Anyone who has been to Israel to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) knows that once the fireworks, pomp-and-circumstance and barbecues are over, there is often a great deal of trash left behind on city streets, in national parks and on beachfront promenades. Israeli newspapers run stories about clean-up efforts and locals lament the unsightly aftermath.
Students at the Mr. and Mrs. Lester Sutker AMIT Modi’in School for Boys decided to tackle this recurring problem and help Israelis clean up their act. As part of a program for young entrepreneurs, which introduces students to the business world, the boys invented a product they called “pick-nic” – a tablecloth that has games and trivia printed on it and that doubles as a trash bag.
Eighteen AMIT students conceived the environmentally friendly tablecloth with the help of two mentors from the Modi’in business community, as part of a project called “Young Entrepreneurs Doing Business.” They formed a company called Promoter, whose stated goal is to create a better future, and presented the tablecloth at several competitions for young entrepreneurs in Israel – where they clinched the first-place prize. The team traveled to Brussels, Belgium, in July to compete against young entrepreneurs from around the world, and came in third place in the prestigious international competition.
Rabbi Itamar Haikin, the principal of AMIT Modi’in, said that old teaching methods are insufficient for a 21st-century education and that it is imperative to pursue new pedagogical approaches.
“Within the ‘young entrepreneurs’ project, students develop entrepreneurial and strategic planning skills, and they learn to work as a team,” he said. “That is how we cultivate the next Mobileye,” he added, referring to the Israeli company that makes sensors and cameras for driverless vehicles that Intel acquired for $15 billion in March.
“It’s amazing that we’re only in ninth grade and we’re already marketing a product,” said Roy Aheli, Promoter’s marketing manager. “We are gaining life skills like public-speaking, product marketing and, most important, teamwork.”
So far, the students have sold more than 2,000 tablecloths at 15 shekels apiece. Their business plan calls for them to cover the production costs, and anything earned beyond that will be donated to environmentally friendly charities.
This isn’t the first time that AMIT Sutker students have set their sights on helping the environment. Last year, students developed a website called GREAT (Give, Receive, Eat), which paired businesses that sell food, including event venues, restaurants and hotels, with food-rescue organizations to channel surplus food to the needy. Food that is no longer edible was used for compost to enrich the soil and help the environment.
This project was initiated by the school’s junior high robotics team as part of the FIRST LEGO League challenge, which called for teams to develop a solution to a trash-related problem.
