Once a month, in three locations as of this day, young Jewish parents gather in neighborhood associations with their young children to play Hebrew games. One part educational opportunity for children, another part friend-making opportunity for parents, HebrewPlay – a new venture founded by Michael Goldstein (a CJP/PresenTense Fellow 2010) and now headed by Shirah Rubin – engages approximately a hundred Jewish couples in New England in the act of raising bilingual children with deep Hebrew language roots.

A New Type of Jewish Sports Hero

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – July 5, 2010 –David Lasday, a Maplewood, New Jersey native and Fellow at the PresenTense 2010 Global Summer Institute, is bringing the excitement back into Jewish learning with Bring It In Israel, an Israel-based program that empowers Jewish leaders to use sports to impart Jewish values, life skills, and a connection to Israel onto Jewish children.

As a Summer Fellow at the prestigious six-week Institute, Lasday joins fifteen other budding Jewish social entrepreneurs from America, Israel, Australia, and the UK to gain the skills and connections necessary to launch their ventures to benefit the Jewish world at large.

"The 2010 Fellows represent some of the most innovative Jewish minds today.  They are embarking on projects that have the potential to transform Jewish life here in Jerusalem and around the world," commented Flo Low, Chair of the Institute Steering Committee. Sponsoring Lasday’s venture is the iCenter, reputed for its dedication to Israel education.

It has now been a few months since we released the first Year in Preview  of the PresenTense Group, in fact more then a quarter of the year has gone by. It is once again time for us undergo our quarterly review process, where we challenge ourselves to manage the operations with an eye on outputs and outcomes. We have once again reviewed what was done over the past quarter, learned lessons of what did not go as planned and why, and seen the successes of much of the PresenTense communities hard work. These quarterly reviews provide us the necessary data and the opportunity to make adjustments to the Year in Preview and what our plans our for the upcoming quarter.

Here is the second quarterly reports. As opposed to last quarter, this time we answered some specific questions such as:

• What were the goals of the department
• What assumptions were made
• What content/programs were expected vs. what actually happened
• What are we planning for the next quarter
• What "unexpected's" took place
• and more...

Of course what would PresenTense be without creativity? The presentations are still quite unique from each other, as a reflection of this crucial element of who we are!

So...here they are!

Have an idea for a social start-up? The PresenTense Summer Institute application process has officially opened!

Apply here!

Want to learn more? Check out our website

For one week, millions of young people around the world will join a growing movement of entrepreneurial people, to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things. Countries across six continents are coming together to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week, an initiative to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity. To think big. To turn their ideas into reality. To make their mark.

From 16 - 22 November 2009, Global Entrepreneurship Week will connect young people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators. Students, educators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, employees, non-profit leaders, government officials and many others will participate in a range of activities, from online to face-to-face, and from large-scale competitions and events to intimate networking gatherings.

PresenTense is going to be a partner in Global Entrepreneurship Week, and were looking for ideas from our commuinity about the types of programs and events we should run at the Jerusalem Hub and around the world during this week.

We look forward to hearing your ideas and thoughts!

Please send your ideas and suggestions to Brachie Sprung at: brachiesprung@presetense.org

Last Thursday, July 23, the 16 fellows of PresenTense's summer Institute 2009 cohort stood before close to 250 people and in one fell swoop launched 14 new social ventures into the world. The next morning we got together for brunch to do one last reflection on the summer and its program, and the main question on everyone's mind was: now what?

This question -- where do PresenTense ventures go after the six weeks of the summer Institute -- has been much talked about recently: it was brought up by Raphael Ahren in Haaretz, who wrote that " A number of last year's fellows, however, seem to have neglected their projects after departing the institute, with their Web sites lying barren ever since." 

In response a number of PresenTense's contributors and members have emailed saying that they felt fellows success was underplayed. Others, such as David Abitboul from Jewlicious, came to commend us on transparency--that we are willing to admit that not every venture launched will achieve success--and even others, such as Jacob Berkman at the Fundermentalist, claimed to have no opinion at all. 

It seems to me, then, that there is no better time than now to explain what PresenTense sees as success.