Daniel Ben-Horin
| Daniel Ben-Horin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
26 December 1947 New York, New York United States |
| Residence | San Francisco, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Occupation | political activist and technologist |
| Title | Founder and Chief Instigator, TechSoup Global |
| Website |
www |
Daniel Ben-Horin is an American political activist and technologist best known for founding CompuMentor, one of the first nonprofit technology assistance providers in the United States,[1] in 1987 and guiding its growth since then. He served as C.E.O. and co-C.E.O. until January 2013, and is now the Founder and Chief Instigator of the organization, which has been called TechSoup Global since 2008.
Background, Education and Early Career
Daniel Ben-Horin was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York on Christmas Day 1947, to Eliahu and Miriam Ben-Horin.
Eliahu Ben-Horin (1902-1966, born Zelig Bidner, Balta), was a life-long activist, participating in the Zionist Students' Union and secret self-defense activities while in university. He moved to Israel (then Palestine) in 1921, joining Histadrut, the Haganah, and founding a kibbutz. In 1931, he became Ze'ev Jabotinsky's personal aide, having joined his Irgun and Revisionist party, and becoming president of the affiliated New Zionist Organization in 1935. In the 1940s, he helped Herbert Hoover develop a plan for migrating Palestinian Arabs to Iraq. Eliahu Ben-Horin wrote The Red Army (1942) and The Middle East: Crossroads of History (1943).[2][3]
Miriam Ben-Horin (née Chavkin)[2] trained as a lawyer in Latvia, and lived in Mandatory Palestine for many years. She married Eliahu in 1934. The family moved to Manhattan when Daniel was four. Eliahu had difficulty getting work in writing and selling insurance; starting in the mid-1950s, Miriam became the family’s main provider, as a jeweler, and as a probation officer for the City of New York.[4]
Daniel has two siblings. His half-sister Ruth Dechter was born to his father's first wife, Deborah Marcus. His full brother, Giora "Ben" Ben-Horin, was born in 1935. He has been a lawyer and real estate investor in Phoenix, Arizona. Giora was a surrogate father, since Daniel was not very close to Eliahu.[4][5]
Ben-Horin attended Hunter Elementary School and Bronx High School of Science. He holds a B. A. in Psychology, 1969, from the University of Chicago. From 1969 to 1971 he was a reporter and columnist for the Arizona Republic newspaper in Phoenix. From 1971-1974 he was the first editor of the New Times newspaper in Phoenix. From 1974-80, he made his living as a journalist, writing for The New York Times, The Nation, Harper's Weekly, Mother Jones, Redbook and many other publications. From 1980-84, Ben-Horin served as the Executive Director of Media Alliance in San Francisco during which period he also taught journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
CompuMentor and TechSoup Global
In 1987 with $2,500 in seed funding, Ben-Horin tapped volunteer resources on The WELL, one of the first online communities, to create CompuMentor. In 2014, TechSoup Global has a staff of 194 and an annual operating budget of $33 million.
Its core capabilities include running one of the largest technology philanthropy programs in the world (via collaboration with an international network of 63 NGOs in Africa, the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East); providing NGO validation services to funders and corporations; gathering, analyzing, and distributing global social-sector data; and catalyzing community-oriented technology innovations. Using a social-enterprise business model, its operations are grounded in collaborations with a range of stakeholders: NGOs, government agencies, social enterprises, technology activists, foundations, and 100+ technology companies - such as Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, Cisco, and Intuit. Since 2001, TechSoup Global has distributed 14.1 million software and hardware product donations and enabled organizations worldwide to save US$4.6 billion for direct services.
Fundacja TechSoup is the first separately incorporated “regional hub” established by TechSoup Global. It employs a staff of eighteen in Warsaw, Poland, and supports activities in more than 16 European countries (as well as playing a key role in supporting the Global Partner Network overall).
Other activities
Ben-Horin has been a technology blogger at The Huffington Post since 2011. He also blogs frequently for the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Recognition
In 2009, the Ashoka Foundation elected Ben-Horin as a Senior Fellow for his work as a “leading social entrepreneur,” and the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network NTEN gave him its "Lifetime Achievement Award." [6][7]
From 2004 through 2007, the Nonprofit Times included him on its annual list of “50 Most Influential People in the Nonprofit Sector.”[8]
References
- ↑ Ben-Horin, Daniel; Schofield, Melissa (May 7, 1995). "CompuMentor: people helping computers help people". CHI '95 Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Association for Computing Machinery). doi:10.1145/223355.223476.
- 1 2 Tidhar, David (1959). "(אליהו בן-חורין (זליג בידנר". Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel (in Hebrew) 10. pp. 3470–3471. Retrieved 2016-04-12.
- ↑ Nedava, Joseph (2007). "Ben-Horin (Zelig Bidner), Eliahu". Encyclopedia Judaica. via HighBeam Research (subscription required). Retrieved 2012-04-16.
(References Tidhar and Toldot ha-Haganah, Dinur, 2, index
- 1 2 Garfinkel, Daniel Ben-horin; As Told To Perry (2007-11-25). "A Serious Side of Fun". The New York Times (New York ed.). p. 317. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2016-04-12. Retrieved 2016-04-12.
- ↑ "Benross Corporation | Home". www.benrosscorporation.com. Retrieved 2016-04-12.
- ↑ “Ashoka Foundation New Fellows Announcement” Archived January 11, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ “2009 NTC: Awards Show Wrap Up”
- ↑ "The NPT 2007 Power and Influence Top 50" (PDF). The Nonprofit Times. August 2007. p. 25. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 28, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-03.