it in 2004 by creating the World Community Grid, a global humanitarian effort to harness unused computing power of individual and business computers and direct that power toward research designed to help unlock genetic codes that underlie diseases like AIDS and Alzheimer's or improve forecasting of natural disasters. Anyone can volunteer to donate the idle and unused time on a computer by dowloading the World Community Grid's free software and registering to participate.

As an industry leader in the design and manufacture of air conditioners, Lennox International has not been content to rest on its laurels. The company recently came out with the quietest, most energy efficient unit on the market. In addition, this unit uses a refrigerant that does not deplete the ozone. The new unit is actually ahead of the curve in terms of meeting government requirements, while Lennox maintains a healthy bottom line.

Modine Manufacturing, a leader in heat-transfer-component technology, offers an innovative approach to the advancement of fuel cell technology – a popular alternative to fossil fuels. Internally, the company has been committed to the fuel cell research for the last five years. Externally, Modine helps other companies to utilize this technology and realize its commercialization. The effort has already yielded developmental partnership with Ballard, a joint venture of Daimler Chrysler, Ballard Power Systems, and Ford Motor Co. with the mission to develop, manufacture, and commercialize fuel-cell.

Carl Scianna, founder of PolyBrite International, has produced a breakthrough marriage of pre-existing Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) technology and PolyBrite's own clear, durable, biodegradable, and inexpensive polymer as a result of the inspiration he felt at the accidental death of his cousin, a state police officer. The technology has sparked a new industry and is having a transformational environmental impact.

A community bakery in an underprivileged area of Curitiba (Brazil) is the result of a partnership between business, community, and a city agency. The bakery benefits the lives of local residents by providing better nutrition, creating employment and educational/skill development opportunities. It is anticipated that the bakery will open a small shop, and eventually supply goods nationally and internationally. Income generated by this activity will be returned to the community.