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Intro

 ANNUAL REPORT

2016

The Appleseeds

Alumni Association

Study

Appleseeds Alumni Association - Investing in your future!

Dafna Lifshitz

CEO of Appleseeds Academy

The Appleseeds Alumni Association supports Appleseeds graduates ages 18-30 as they make crucial decisions that shape their lives, as well as their communities. We help graduates select a professional path and provide assistance with their employment search. The Association creates a strong relationship with each of our Alumni, in order to support them with their personal pursuits and strengthen their affiliation to Appleseeds.  

The Alumni Association seeks to introduce innovative vocational programs to its members, utilizing Appleseeds partners from the Israeli hi-tech community. In 2016, we launched two new programs for our alumni:

  • SEEDS entrepreneurship program- an innovative entrepreneurship lab and incubator for Appleseeds alumni, run in collaboration with Brightcom and Rhodium.

  • OpsSchool in partnership with Outbrain- a new industry-led course on the budding field of DevOps. These programs provide graduates with the most up-to-date credentials that are relevant to the dynamic Israeli workforce. The ops program will be integrated into Appleseed's new school: STARTECH- A school for the hottest hi-tech professions, that will be launched in 2017.

 

The following report highlights the Alumni Association activities in 2016.

 

We would like to thank our partners who volunteer their time and resources to our Alumni. Your support allows our alumni to realize their potential and effectively integrate into the Israeli Hi-tech industry. Together we really can create a Startup Nation for All!

 

Dorli Cohen

Alumni Association Manager   

Program Impact Study

In partnership with an external research firm, Appleseeds Academy ran an extensive survey of Net@ program alumni. Participants in the survey included 380 Net@ alumni, aged 18-28 from across Israel. The same survey was conducted on a representative comparison group of 178 similar individuals who had not participated in the Net@ program. The results showed that Net@ alumni significantly outperform their peers on every metric of success including:  high school studies, the army, college, and employment.

 

In comparison to their peers, Net@ Alumni excelled in their high school performance – from Bagrut, to Math, to English, to their grades and achievements. Net@ participants are set up to succeed in adult life and to serve their communities as true global citizens.

 

As they progress to national service and university studies, Net@ graduates pursue technology roles far more frequently than their peers, preparing them for success in their careers. Net@ Alumni are far more likely to work in technological roles, and earn significantly more in full time jobs than their peers.

The Net@ program prepares our graduates to choose technology at the most important life-stages: from high-school, to national service, academia, and professional pursuits. At every one of those junctures, Net@ alumni choose technology 60% more than their peers and in the end, those alumni earn 20% more than their peers in full time work.

Study Results

Startech

STARTECH - A School for the Hottest Hi-Tech Professions

After 16 years of extensive work building technological workforce development programs, Appleseeds Academy launched Startech: a cutting-edge social tech school for the hottest hi-tech profession, led by a community of awesome tech leaders aiming to create a talent agency for the tech industry. The school is based on a model of “Experts, not trainers” which we implement through coalitions of tech sector leaders who volunteer to teach subjects that are in high demand. Each business assigns mentors to teach a few topics within a comprehensive syllabus and coach students on an ad hoc basis throughout the course.

 

In order to maximize the chances of our graduates being recruited to the hi-tech industry, we choose the subjects in collaboration with our partners. Together, we review the recruitment needs and the “hot” professions on the market and design the curricula accordingly.  A forum of senior CTO’s and HR managers act as our advisory board.

STARTECH offers 4 tracks, which we call “schools”

OpsSchool

Mobile School

DevOps Professions

Mobile Coding

Data School

SEO, Data, Marketing

Online Marketing School

Big Data, Data Analysis & BI

The first school that was launched was the OpsSchool for DevOps. DevOps is an emerging field in the hi-tech world, combining the worlds of development and operations. Over the past several years, a lack of qualified professionals for DevOps positions led Outbrain to initiate a partnership with Appleseeds, in order to develop a new school that cultivates new DevOps professionals in Israel. Together, we developed a coalition of leading Israeli hi-tech companies such as: Google, Wix, Kenshoo, Sears Israel, Brightcom, Appsflyer, and Ironsource.

All coalition members develop the curriculum, co-teach the sessions, and host on-site visits for students.

The curriculum is based on the most current topics and tools used in the industry today.

 

The first DevOps course ended in early 2017, and we will replicate the OpsSchool model to develop additional courses on new topics such as Mobile Coding, On line marketing and BI.

Model
Meetups

The Alumni Association: Your Entry Ticket to the Hi-Tech Sector

Appleseeds Alumni Association strives to adequately prepare our alumni for the workforce and cultivate career opportunities with our partners in the tech sector. The placement process includes identifying the strengths of the alumni, their desired work environment, preparation for job interviews, and providing assistance with writing their CV's. In addition, we work with tech companies  to understand their hiring processes, and to push them to seek talent from Israel’s periphery.

A few of our placements from 2016

Nur Aladin Ell

20 years old from Nazareth Illit, started working in the Business Support department of HotNet in January 2016.

He is also currently studying Computer Science at the Open University.

Maysoun Hindawi

Neria Cohen

Dvir Ze'ev

23 years old from Beer Sheva,

began working in the

IT department of Teva

in June 2016.

23 from Nazareth, studies Computer Science at the Technion and works as a Developer at Microsoft.

24 years old from Kfar Saba,

began working as a Designer

at WIX in July 2016.

Scholar

Meet-ups with Successful Hi-Tech Companies:

Fulfilling Dreams Together

The Alumni Association produces meetups in order to increase our alumni’s exposure to the hi-tech world and provide meaningful networking opportunities. Each meetup includes an inspirational talk with successful hi-tech employees to introduce the alumni to the technological and human resource aspect of the company. We focus on providing alumni with tools for successful integration into the employment world including Linked-In workshops, hands-on public speaking practice and assistance in creating effective presentations.

 

In 2016, one of our focuses was entrepreneurship and our alumni visited start-up companies such as Kaltura, IronSource, and SimilarWeb.

Seeds

Connecting Alumni to the Best Opportunities

We provide Alumni's with educational guidance during this pivotal time through workshops,

one-on-one counseling and connecting them to scholarship opportunities.

Academy Consulting Group

‭‬with Shlomit Wallach‭, ‬Macademia

Net@ Alumni receiving the Alrov foundation scholarship

Sapir Pol

21, from Ramla, studies Computer Science at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo.

Or Hagag

19, from Kfar Saba, serves in Mamram (one of the IDF's elite tech units) and studies Computer Science at the College of Management Academic Studies.

Eliezer Polombo

25, from Tel Aviv, studies Computer Science at the Open University.

Seeds Entrepreneurship Program

The program provides knowledge and experience of venture creation processes. Appleseeds alumni are exposed to the entrepreneurial world and gain initial tools to become start-up leaders. The program introduces alumni to identifying opportunities, understanding the environment and its needs, and ideation. The alumni participate in 16 meetings that combine workshops with experts from the field with hands-on experiential learning. Upon completion of the first stage of the program, our "Seed's" get the opportunity to work inside Brightcom's Accelerator and receive mentoring from top employees at this successful Israeli hi-tech company.

‭"‬Jobeek‭" ‬startup team at Brightcom's Accelerator‭,‬

including Net@‭ ‬Alumni and current Seeds participants‭. ‬

2016

The Appleseeds Alumni Association

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