Campaign dollars raised by the Jewish Federation of San Diego County help to fund programs that build Jewish continuity and resilience in our partnership region of Sha’ar HaNegev. Following is one example of a program put together by SouthUp, a start-up incubator that we fund, and the students in the Sha’ar HaNegev High School, which we helped to build.

The combination of entrepreneurial and technological knowledge is the core principle behind a new program at the Yitzchak Shavit High School in Sha’ar HaNegev, a joint initiative of SouthUp and the Sha’ar HaNegev High School that begins in September with ninth graders. 

The program will provide students with leadership abilities that will enable them to assimilate both types of knowledge in their daily and adult lives in the Gaza envelope region. Students are being given a golden opportunity to build and lead a start-up company with the support of mentors and professional consultants from SouthUp. 

An innovative computer lab is being set up for students from the high school and from Sapir College, providing an opportunity to work at the SouthUp incubator, to be part of the entrepreneurial atmosphere, to network and create relevant connections, and to be involved in the high-tech world.

As part of preparing the students for the program, a joint activity was started between the high school and SouthUp. A group of students attended a hackathon to mark the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel in which they were asked to find a technological solution to improve the education system in Israel. The students devised a social application called “School Coin,” which is actually a virtual coin to be used as payment for help with homework, test preparation, and learning. Students who offer help will be paid via the virtual currency and will be able to use it to purchase items at the school cafeteria, educational equipment stores, etc. As part of the application development, the students came to the SouthUp incubator to present the idea to SouthUp’s entrepreneurs.

Recently, high school students participated in SouthUp’s latest hackathon to solve the problem of the burning balloons and terrorist kites flying over from Gaza. The students were divided among the groups of experts and took an active part in the fruitful discussion to find a solution to the problem. The experts who participated with them in the groups said that the students' contributions to the discussion was significant, and that they were an integral part of the incubation process and the solutions found in it.

Adar Radeski Elmaliach, a ninth grader, said: "The first hackathon of the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel was amazing. We worked 24 hours non-stop to develop the idea, stayed up all night, and managed to reach a final product. 

Toward the end of the hackathon we presented our idea to students from all over the Israel. A few days after we arrived at the SouthUp incubator and presented the idea to Elad, the CEO, who helped us and gave us tips for further planning the prototype.

“In the hackathon of the burning balloons and terrorist kites, all the groups and other high school kids who had ideas for solutions arrived,” he said. “At the beginning of the event, brainstorming and ideas were exchanged, and this is the part that we enjoyed the most! We felt that the experts listened to our ideas and gave us a platform. During the lunch break, we tried to fly kites in order to try different means of identification and it was very difficult! At the end of the SouthUp hackathon, we passed on all our ideas to the incubator’s managers so that they could continue developing them.”

Students will be divided into small groups of 6-8 students throughout the school year. Each group will focus on various aspects of setting up a start-up company, starting with the entrepreneurial idea, feasibility study, market survey, marketing and advertising, writing a business plan, and raising money from potential investors.

Each group of students will be led by a mentor. The mentors are entrepreneurs from the SouthUp incubator. In practice, every entrepreneur who enters the incubator is committed to devote two hours a week to the educational project. During the year, the students will meet with experts in the relevant fields (an expert in the field of sewage, an expert in the field of concrete, etc.), with the goal of enriching the students’ professional knowledge and reaching a high-quality product.

Thank you to all who make programs like this possible through your generous support of the Jewish Federation.