Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
REUBEN STERLING: Hi, everyone.
Thanks for coming.
Sorry for the delay.
My name is Reuben Sterling.
We're in the Google Los Angeles office today.
It is my pleasure to introduce Noa Epstein, CEO of Middle
East Education through Technology.
Middle East Education through Technology--
or MEET--
brings together Israeli and Palestinian students for
computer science in business education.
I was an early instructor.
And it's grown a lot since I was there.
And I'm really excited to see what they've been up to.
NOA EPSTEIN: Thanks very much, Reuben.
And thanks very much to all of you for coming to this talk.
My name's Noa, as Benji said.
And I come from Jerusalem.
I'm here on a kind of US trip.
We had two of our alumni invited to present their
mobile app, one Israeli and one Palestinian 17-year-olds.
And they were supposed to do that in New York last week,
which, of course, got canceled because it was supposed to be
in Battery Park at the AllThingsD mobile tech
conference.
But the good news is that they still got their message out.
And I'm going to be showing you that as well.
So really today's talk is about an example of how
technology and the spreading of knowledge is being used to
disrupt a situation which, for many years people have been
trying to tackle and solve, which is the Middle East
conflict, and how, as an organization called MEET we're
bringing together young Palestinian and Israeli youth
who have leadership potential.
And we're teaching them this common language of technology,
of computer science and business, and bringing them
together in an environment that can rearrange and
re-categorize group boundaries so that they can develop a
common language and actually get things done together.
So let me start by giving you a bit of a glimpse of what it
is likely to be an Israeli or a Palestinian today living in
the Middle East.
How many of you have been to Jerusalem?
OK.
So we have a knowledgeable crowd here.
So as you know, the situation in the Middle East-- in
Israel-Palestine--
is such that the societies are very much divided.
We have a physical wall that separates communities.
But there's also a mental wall of stereotypes and
misconceptions.
And this is something that is really hard to overcome.
So I grew up in Jerusalem.
But until the age of 14, when I first joined a program that
brought together young Israeli and Palestinian students, I
had never met a Palestinian in my life before that time.
And most of the people my age never come into contact with a
Palestinian--
I'm Israeli--
unless it's in the context of the conflict.
So at a checkpoint, or through the very negative image of the
other that we see on the news.
Over the years, there have been many efforts, and many
valuable efforts to bring the societies together and to
create bridges, especially between young people, to break
down stereotypes, to create friendships in the hope that
that will transform the next generation and help us create
the wanted peace that everyone aspires to.
But there are several challenges with the models of
organizations that have been doing peace building in the
past couple of years--
or more than that, in the past decade, actually.
So the basis of all these organizations and concept is
the notion of contact.
So contact theory has it that if you bring people together,
they get to know each other as individuals.
And they're able to create that interpersonal trust which
is critical to, again, dissolving the stereotypes and
negative images of the other.
And there's two sides of the spectrum here of the type of
interaction you can create when you bring two opposing
sides together.
One is the individualistic theory, where you say, if I
get to know Nora better, I will trust in her and then be
able to work together with her to solve a common challenge.
The other side of the spectrum says, let's bring groups
together, groups that represent their national
constituencies.
So you sit people around in a circle.
And Palestinians and Israelis suddenly
represent their nations.
And they discuss the hot political issues like refugees
and settlements and terror attacks.
And it's all on the table.
And it's very, very vibrant and difficult.
I've been involved in such encounters, personally.
But then you reach a point where people realize that, at
the end of the day, they don't represent the entire group.
And they can't solve the political conflict through
negotiating with a circle of people.
So the existing models have challenges that the people who
founded MEET--
Middle East Education through Technology--
in 2004, these people were trying to figure out a model
that will address these challenges and create
something different.
So basically they wanted to do something that can scale
beyond the individual interaction.
They wanted to do something that is long term, so not
sending people off to, say, an experience of a month or a
week abroad.
There's lots of student programs that bring together
Israeli and Palestinians and send them off to a delegation
to Switzerland or other places.
