Around the world, a child dies once every 9 days from being forgotten in a hot car. A team of young entrepreneurs from Israel and the Diaspora brought together by The Jewish Agency's Partnership2Gether platform aims to change that with a new life-saving technology.
It's the latest innovation emanating from Israel’s world-famous “start-up nation” culture, and it's a unique manifestation of Israel-Diaspora connectedness.
The Jewish Agency’s Partnership2Gether (P2G) Peoplehood Platform facilitated the work of young Israelis who, with the support of the Jewish state’s renowned defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, developed the “Life Seat,” system to prevent forgetting children in cars.
P2G is The Jewish Agency’s strategic initiative that connects the Jewish people by creating enduring relationships between Israel and Jewish communities of the Diaspora. These personal and professional friendships, attachments and emotional investments establish the bedrock of a global community. The program connects 900 Jewish and Israeli communities and organizations around the world in 46 partnerships.
Through a shared committee process, more than 10,000 P2G volunteers work together each year to determine the ways in which partnered communities engage with and support one another. Through hands-on projects and personal interactions that engage 350,000 Israelis and Jews each year, individuals and communities learn from one another and experience the enriching reciprocal benefits of being part of the global Jewish family.
The technology involves placing a chip under the padding of a booster seat that measures a child’s weight he sits down, and transmitting a signal through a wireless keychain if a child screams or goes more than 10 minutes alone in the car. Photo: Nathan Roi for The Jewish Agency for Israel
One of P2G’s partnership regions connects Israel’s Western Galilee with a consortium of 14 Jewish Federation communities in the U.S. as well as Budapest, Hungary. After Hungarian market research discovered that around the world, a child dies once every nine days due to being forgotten in a car, Efrat Srebro, a facilitator of the Western Galilee partnership, sprung into action by recruiting young Israelis to work on a solution.
“We understood that this was an issue of tikkun olam,” Efrat says, using the Hebrew term for “repairing the world.”
The young Israelis partnered with students from Budapest’s Javne Lauder Jewish Community Schools to form a team in Israel’s national Young Entrepreneurs competition. The Education Committee of P2G’s Western Galilee partnership believes that project-based learning creates particularly powerful connections.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, meanwhile, provided volunteers for the Israeli-Hungarian team to create Life Seat. The technology involves placing a chip under the padding of a booster seat that measures a child’s weight he sits down, and transmitting a signal through a wireless keychain if a child screams or goes more than 10 minutes alone in the car.
“The experience of sharing, repairing the world from a uniquely Jewish sense of mission, and enabling the young Hungarians to connect with Israel were our motivations for creating this project,” says Efrat.
-
This story was reported by Nathan Roi for The Jewish Agency for Israel
0
