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    • Develop innovative solutions in the fight against anti-Semitism
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    Develop innovative solutions in the fight against anti-Semitism

    Pabio Posted on

    October 10 is a day forever etched in the memory of New Jersey resident Morielle Lotan. It was a day that not only shook up his family, but also changed the course of his life’s mission. After more than 48 hours of waiting to find out where her nephew was after the Oct. 7 massacre, she and her family received notification. Adir Mesika was assassinated by Hamas terrorists during the Nova music festival.

    Mesika was hailed a hero for saving the lives of three people that day after charging at terrorists outside a shelter where they were hiding. The American-Israeli was known for his larger-than-life personality, his love for his military service, but a problem solver at heart.

    Lotan says she and her nephew bonded over entrepreneurship and remembers asking Mesika before he was killed how his military experience shaped who he was. She remembers him saying, “People knew that if you gave me a big problem, I would figure out what to do.” »

    Over the past year, Lotan has spent countless hours tackling deep-rooted problems and creating innovative solutions. Turning pain into purpose and as an entrepreneur who had studied international security and intelligence failures, she realized just days after October 7 that a major security problem was imminent not only for the Israelis, but also for Jews around the world for years.

    “While the world focused on the collapse of Israeli intelligence, we saw a parallel failure on American college campuses and in our society,” Lotan said.

    The ADIR Challenge Foundation hosted the Innovate to Illuminate Shark-Tank Style event at Central Synagogue in Manhattan. (credit: OHAD KAB)

    With an immediate rise in anti-Semitism following October 7Widespread protests saw the use of Hamas and Hezbollah flags and slogans such as “globalize the Intifada”. College campuses across the United States also became a focal point of contention, as thousands of students quickly mobilized from coast to coast to boycott their universities’ relations with Israel, spreading fear among thousands of Jewish students.

    “When I saw the October 7 celebration, coupled with what we were seeing on college campuses, that was it,” Lotan said. “The alarming speed of the resurgence of anti-Semitism, coupled with the realization that we are fighting with a slingshot, while the enemy uses technologically advanced weapons, adds a deeply sinister element to this fight. »

    The fight for Lotan has been energized by a mission called The ADIR Challenge Foundation, which focuses on researching, incubating and developing innovative solutions in the fight against anti-Semitism. Named in Mesika’s memory, the foundation last year engaged thousands of people for its first innovation challenge and inspired 420 people from 25 countries to submit their inventions. Winners received mentorship from highly qualified experts in technology, business and even law and received grants to launch their ideas.

    “We saw that innovation and the fight against anti-Semitism were sorely lacking and we decided to change that,” Lotan said.

    The event

    After over a year of fundraising, hundreds of hours of mentoring and gap analysis research, the ADIR Challenge Foundation hosted the Innovate to Illuminate Shark-Tank Style event at Central Synagogue in Manhattan, where three teams presented their solutions to combat anti-Semitism and hatred, especially on college campuses. The audience of 400 people voted via an app for which idea they liked best and the winner took home the $10,000 grand prize.

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    An invention aimed at transforming the way hate crimes are reported on college campuses was a crowd favorite. Reportify, which uses generative AI, automates and streamlines the reporting process with a user-friendly design to make it more transparent. Co-founders Danielle Sobkin and Hannah Levin created the innovation after October 7, when they experienced difficulty submitting their own incident reports to their college.

    “Nobody did anything,” Sobkin said after submitting an anti-Semitic incident to his school. She explained that there was never any follow-up to her filed reports or accountability for those involved in the incident, which posed a similar problem for other students across the country. Reportify claims its platform is designed to enable students to write reports with simplified methods and ensure longevity for future students.

    “Times have changed, issues on campus have changed, dynamics have changed…technology has changed. As we’ve seen from the other side, they’re exploiting this and we’re not,” Sobkin said. “For the first time, this puts students in the driver’s seat of the solutions. »

    Sobkin says joining the Adir Challenge Foundation has accelerated their timeline to help them secure the funding they need to take this project further. “I was happy for the girls and I really think for the students, by the students, this is something we need to pay attention to,” Lotan said.

    The other two teams participating in the challenge were from Israel and were presented on Zoom. The Oct7 Community OS initiative is a centralized online platform that brings together information, resources, organizations and people in communities to mobilize together. The app will counter hostile propaganda, according to CEO Omer Dagan, who served 30 years in the Israeli army and was the former commander of the Central Technology Unit.

    “We know from our past, from the Six Day War and other events in Jewish history, that we can beat the other side even if we are outnumbered,” Dagan said in his presentation .

    The third Israeli team was Support On The Spot, an initiative providing immediate emotional and practical support to people in distress using technology with community action to help those in need.

    Even though all three groups were competing for the grand prize, Lotan says he received feedback from the teams on how bringing their ideas together could improve the overall mission and fill existing gaps.

    “The three of them will have ways of working together that will make them stronger than they could be on their own,” Lotan said.



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