And it's great.
But it's a bubble.
And what happens there, then, comes back and tends to get
dissolved when they're back home in the harsh reality of
the conflict.
And most of all, the people who founded MEET wanted to
create something that's long lasting and goes beyond the
experience of the interaction itself.
So the MEET approach to bridging the societies and to
create something that will help effect positive change
between Israelis and Palestinians is, first of all,
an excellence model.
So MEET is an NGO.
And we run an educational excellence program for
excelling high school students from Israel and Palestine.
And the idea here is that it's not a numbers game, and it
never will be.
So we spend our resources on selecting those individuals at
the age of 15 from both sides that we believe have
leadership potential.
And we invest in them for three intensive years when
they are still living at home.
So this is part of their everyday reality.
And they go through this program that teaches
technology and business skills.
They actually learn computer science, Java, Python.
I'll touch on what they actually do in a minute.
And the focus is on a skill set.
The focus is not on coming and just getting to know each
other, but actually giving them something that's a vested
interest for them to continue coming to the program, because
it's an excellence program.
And it's in partnership with MIT.
The mission of MEET is to educate and empower tomorrow's
most promising Palestinian and Israeli leaders so that they
can then effect change, whether it's political, social
or economic, in the Middle East, in their region.
And how do we do this?
We do this by creating a network.
So as I said, we invest in people as
they enter high school.
And they go through a three-year program, during
which they get to study from instructors that come from MIT
every summer to Jerusalem.
And through this experience, these students become part of
a network which essentially is long lasting and lifelong.
Like if you graduate from the top universities I'm sure you
all have gone to, you're part of something that is bigger
and can last you a very long time.
And if you want to, then, start a company, or if you
want to figure out the next step in your life, more often
than not, you'll turn to this network.
And you'll be able to really leverage it to make a
difference and to do something.
And that's something that does not exist between Israelis and
Palestinians before MEET was started.
So what do we actually do at MEET?
What does the program look like?
The first phase is a student program.
It's three years long.
And it's composed of three summers, five weeks each, in
Jerusalem at the Hebrew University where instructors
come as volunteers from MIT, from Sloan, and from the
computer science department, CSAIL, to teach our students
everything from the common language of technology--
so Java and Python--
how to write a business plan, how do you think strategically
about a problem, how to come up with a marketing plan.
So they actually work on real projects
with real world companies.
And we've done a software for HP that the
student had to develop.
We've created marketing plans for selling touch pads to
women over 50.
And this is all stuff that the students would not get a
chance to do, definitely not at this age, and definitely
not with people from the supposed enemy side.
In between those three years where we have those summer
camps five weeks each, we have a yearlong program that
happens every day at our lab in Jerusalem.
So students come from Bethlehem, Ramallah, East and
West Jerusalem, some smaller cities around West Jerusalem,
and, for the first time this year, from the north of Israel
as well, Arabs and Jews from the Nazareth area.
And in our program hubs, these students continue to learn and
develop their skills.
Whereas in the first year they might create a calculator or
learn basic Java to program something like a small
computer game, like Snake, or something like that, in the
second year, they're already developing websites and
starting to think creatively about what can they actually
create that makes a difference.
One project they did last year was called BioBook, where they
were taking people's information from Facebook and
Google+ and other sources, and then trying to create a
biography that's written down.
And they can submit for a job interview or to
give a speech somewhere.
So these kind of applications are at the second year.
Whereas in the third year, students really start thinking
about how can their project have a wider impact, which is
really what we educate them to do at MEET.
And in the past summer, we had a very interesting project
called Count Me In, which I'm going to tell you about soon.
And that's a mobile app for Android which coordinates
collective action on a large scale.
Think Arab Spring and the kind of applications that can have.
So after the three-year student program, we've got a
very interesting situation.
Two years ago, we started to see alumni coming since 2004
and joining us again in the summer and saying, guys, we
want to get back involved.
