Mindspace, located in the middle of high tech Tel Aviv, is a co-working space that houses companies of all sizes, with individual meeting rooms, communal kitchens, and open spaces that encourage collaboration and inspiration. While Mindspace is aesthetically the coolest office building I’ve ever been inside of, what’s happening inside of Mindspace is even cooler. From entrepreneurs to small businesses to startups, Mindspace is home to many of the people who make Israel the “startup nation.”
We were in Mindspace on the day of our high tech tour of Tel Aviv. Along with companies in Mindpace, we heard from a number of huge high-tech companies like PayPal, Waze and Google. But despite hearing from all of these high profile companies, I was most inspired by a small startup we learned about in Mindspace called Keepod. Keepod has created a cheap device that places a computer operating system on a USB drive, allowing people even in the poorest countries in the world access to a personal computer for a relatively low price. With programs in Costa Rica, Kenya, Malawi, Cambodia, Zambia, Cameroon, the Philippines, Tanzania, Liberia, and with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Keepod is helping to bridge the digital divide and provide technology to 70% of the world’s population (that’s 5 billion people), giving them access to personal computing and in turn the modern working world.
One of the first programs we did as a cohort was talk about missions and visions. We discovered that most businesses have mission statements that exclude their main mission-- to make money. Keepod is no exception. Like any other business, Keepod aims to make a profit, but the way the company goes about doing this is through making a global social impact. Despite being a large part of the conflict that is the Middle East, Israelis are continuing to do good for the world-- and are even striving to achieve social change among people of countries that may be their own enemy. This was inspiring to me and and the rest of the fellows who, for the most part, are here to learn how we can make a difference in our own Jewish communities. It made me remember how possible it is to work towards social change in many realms. If the founders of a high-tech company can help poverty stricken people around the world, surely I can do my part to impact my Jewish community at home for the better. I hope to spend much of the coming semester exploring how I might do that.
