Moshe Friedman, founder of Kama Tech, 38, a resident of Bnei Brak, is ranked 23rd this year on The Marker's list of 100 influencers, well ahead of Moshe Gafni (34th) and Yaakov Litzman (55th) - the other two Haredim on the list. Friedman, in fact, appears in all the influencer rankings conducted by Calcalist, Globes-Youth, Geektime, and more.
Haredi website 10 Chosen him as one of the year's trailblazers.
• Tell us about yourself.
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I am 38 years old, Haredi, married, I am a Haredi man from Bnei Brak, father of four children, I grew up in Jerusalem, a Jerusalemite for several generations. My father's grandfather was the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. I studied in yeshivahs, in the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and later in the Kolel Chazon Ish in Bnei Brak.
In recent years, I have founded an organization that helps ultra-Orthodox people enter and successfully integrate into the high-tech world. The organization is called 'Kama Tech.'.
• Tell us a little about the organization's activities.
Kama Tech operates on three levels: One - there are a lot of Haredi with technological training. Whether it's Haredi girls who study in seminars or boys who study in all sorts of places, colleges, independent frameworks. There are a lot of Haredi with such training, but unfortunately, the degree of integration of all these Haredi in the high-tech industry is very low.
What is mostly available are Haredi girls who manage to work in companies that were established specifically to employ Haredi women, and they receive low wages there. But to work in good and leading high-tech companies like Google, Cidco, Microsoft, Intel, and the like, there are very few, and in fact the tremendous opportunity that exists in the high-tech world, called start-up nation, a very flourishing field here in Israel, which is a major high-tech center in the world, the Haredi public does not benefit from all of this.
Therefore, the first thing we do - we have formed a coalition of many large high-tech companies that want to help with this issue, close to 80 companies that work with us, with our mission being to take ultra-Orthodox guys, whether they are women or men, who have technological training, and help them integrate into large companies with high salaries and good conditions, which was not the case in the past.
To date, we have integrated 700 people into this framework, in the four years that we have been operating, all of whom work in large companies with an average salary of 15,000 shekels, which is essentially to help them advance to the forefront of the high-tech scene, and not like in the past when they were only on the fringes in small companies and not at high salaries. This is one arm of our activity.
The second arm - we do technology training. We have developed, in collaboration with the large high-tech companies, a great many training courses, and what makes them unique is that we develop these courses together with the companies. In other words, if a company comes to us and says: Listen, there is a great shortage of cyber people today, or application developers, or all sorts of fields that the companies identify as having a shortage, we develop training in collaboration with the companies, separately of course, and as is appropriate and customary in the Haredi public, and then we help graduates find work. We have a series of many training courses.
The third area, which is the most important, is helping Haredi people who want to become entrepreneurs themselves and start companies - we have developed a track called the 'Kama Tech Startup Accelerator', when Haredi people who want to start companies contact us and we give them a complete network of experts, successful investors, successful entrepreneurs, accountants and lawyers - a complete package so that they can start companies.
We do it for free and don't charge money, it's not for profit, and to this day, many ultra-Orthodox entrepreneurs have grown through our activities, raised capital, and they themselves employ workers.
• This year, from your perspective, where do you see yourself making the biggest breakthrough this year?
I'll tell you what: I've been doing this activity for four years. But a lot of high-tech company executives and investors viewed it with trepidation. Are there really ultra-Orthodox people who can bring value to the high-tech world? To be entrepreneurs who invent inventions? There was a lot of skepticism, that's how the heads of the high-tech industry viewed it anyway, and I'm not sure they thought we were really bringing real news here.
This has changed in the past year, following the work of previous years, this year more and more heads of the high-tech industry began to connect with us, and a few months ago we established a $5 million investment fund. All the heads of Israeli high-tech invested in this fund, which is a very strong expression of trust from company managers, founders of huge companies in the country, such as Waze, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Hemi Peres, and many more - 60 people in total, some of the most leading figures in Israeli high-tech, put their money in this fund, to express their faith in Haredi high-tech.
And this is a very special expression of confidence from the industry leaders, and it gives a tremendous boost to all this activity.
• When you look back on this year and give yourself a big 'V', where do you pat yourself on the back the most?
I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm patting the Haredi public on the back, that I'm just, how to say, like some kind of means through which the heads of the high-tech industry got to know the Haredi public, its tremendous ability, of the Haredi men and women, and understood that there was a tremendous opportunity here for the economy of the State of Israel.
So I'm not patting myself on the back, but patting those Haredim men and women who have proven themselves and created the immense trust of the heads of high-tech. I'm just the middleman, through me they got to know each other. Once they got to know each other, it was the public that did the work. And I'm also patting myself on the back of many good people who help me with this activity. I myself am just a small cog in this whole system.
• When you look back on the past year, where is your point of satisfaction? Of all the activities, is there anything that you tell me was worth it all?
The truth is that my greatest satisfaction this year was last week, when I received two emails from two different people. One email was from a Haredi, Hasidic guy who came to me about a year ago with nothing. Without a profession, without a job, without employment, he was in serious financial trouble, he came to me - and said: Help me.
I connected him to a course we did this year on cyber, he studied in this course that was subsidized by grants, studied the field, successfully completed his studies and about a week ago was hired at one of the largest companies in the country. He wrote me an email: 'Listen, I arrived with nothing, with nothing, within a year I got a sought-after profession in the cyber field, I became a cyber expert and now I work at one of the largest companies in the country and earn a good living, you changed my life.'.
And another moment of satisfaction, also from last week, on Friday I was doing some Shabbat shopping, and an ultra-Orthodox woman approached me in the store and said, 'Listen, you saved my life.' She says she was in our training program, learned a trade, and went from being an unemployed woman to being employed, earning a good income and providing for her family.
These stories give me strength, because I know that there are people who, thanks to these programs, have received a profession, have gotten a job, and are earning a living and earning a living with dignity. These were moments of joy.
• How do you view the goals for next year?
""Look, this year the path has really been broken, but there is still a lot of work to do. Overall, the opportunity here is great, there are thousands of other ultra-Orthodox men and women who are not getting the opportunity they deserve and who have a lot of talent and ability, and there is an opportunity here to help thousands more people. And also, a tremendous opportunity for the Israeli economy.".
They say that immigration from Russia 20 years ago pushed the Israeli economy forward because smart people came and gave it a boost. I believe there is a tremendous opportunity here for the entire country. Once they figure out how to help the Haredim integrate properly into the economy, it will give a boost not only to the Haredi public but also to the entire country.
• When you wish yourself well for the coming year, what would you wish for yourself?
What I wish for myself most is that no mishap will come under my control. Because on the one hand, we help people make a living, start companies, work, on the other hand, it is clear that this is in areas that sometimes include work in a secular environment or in the fields of technology and innovation. We consult with each step, there are several rabbis who advise us on how to do things so that no mishap will come under our control, and my prayer is that we will really succeed in doing good things and helping people make a living, but without bringing obstacles. We are constantly around this paradox, in front of the rabbis who accompany us, to check that we are bringing benefit but not, at the same time, also bringing harm.