And this is incredible, because you see people who are
now 20 to 23-year-old, they're at university.
Some of them are in the army on the Israeli side.
And they really want to engage back within MEET.
So we developed an alumni program, which is really to
ensure the next stage of MEET's impact.
And the concept here is really to ensure that there is this
network that is not just keeping tabs of their success
but that, as an organization, we are actively assisting them
in the next stages of their careers, and helping create or
enable an opportunity for them to interact together again.
One element of this is just to ensure that they can keep
seeing each other.
So we have four annual events in Jerusalem where alumni come
back and hear lectures and go through courses and just be
with each other again in a stimulating environment.
The second is professional development.
So we're really helping our alumni figure out which
university to go to, how to get in, how to get a
scholarship.
We're turning to mentors, which is a huge resource we
have at MEET because of our wonderful instructors who've
been teaching on the program and end up, then, working in
almost any top company in today's industries.
So we're able to really connect and make those
one-to-one matches for our alumni to then be successful
in their endeavors.
The third and most exciting, I think, element of the alumni
program is the Venture Lab.
And this is something I wanted to tell you Googlers about,
because we've already got Google Tel Aviv
very involved in this.
And also, the office in Mountain View
has been very helpful.
What we're doing is we've created an open space, a
shared space for our alumni to come back and interact and
work on real projects by themselves this time.
So it's not so much guided by us.
But it can be a pair of people coming back and saying, we
want to develop this app.
And we're not sure how to get started.
And MEET will connect them with the
resources that they need.
But mostly, they have a space where they can physically sit
together and talk about this and come up with creative
ideas, which is very unique.
If you've been to Jerusalem, you know that such spaces
where both sides can just come and interact in a creative
environment are almost unheard of.
So the Venture Lab is at the point where we're building up
the network of mentors and speaker who come in
sporadically and give a talk at the lab-- a tech talk, or a
business, or something about social enterprise.
So that's for you to keep in mind next time
you're in the region.
Who are our students?
Where do they come from?
And what are they like?
So our students come from seven cities, as I mentioned--
from the Jerusalem area, from Bethlehem, from Ramallah, and
from the north of Israel.
And they're 15 when they enter MEET.
They're very excellent academically and socially.
So they have to go through a rigorous three-stage process
to actually enter MEET.
And once they're in, they get a full scholarship for the
whole three years.
So it's a very competitive program.
And we take pride in it when we say that we have under 10%
admittance rate.
So this year, we had 700 applicants for only 60 spots.
So it's very hard to get in.
And this is part of MEET's different kind of model.
We have a brand equity that we've built that because of
the affiliation with MIT and because of the really top
notch educational program that we run.
And this enables us to pull the best
students on both sides.
People who don't necessarily want to come and meet the
other side, but they want to come and learn computer
science because they're passionate about technology.
And they really want to improve their skills in a
program that offers them those kind of opportunities.
We have 50% girls and 50% boys.
Obviously 50% Israeli and Palestinian.
And that's really unique, because you cone into the MEET
lab, and you see groups of young people, many girls, some
of them religious, some not, Israeli, Palestinian.
And they're all working on developing
these apps and websites.
And it's really empowering to see that, and to see what's
possible when you give people such an opportunity and you
bring them together around knowledge.
In the coming two years, my professional partner, who's
Ala Sader, co-director of MEET, and I were working to do
two main things.
One is to scale this model.
So I said before, MEET is not about numbers.
But we do want to bring in--
we have now 100--
so 200 students at any given time to this program.
We're doing this by opening a new program hub in the north,
in Nazareth.
And we're also reaching out to a new demography.
So as you know, Israel and Palestine, when we talk about
a leadership network, it's really critical to also
involve the Palestinian citizens of Israel, so
Palestinians who are living inside Israel today.
And for the first time this summer, we've done that.
We've got a pilot group of students from the north,
Jewish and Arab.
And we've kind of closed the triangle of Israeli and
Palestinians in the region as part of this network.
