James “Jim” Fruchterman is a social entrepreneur. Jim is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tech Matters and the Founder and former CEO of Benetech, Silicon Valley's leading tech for good nonprofit. Jim is a recognized MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and a Distinguished Alumnus of Caltech. Prior to these positions, Jim was a rocket engineer who also founded two successful for-profit tech companies. Under Jim's leadership, his companies have created and scaled multiple social good software enterprises. He continues to develop and launch new software applications to meet critical human needs.
His current work includes Aselo, software for crisis response helplines, and Terraso, software to local leaders and smallholders globally. He is helping lead the Better Deal for Data Initiative for more ethical use of data generally and for AI specifically. Lastly, he is the author of the forthcoming MIT Press title, "Technology for Good."
