Sponsored Chairs and Descriptions for 2009 Institute

Sixteen Fellows are accepted to the PresenTense Institute.  Ten of these sixteen Fellows are sponsored by Chairs, which are either Foundations or Individuals that subsidize this Fellows project depending on their category of concern.

Josh and Rena Kopelman Chair in Online Community Organizing:

Barack Obama's political campaign in the United States showed the world the power of online community organizing, and its potential for empowering the broad mass of individuals to participate in communal decision making. The Josh and Rena Kopelman Chair in Online Community  Organizing seeks a social entrepreneur who will develop and utilize communications technologies to do for the Jewish People what Obama did for the American People. 

Covenant Chair in Educational Technology:

As students spend more of their time online, the Jewish People needs to adapt its methods and modes of education to the new modes of communication that define the present digital age. The Covenant Foundation-sponsored Chairs in Educational Technology seek two individuals who are exploring the usage of new communications technologies in their application for formal or informal education. 

Sheldon and Anat Wipranik Chair in Israeli Civic Engagement:

Polls show that political and civic participation in Israel has been on a steady decline, with younger generations less likely to find a calling in public service within Israeli Society. The Sheldon and Anat Wipranik Chair in Israeli Civic Engagement seeks a social entrepreneur who has a new approach to generating an ethic of civic obligation in Israel. 

Lippman Kanfer Family Foundation Chair in Jewish Learning 
Learning is a life-long process, and the Lippman Kanfer Chair in Jewish Learning is seeking innovators with ventures that address Jewish learning at any or every life-stage, either informal or formal.

Organizational Greening (New York located)

Communities and Organizations around the world are taking steps to develop localized environmental initiatives and improve their carbon footprints. These community-based projects improve quality of life in a given locality, and also build community around social action. This Chair is seeking a Fellow who will be an entrepreneur who proposes a scalable greening project that will help organizations and communities transform themselves for the sake of their local environment and the world. 

Community Organizing (New York located):

In the wake of Obama's victory, Community Organizing, has taken center stage as the operative strategy that built a campaign being hailed in political circles as one of the greatest of all time. The fundamentals of Community Organizing lie in mobilizing members of a community—those living in face to face relationships with one another—to act in the interest of change for the better. This Chair seeks a Fellow who will be an entrepreneur who explores new applications of community organizing theory to enrich the Jewish community and move elements of its community towards greater collective action. 

Israel Center Chair in Israel Education:

Different methods of Israel Education are being developed by a few organizations but the Israel Center seeks a Fellow who will develop a creative but practical Israel Education Curriculum for early childhood through 12th grade audience.  The Fellow should have knowledge of the network in Israel Education and Activism.

Jerusalem Chair - There has been a grassroots awakening as to the importance of strengthening the city of Jerusalem as the vibrant, relevant, pluralistic capital of Israel, and there are various activists working to bring about change.  Are you one of these activist that want to improve the city of Jerusalem, if so, apply to the Jerusalem chair.

PresenTense Internal Chair - PresenTense is a grassroots network of thinkers and doers, particularly skilled at developing ideas, projects and initiatives that are relevant to, and take advantage of, 21st century realities In this capacity, PresenTense seeks an innovator from within its network that will launch a project taking further advantage of the networks’ resources – and the organization’s abilities – in order to generate additional impact for the world, and additional revenue for the organization. The PresenTense Intrapreneur will participate fully in the fellowship program, and have special access to the organization’s staff and resources in order to launch a PresenTense branded venture. Successful ventures have the option to become supported by the PresenTense Group.