The third thing we're doing is the Alumni program.
And here, the Venture Lab is the biggest focus.
And we're really looking to create support and rally
people to be part of this amazing open space, joint
workspace in Jerusalem where people can come together,
alumns in bi-national or uni-national projects.
So the example of one of the ventures that are being
developed at the moment is one I want to share with you today
called Count Me In.
Let's see if the video will work.
Because Amin and Yuval, two of our alumns who worked on this,
can tell you firsthand what it is about.
So these are two guys who were invited to present at
AllThingsD.
And because their conference got canceled due to the
hurricane, unfortunately--
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
YUVAL YOGEV: I'm Yuval.
I'm 17 years old.
I'm an Israeli.
And I live in Jerusalem.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
NOA EPSTEIN: --present in front of the camera.
Just one second.
This is at the hotel room of the AllThingsD organizer, who
was very, very helpful to us.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
YUVAL YOGEV: Hi, I'm Yuval.
I'm 17 years old.
I'm an Israeli.
And I live in Jerusalem.
AMIN MANNA: I'm Amin.
I'm a Palestinian.
I'm 17.
And I live five minutes away from Yuval.
Geographically, we live really close.
But socially, we're worlds apart.
There is no social interaction between the Palestinian and
Israeli communities.
For most of my life, I didn't know any Israelis on a
personal level.
I didn't have any Israeli friends.
All I knew was that they live in the same city that I do.
YUVAL YOGEV: We live in different cultures.
And that was our situation up until three years ago when we
got selected to this program called MEET.
AMIN MANNA: MEET--
Middle East Education through Technology--
is an educational excellence program which teaches computer
science and business to Israeli and Palestinian high
schoolers in partnership with volunteer instructors
who come from MIT.
Its aim is to create and active network of leaders who
can create positive change in our region.
YUVAL YOGEV: MEET is a very intensive program.
We study computer science and business each
summer for three years.
We also meet for four hour weekly meeting, where amazing
instructors from MIT come and teach us Java, Python,
leadership skills, marketing strategies, and so on.
But most importantly, in MEET, we got to know
more about each other.
I got to know about Amin, the other side, and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
AMIN MANNA: And during those three years, my friends were
asking me, why do you do this?
Why do you wake up at 7:00 AM in the morning for five days a
week during your summer vacation, when you should be
on the beach?
Why are you doing this?
And you're going to learn computer science with a bunch
of Israelis, no less.
My answer to them was the same.
First of all, MEET challenges me.
It's given me an opportunity to learn computer science at a
level that Palestinian high schoolers don't get.
But also, I've managed to make a connection with people who I
thought I couldn't connect to.
I found out that Israelis aren't so different from me.
We have some similarities.
And although I don't always agree with Yuval's political
opinions, I can come to respect him as a person.
And that relationship is really important to me.
YUVAL YOGEV: In the second year, Amin and I got to work
on the same project in the same team.
We managed to turn our competition into corporation.
And we realized that once we worked
towards common both together.
the results were amazing.
AMIN MANNA: But then last summer, when we were just
about to graduate from the MEET program, we realized that
the relationship which we had been building up for the past
three years might be about to disappear.
And that's something that we would not allow to happen.
So we decided that we would take action.
We would do something to make sure that after we graduated
from MEET, we could stay connected.
YUVAL YOGEV: Our experience in MEET has taught us how
important technology is.
A recent example is the Arab Spring, where an individual's
idea got spread to the mass using Facebook and Twitter.
That's why we decided to use technology in order to solve a
problem and stay connected.
We decided to develop a mobile application
called Count Me In.
Count Me In is currently being developed by us in the brand
new MEET Venture Lab.
The MEET Venture Lab is a place where MEET alumni can
come together and work on various startups and projects
in bi-national teams.
AMIN MANNA: Count Me In is an application for group event
coordination.
This means it gives its users the ability to create an event
and then invite others to join them.
