I recently wrote about the destructive exercises that are part of Palestinian “summer camps” and how they’ve been like that for a while. (Elder of Ziyon illustrates the case.)
So what kind of summer camps do Israelis have? Ha’aretz recently wrote about an especially interesting one: Startup summer camp.
At first Startupseeds.com’s event seemed like just another day camp. Some 30 children, aged 12-16, sat in an auditorium at Tel Aviv University. Ami Ben-Bassat, the company’s CEO, opened the meeting with a declaration: “Today we have reason to celebrate, Gil has a birthday.”
At the sound of applause, a curly-haired boy with rosy cheeks, smiling from ear-to-ear went up to the dais. “He just returned from day camp, he looks completely roasted,” Ben-Bassat said. “Today, he is 14 and on August 1 he will be launching his first startup.”
Here’s the deal:
Startupseeds, the Israeli Internet Center for Young Entrepreneurs, is a subsidiary of Madatech, the national museum of science and technology in Haifa. The company was created last October at the initiative of Michal and Yigal Lichtman (one of the founders of Magic Software) to encourage youngsters with an understanding of technology. Within a few months, a community of more than 1,000 children from all over the country, and mainly from the periphery, formed around the venture. Children from Kiryat Yam, Migdal Ha’emek, Afula, Lod and Hadera attended last week’s event. They meet at the forum on the Startupseeds.com Web site and also at meetings and trips in the “real” world.
The Web site allows youths to discretely send in applications and ideas that are reviewed by an advisory committee. “We provide assistance to anyone who gets past the committee, and if the idea is approved, we give the young entrepreneur up to NIS 12,000. He repays the money if the project yields results and all rights remain his,” says Ben-Bassat.
Note especially the observation that the young entrepreneurs come from the “periphery.” In other words they are underprivileged and not seeking to perpetuate grievances but to get ahead. This stands as a stark contrast to a society that teaches its young to hate and to destroy.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
