December 2021


Dear Friend of Athena,

As the year comes to a close, it's time to share with you a brief summary of Athena Fund's journey in 2021.

Even though we began 2021 with a lockdown, there was still much hope for a fruitful year – especially after the difficult year of 2020 with the breakout of COVID-19. Despite difficulties in fundraising, we are excited to inform you that we continued equipping pedagogical teams across Israel with digital tools vital for education in the 21st century.

Thankfully, COVID-19 vaccines have assured the return of a relatively steady school routine in Israel this year (at least to date). Since the beginning of the year, we have distributed our "digital toolbox" to thousands of school and kindergarten teachers all over Israel. We continue to work closely with our strategic partners – the Professional Advancement Fund of the Teachers Union, Bank Massad and the Ministry of Education. And we continue to receive assistance from our major donors such as the Azrieli Foundation, Mifal HaPayis (Israel’s national lottery), local municipalities, and our other donors,

Fourteen years ago, I founded Athena Fund with a dream of empowering all Israeli teachers by providing them with digital tools and professional training. At that time, I already recognized the need to progress to computer-based teaching, which would give a great advantage to Israeli students.

Today, close to 30,000 school and kindergarten teachers in 174 municipalities have already received our digital toolbox, helping them work in a way that is in line with technological progress.

We would like to thank you, along with all of Athena Fund's friends and partners, for your continuous support along our entire journey.

ImagineBox

This year we launched our cutting-edge project "ImagineBox" – a classroom of the future featuring new interactive learning technologies.

Together with the "Totally Interactive" company, we opened a showroom at Kibbutz Shefayim that gives a ”sneak peek” into the classroom of the future. Hundreds of visitors from dozens of municipalities, education networks and the Ministry of Education already have visited the showroom. There they witnessed new possibilities for experiential and interactive learning that have now become available for teachers and students.

We see great excitement and high demand for implementing this initiative, and we're on our way to launching the program in several municipalities within the next few months. Click here to watch a short video about "ImagineBox."

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

In June 2021 we made history as we took part in the yearly UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and hosted a side event.

My (Uri's) video statement was chosen to air from the central stage of the General Assembly, where representatives from many countries heard about the importance of providing technological tools to teachers.

Because of COVID-19 restrictions, most of the conference, including our event, was held via Zoom. However, this gave us the ability to host prominent speakers from all over the world. With Noa Tishby emceeing the event from Los Angeles, we hosted speakers from Russia, South Africa, and, of course, from Israel, including Prof. Amnon Shashua and Major General (Res.) Eliezer Shkedy.

Guests from many countries worldwide attended our event, where we focused on the importance of using technology in education and communications with special needs children. You can watch the recording of our side event here.

Due to the success of our side event, we hope that we'll get to take part in the conference and organize another side event in 2022 – perhaps this time in person at UN headquarters in New York City.

EDUTECH 2021 Conference

At the beginning of July, together with the "People and Computers" company, we held the EDUTECH 2021 education conference focusing on the classroom of the future.

The conference gave top education experts in Israel and abroad the opportunity to speak about their vision for the future classroom. We heard fascinating lectures from a number of speakers, including: Yuli Tamir, former Minister of Education who today serves as the President of Beit Berl College; Prof. Chen Schechter, Head of the MOFET Institute; Prof. Gila Kurtz, Dean of the Instructional Technologies Faculty at the Holon Institute of Technology; and Natalia Amelina, Chief of the Unit of Teacher Professional Development and Networking, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE).

I presented Athena Fund's vision and our innovative ImagineBox project.

Next EDUTECH Conference in February 2022

On February 21, 2022, we will hold the next EDUTECH conference at Lago in Rishon LeZion. As part of the conference, we will once again present the classroom of the future. Experts from Israel and abroad who will speak at the event include: Bart Verswijvel, The pedagogical lead of the Future Classroom Lab, EU, Dr. Nicky Mohan (New Zealand), Dr. Betty Schreiber, Head of the M.Ed. program in Technology in Education at the Kibbutzim Seminary, and many others. The Registration is now OPEN

גיוס תרומות עבור המורות לחינוך מיוחד

Finally, I would like to remind you that last week we launched our year-end "180 campaign" for special education teachers.

$180 – that's what we need to provide a school or kindergarten special education teacher with an iPad for a period of 3 years, thereby changing the lives of 8 special needs children and their families.

In the last number of years, we've distributed close to 10,000 "digital toolboxes" to special education school and kindergarten teachers. Now, in many municipalities there's a need to replace the old devices, as they are becoming outdated (some are no longer supported by the updated iOS software).

If you already donated to support this project, THANK YOU!  If you have not yet given your year-end gift to Athena Fund, I invite you to donate $180 in order to provide an iPad to a special education teacher for 3 years.

In cooperation with the Teachers Union, Bank Massad, the Ministry of Education and our many donors and supporters, Athena Fund continues to revolutionize the education system in Israel.

The future is here, and we're determined to continue making our vision a reality – empowering teachers and thereby securing the future of the next generations.

Happy New Year,

Uri Ben-Ari
Founder & President
Athena Fund