For us, Count Me In was a way for the 30 students in our
year to stay connected after we graduated from MEET, so
that we could say, guys, let's all go play soccer after
school on Monday.
And it would happen, Count Me In.
But then as we started working on this application, we
realized this could be something more.
This could have an affect on hundreds of
thousands of people.
What if we wanted to clean the park, and we want 500 people
to help us do it?
Click, Count Me In.
What if we want a million people to save electricity in
the next two days?
Click, Count Me In.
YUVAL YOGEV: We really believe that the youth generation, our
generation, has the power to change our society's future.
And Count Me In was our way to do that.
It was our way to connect and to affect.
But in order to create a bigger change in the Middle
East, we need a critical mass.
And you can be a part of it.
We've come all this way just to meet you.
But unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy got here first.
AMIN MANNA: That's in bad luck.
If there's one thing we learned from MEET, it's that
we don't give up.
YUVAL YOGEV: So please, stay in contact with us.
Email us.
Check out the MEET Facebook page, the MEET website, and
our Indiegogo campaign.
The Venture Lab is waiting for you.
Thank you.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
NOA EPSTEIN: So the last frame was from Times Square.
And that was Amin and Yuval, who are two of our alumns.
We also have a number of alumns in the States now.
One is called [INAUDIBLE].
He's right now in a startup in the Valley.
This a 20-year-old guy.
And we have four of our Palestinian alumni studying at
MIT at the moment.
So since 2004, we've come quite a long way.
Benji can tell you that we started off as a very slow
organization.
It actually started as one-off summer.
No one knew that it's going to have this effect and impact.
But then after the summer, the students were coming and
saying, OK, what's next?
How can we sign up for more?
So MEET has grown.
And we're now at a really critical stage where, with
this Venture Lab, we're working hard to make sure that
we can actually see these type of projects and
MEET's vision develop.
So we actually really need your help, both in spreading
the word and getting involved more than that.
And here are some examples of how.
So we've now formally set up a matching campaign with Google.
So you have the internal system, which you know about.
So MEET is now a part of that.
And if you or your fellow Googlers would like to give
the smallest amount even to MEET, then that would be
really, really welcome and really helpful to help fund
student scholarships for Israelis and Palestinians.
The second way to get involved is as a mentor.
If you can give, even remotely from here, an hour once every
two months, or even as an almost one-off, to give a tech
review to one of the projects our students are developing,
or to help people think through a business idea,
depending on your area of expertise, then
that's really valuable.
And merely the contact that they can have with Googlers
abroad and the kind of role models that we want to expose
them to is really helpful in what we're trying to do as
part of our educational mission.
Thirdly, if you have a crazy idea for a project you'd love
to do and don't have the time, or something that you've had
in your mind, then our students want
to know about this.
So you can come up with a project you think would be
really cool challenge to set for the
students in the summer.
And maybe even come to the summer for a couple of days
and be a judge in a competition
that we do for that.
So there's really a lot of room for creativity and ideas.
And we really want to source these from
you and involve you.
If you're ever in Jerusalem, do tell us.
We're really easy to access.
We're situated right next to the YMCA in front of the King
David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Our lab is there.
And there's always something happening.
There's always an opportunity to come give a talk, or just
come and meet us and see the students and alumni in action.
And lastly, I really mean it when I say, help
us spread the word.
So we talked about MEET's mission, which is educational,
to empower our students to create impact.
Part of our mission is also to inspire hope.
Those of you who know Palestinians and Israelis
personally, you know that a lot of people
have really lost hope.
And it's more common to find people who say, you can't
change anything.
It's just a lost cause.
All these efforts and the Oslo process and everything.
And it's just getting worse and worse back home.
I think MEET, for me--
I mean this is the reason I am part of MEET--
MEET gives me hope.
Because it's being part of something, almost like a
social experiment, when you say, let's imagine that there
wasn't a conflict a second.
Let's imagine there was no occupation.
Let's imagine that the situation was just normal
between Israelis and Palestinians.
