Cije Journey To Start Up Nation

A few days ago, three sophomores returned from their fantastic trip in Israel. Their trip, called the CIJE Journey to StartUp Nation, was meant for the students to discover the opportunities available to them in Israel. Jaime Esquenazi, Denise Yudovich, and Tali Finger joined students from 200+ schools around the country. Led by STEM teachers, along with our Engineering teacher Ms. Murray and our Director of Judaic Studies Rabbi Greene, they went to explore Israel’s technological marvels and developments to gain inspiration and hopefully insight of a future for themselves in Israel.


Among the places visited was Technion University, where the students were able to see where many of the most brilliant Israeli minds go to school. They met a Katz Yeshiva high school student who was introduced to Technion through this same CIJE sponsored trip a few years back, and now attends the University. They were able to go down to the basement and toy around with a cage made of simple pvc pipes, layered with motion sensors connected through Raspberry Pi’s. The purpose of the cage was to be able to track/improve a person’s movements, such as an athlete who wants to improve his swing. Additionally, the students were shown how University students were making prosthetic arms with Arduino’s. The Hillel students themselves had been coding with Raspberry Pi and Arduino computers, so it was eye opening for them to see how what they were learning translated into a professional development.


The trip also took them to multiple startups based or created in Israel. They visited Airobotics (a company that creates automated industrial drones), SodaStream (a product that carbonates water or flavored beverages into soda within seconds), and Mazor Robotics (a company that creates robots that perform surgery), just to name a few. These visits showed allowed them to meet the founders/executives of the companies, ask questions, and explore the compounds.

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