Maya Shechter is from a small neighborhood in Ramat Gan. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem. At the Peres Center, where Maya interned during the internship component of the Glocal program, she was part of the project management team that led a pre-accelerator program for innovation for marginal populations in Israel. As the program aimed to bring the idea of startups and entrepreneurship to marginalized communities, it had to be accessible across the recruitment process, methods, and content. Maya focused on the participants' content, aiming for it to be useful afterward and fit their potential execution in the community or city. There is an amazing impact potential in bringing social values into an existing system. In Glocal, she gained the skills and knowledge to get this approach into action. Having the awareness and tools to define and measure the social effect of a system can change every project that communities face, and even become what drives the entire process. This past year has been unexpected. COVID-19, and the remote working and learning routine, revealed the knowledge and capabilities gaps in Israel. Dealing with this situation on a small scale of the educational innovation program became the core of Maya’s internship. From her point of view, while everyone was on the same boat of adapting to the new situation, it seems that we also became more sensitive to each other, facing reality and adjusting towards it. 

 

 

While various technologies are being developed to deal with the daily challenges of disadvantaged communities, the information about them and opportunities for local entrepreneurship are often inaccessible for community members. The Peres Center utilizes various means to increase the access of communities to such information and relevant opportunities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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