What would, then, corporation look like?
What would happen if you brought really sharp minds
together around technology and business, and challenged them
to think big, to think creatively?
What would be the result?
And we see the result every single day when we work with
these amazing students in partnership with our amazing
instructors who come from the US from MIT.
And that's a kind of picture that's really
hard to put into words.
But as much as we can, this is why I come here
and talk about it.
And as much as you can tell people about this, I think
that also, in itself, is going to make a difference.
[HEBREW]--
thank you.
And now I'd like to open it up to a discussion or questions
or whatever really you would like.
If people have any comment or you want to ask a bit more
about the program, feel free.
Just introduce yourself as well.
Benji.
REUBEN STERLING: So in the video--
was it Amit and Yuval?
Is that right?
Amin and Yuval.
So their English was obviously very good.
And I remember when I was an instructor, one of the
principal sources of frustration for the students
and the instructors was a lot of the kids didn't have the
English skills.
Obviously they were selected, and they could speak English.
But many of them didn't have fluent English.
And that was a source of frustration.
I was wondering, what's been the experience since then?
And have you been able to figure out strategies
to deal with that?
NOA EPSTEIN: So at MEET, the offering is really around
computer science and business.
That's what the kids know that they're going to get.
The second layer is the fact that they get to know each
other, which is, for us, the core goal.
And there's other layers, too, to kind of what happens as a
result of MEET, one of which is really improving your
English, which is a huge pull mechanism.
The parents, which we invite to the pre-MEET parent event,
they're all excited about knowing, from friends and so
on, that at MEET, their kids are really going to become
fluent in English.
And that's the case today, where we have something called
the English rule.
So people are expected, both instructors and the students,
to speak English.
And even if they come into the program not so
fluent, that's OK.
We don't disqualify you because of that.
We even provide tutoring before the first summer at
MEET for people who need to strengthen their language
skill a bit.
But this is the common language.
And technology is one, so English is something
they gain as well.
And in the alumni phase, we're actually
teaching Hebrew and Arabic.
Because I personally think that that's really the common
language, to know the language of each other.
But English is the language of technology and business.
And it's a main part of the program.
The past summer, we've had year three students kind of
help enforce the English rule with year one students.
For them, it's a bit tougher.
Because suddenly you're expected to
speak English 24/7.
And it's new.
But it's interesting, because that's another thing that they
get out of MEET, which I think they realize afterwards is
very valuable for them.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Two questions.
One is how do you think that the fact that you have
Palestinians and Israelis together influence the
outcome, what happens in the trainings and all that?
And the second question is, is there any formal discussion
around politics, around what's going on?
Or all the conversation happens in hallway
conversations or, I don't know, social activities, or
things like that?
NOA EPSTEIN: I don't think--
OK, it is working.
So to your first question about how does it actually
create an impact, the fact that we're bringing the sides
together-- did I get the question right?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]?
NOA EPSTEIN: So I think, actually, Benji might want to
answer how, actually, does the bi-national dynamic influence
the educational side of the program, the academic
side, if you like.
I can just say, from my perspective, that we just get
a bunch of really smart youth in the room.
We do teach things that are unrelated to the conflict,
most of the time, which is technology,
computer science, business.
So directly, there is no influence in that sense.
But it's more about the academic program influencing
their bi-national dynamic, because
suddenly you get teams.
They learn through doing.
So suddenly there's a Palestinian project manager
who's managing an Israeli on the team.
And suddenly a female Palestinian is managing a male
Palestinian from the next city.
And many different dynamics which are not so common maybe
in the reality.
And I think that has a big impact on changing people's
mindsets and helping them question things more.
But maybe, Benji, do you want to say something about the
teaching experience?
REUBEN STERLING: From my experience, just in terms of
the actual teaching and having the kids work together and the
project, the whole Israeli-Palestinian divide
really kind of falls.
It's very tangential to the projects that they do during
the program.
So the academics, they coalesce very well.
