By Linda Gradstein
Shirel Amar, Orel Ben Dakon, and Hallel Turjeman are 16-year-old students at the AMIT Sderot Religious High School who have already begun their journey in high-tech. The girls participated together in the prestigious Atlas Juniors program and won the national prize as well as coveted summer internships with the sponsoring tech company.
Atlas Juniors connects talented high school students with leading Israeli startups that have received the Atlas Award—an annual prize recognizing Israeli companies with breakthrough technologies or innovations of exceptional global impact.
In this one-of-a-kind experience, students gain hands-on skills solving real-world challenges in startup workspaces, are mentored by industry professionals, and present their final projects at the high-profile Atlas Award Conference at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The program is run in collaboration with Amazon, the Prometheus Foundation, the Dow Group, and other international partners.
For the winning project, which beat out 11 other entries, the students developed an advanced drone with unbreachable security, integrating complex hardware and software.
“I learned so much about teamwork, drones, and how to code them,” Shirel said. “They offered me a paid summer internship in their company, and I was very excited.”
Her enthusiasm is shared by Orel: “It was amazing and so interesting to work in a real high-tech company,” she said. “The project was something the company really needed. We are just in high school, and we had to learn all about drones so we could do the work on it.”
The third member of the power team, Hallel, also had glowing things to say about her experience. “It exposed us to the world of startups,” she said. “They treated us like grown-ups in the world we hope to enter.”
All three girls said their teachers and principal did everything possible to support them along the way. The meetings at the high-tech company occurred during school hours, and the long bus ride from Sderot meant the students missed a fair amount of school. But AMIT Sderot Religious High School Principal for Girls Racheli Buhbut said teachers worked with the students to make sure they made up all the material they had missed.
Buhbut described the unique challenges the Sderot community has endured since the attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent long war. The entire city was evacuated and students from all its schools were dispersed across Israel and even abroad, continuing their learning outside the classroom. Buhbut said she traveled all over the country visiting her students, especially to Jerusalem, Eilat, and the Dead Sea, where many evacuees were sent.
The trauma involved more than physical displacement and continues despite families returning to their homes. One of the three winners, shared Buhbut, has been having anxiety attacks since the start of the war and is getting treatment in connection with the municipality.
“We have great pride that our girls, in spite of the war and all its difficulties, are achieving their potential,” said Buhbut. “They did not let up and they have broken a glass ceiling.”
Propelling Their Future
When the war began, Orel went with her family to Tbilisi, Georgia, where they stayed with relatives. She had some classes on Zoom and did a lot of work privately. She said that on October 7, her father told her and her siblings to stay in the safe room. They stayed for two days.
Orel characterized her time in Georgia as exciting but challenging. “It was really fun to live in another country, but I didn’t really have a framework, which was hard.”
One of her teachers, Tehila Yifrach, has been an inspiration to her. Yifrach teaches English and is also a homeroom teacher, so she spends the most time with the class. It was Yifrach who recommended Orel for the Atlas program as well as for other high-tech programs.
“She is just inspiring,” Orel said. “She volunteers in a lot of places, including the Pina Chama (Warm Corner), where soldiers can get free food.”
For Hallel, the most interesting part of the Atlas program was building the drone and then figuring out the programming needed to understand how it works. “It really exposed us to the world of startups—and was also really fun,” she said.
Shirel spent the first months of the war in Jerusalem, where AMIT set up a school within another school. She has proudly developed excellent English skills, though neither she nor her parents are native English speakers.
“A few weeks ago, we went to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and we had to talk about what we did in the program in front of very important people, including diplomats,” she said. “We had to speak in English, and I was very happy that I could do it.”
That presentation was the culmination of the Atlas Juniors competition. The girls were thrilled with their win and believe the prestige, as well as the early job experience, will help launch their future careers in high-tech.
The integration of practical experience with academic studies is a distinctive feature of the AMIT Network. Students are encouraged to discover their passions and talents and, through AMIT’s unique partnerships and programming, get real-world experience in those industries. Teachers are committed to helping students reach their potential and giving them the tools they need to achieve.
Stretching their talents for this contest, the girls learned teamwork as well as the practical skills needed to function in the high-tech world. After high school, they hope to serve in the army in intelligence or perform national service in a similar capacity before moving on to their dream jobs.
“I feel like this contest is the key to my future,” Shirel said.
