Two CCT Alumni Honored with Jewish Federation of Greater Washington's ConnectGen Fellowship

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Recent CCT 2013 alumni Joshua Margolin and Jeremy Pesner have both been accepted to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s ConnectGens fellowship. The fellowship is intended for young Jewish professionals who wish to create new initiatives to better the Washington, DC community in some tangible fashion. A subsidiary of the larger PresenTense Fellowship, the ConnectGens fellowship program was founded by CCT ’08 alumnus Jason Langsner, an active participant in the local Jewish community. As part of the fellowship, Margolin and Pesner will be provided with mentors, coaches and a variety of project-specific contacts by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. They will be responsible for a number of project milestones, culminating in a Launch Night on June 11, 2014.

Margolin’s initiative, Originative, will facilitate the exploration of young Jews’ relationship with Judaism through various art forms. Margolin intends to solicit a wide variety of contributions and authors, then rent a space to plan an art exhibition. He hopes to establish Originative as an annual event with a rotating theme.

Pesner’s project, the Israeli Knowledge & Innovation Exchange in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (IKIE-STEM) program, will bring a variety of Israeli STEM professionals to DC for a short time to network with DC’s own STEM innovation system. Both the Israelis and Americans will have the opportunity to network, lecture, exchange advise, develop partnerships, and generally become more cognizant of the innovation system as a whole. This will help build new bridges and create new opportunities for collaboration between DC and Israel and will ideally expand into other cities and opportunities going forward.

Both Margolin and Pesner are enthusiastic and excited to begin the fellowship, and are grateful for support from both CCT and the Jewish Federation. They look forward to creating and bringing these initiatives to fruition over the next six months, and welcome any early suggestions or feedback anyone may have.