And they work together very well.
The politics tend to come during lunch time, because
everyone's in the same cafeteria.
And everyone's eating at the same tables.
And we're not talking about computer science anymore.
And that's sort of when it comes out.
And I had some interesting experiences with that respect.
NOA EPSTEIN: And also add to your second question about do
we actually tackle politics.
So first of all, absolutely yes.
Just because the program is held in Jerusalem and we
didn't choose to take them away to a bubble environment,
we face things like having to get the Palestinians through
the checkpoints to come to the program in the morning in the
summer, for example.
That's a hurdle.
And sometimes it doesn't go smoothly.
And there's effects to that.
If someone went through a tough experience, then they'll
bring that to their classroom, and they'll talk about it.
And we encourage that.
It's just that that's not the reason they're coming, if that
makes sense.
More so, this past summer, for instance, we
did a marketing plan.
The students had to do a marketing plan for Rawabi,
which is a Palestinian city that's being
built north of Ramallah.
And Israelis and Palestinians together had to learn about
this new venture and think about how to get foreign
companies to invest.
So through a very business oriented, let's implement our
marketing strategy skills, through this, they actually
started to talk about the political implications of
this, which is a really interesting and unique way to
tackle politics without putting that on the table and
then getting people really defensive and locked in their
national standpoint.
So I think that's a really unique way to talk politics
and to deal with the issues, but in a way that ensures,
one, that we already have a foundation of trust and deep
ability to work together between the students, which is
something we establish gradually from year one to
year three.
And two, that even after you have a heated discussion--
for example, during the Gaza War.
OK, that was during the MEET summer a few years ago.
And it was very difficult to keep running the program while
everything was happening.
But we stopped and we allowed the students to talk about
this and to have these discussions.
But at the end, they were able to come back and say, OK,
guys, now it's time to move back to the project.
And we have milestones.
And we need to get stuff done, which is really, from my
experience, unheard of otherwise, where such
situations externally can really destroy a group dynamic
that was built.
Anyone else?
AUDIENCE: Is there anybody working on a program to bus
kids around through the checkpoints to sort of
desegregate ordinary schools?
Busing kids around through the checkpoints to sort of
desegregate ordinary schools, as opposed to the sort of
elite technology thing that you're doing.
NOA EPSTEIN: So first of all, the program is not elite in
the sense that it's not related to your social
economic family situation.
We accept students across the board.
If they meet the academic excellence criterion, the kind
of leadership potential that we're looking for.
And we have students who come from refugee camps and from
more developing cities inside Israel.
So that's really important to us.
This is not like the rich kid school at all.
Regarding schools in Palestine and the checkpoint question,
I'm not really sure what exactly you're asking.
AUDIENCE: There's sort of a geographic dispersion of
different minority groups that leads to segregated schools.
And to help people learn to get along better, there needs
to be mixing of the schools.
But it's probably going to be difficult to set up a
program like that.
NOA EPSTEIN: I mean, you have in Israel and Palestine some
schools-- well, it's actually in Jerusalem on the Israeli
side-- that are bi-national in the sense that they bring
people together for the full school experience.
So MEET is extracurricular.
It's in addition to school.
It's not instead of school.
But more often than not, there are no mixed schools.
It's not a very common factor.
You've got Palestinians schools and Israeli schools
pretty separate, most often.
So thanks very much for coming to the talk.
And we have little buttons that the students made for the
Count Me In project.
So I was told I should them away as much as possible.
So happy to give one of those to you.
And then also, if you want to know more, then
come talk to me.
And check out our website, our Facebook page.
And we want to get this spread out as much as possible.
So thanks for coming.
And be our ambassador.
[APPLAUSE]
NOA EPSTEIN: Lastly, there's a sign-up sheet, if you want to
get our news letter, which is once a quarter.
So it's not going to flood your inbox, I promise.
And I just want to say thank you very much, Benji, for
organizing this and for being our MEET champion
at Google in LA.
So thank you very much.