August 23, 2010

Paideia Project-Incubator 2010: celebrating 5 years and 100 projects

The 2010 Paideia Project-Incubator has included two major landmarks: the 5th birthday of the program and passing the 100-projects-tutored-mark. The program has been growing year by year, and has seen participating projects from every corner of Europe. For Paideia, it is an astounding testimony to the vibrancy of current European Jewish culture that each year sees a new cohort of dedicated social entrepreneurs who are reformulating Jewish life in their countries. We are happy to be able to connect them to each other and to enrich their efforts.

The Project-Incubator is Paideia’s program for fostering social entrepreneurship in Europe. During ten days in August each year, Paideia brings 25-30 participants to Stockholm and puts them in a boot camp to develop their ideas further and to benefit from each other’s experience. They also get the opportunity of speaking directly to philanthropists and foundational professionals in order to see how their ideas would be received from a funder’s point of view.

The 26 participants in the 2010 Incubator represent 15 different European countries, from Lithuania to Italy, from Moldova to the UK. This year’s initiatives include programs for the largest student organization in the FSU – Sefer, an open access Yiddish corpus and 8000 entry dictionary developed by wiki activists in Poland, documentation of Jewish life in the Romanian city of Braila, outreach programs for young Jews in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Jeneration – a platform for empowerment and education for young British Jews, among many other things. See the entire list of projects below.

The Paideia Project-Incubator not only gathers the most dedicated social activists, but has the privilege of working in partnership with the most exciting organizations in the field. This summer’s program has been conducted in partnership with ROI Community, Pears Foundation / Jewish Social Action Hub and Jewish Jumpstart, who have been with us in Stockholm, making for an astonishing 10 days through their dedication and professional expertise.

Thanks also to our generous funders: The 2010 Paideia Project-Incubator is part of the European Jewish Fund Leadership Program at Paideia and is also sponsored by UJA – New York Federation and the L.A. Pincus Fund for Jewish Education in the Diaspora.

Project-Incubator 2010 Catalogue