ZIONIST ORGANIZATION
OF AMERICA
MICHIGAN REGION

PRESENTS

Young Visionaries

"A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL"

ROI summit in Israel brings young
Jewish innovators together.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
7:30 pm

Adat Shalom Synagogue
29901 Middlebelt Road
Farmington Hills, MI

Peter Weltman
Special to the Jewish News

T

ulsa philanthropist Lynn
Schusterman finally understood
how to connect with today's
youth: "You have to meet young people
today where they want to be; it can't be
where I want it"
Her idea led to a vision — she wanted
to provide a platform to foster collabora-
tion between young Jewish innovators
from around the world. With this in mind,
the Schusterman Foundation, the Center
for Leadership Initiatives (CLI) and Taglit
Birthright created the ROI (Return on
Investment) Community.
The fourth annual ROI Summit at the
end of June was hosted in Ramat Gan, a
neighborhood of Tel Aviv. For the five con-
ference days, 120 Jewish innovators from
30 countries created a network built on
Judaism and fueled by their ideas.
Charles and Lynn Schusterman of
Tulsa started their foundation in 1987.
Three main principles guided their phil-
anthropic agenda: devotion to Judaism
and its people, an everlasting affection for
the people of Tulsa and a commitment to
tikkun °lain (repairing the world).
Five years after Charles died in 2001,
Lynn helped create CLI. Its mission was
simple — through innovation, create a
network of Jewish leaders and help foster
their potential. The ROI initiative is CLI's
main project.
More than 600 individuals applied
to participate in the 2009 ROI Summit.
Applicants described future projects
or existing work they were performing
in their respective communities. From
those selected, the large group was seg-
mented into eight focused tracks: New
Media, Environmentalism, Networks
with Purpose, Visions of Israel, Arts
and Culture, Bridge Building, Jewish
Education and Service.
Projects ranged from promoting the
food and wines of Israel, to creating
Shabbat activities in San Francisco, to the
Jewish Salons International Network, an
NGO whose goal is to host events for post-
college Jewish students around the world.
The conference belonged to the partici-
pants and was run through many high-
tech channels. Weeks before the assembly,
track facilitators sent e-mails, created
Facebook groups and scribed Tweets.
When track groups were not meet-

with guest speaker NOLAN FINLEY

No Charge
RSVP is required by Monday,
September 14, 2009
to admin@mizoa.org or
(248)282-0088

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News,

a position he has held since May 1, 2000. He directs the expression of
the newspaper's editorial position on various national and local issues,
and also writes a column in the Sunday newspaper.

At the ROI Summit in Israel, young
Jewish innovators share ideas.

Mr. Finley will be sharing his views on coverage of the
Middle East both on the editorial page of the newspaper
and in the headlines.

1531960

ing, peer-to-peer sessions were run by
current ROlers. A journalist stationed in
Beijing, China, taught a workshop about
pitching your story to the media, while
another participant gave the how-to in
Jewish hip-hop.
Josh Avedon and Shawn Landres
expressed a very successful idea dur-
ing their meeting about the culture
of innovation. These two men started
Jumpstart, a Los Angeles-based compa-
ny geared towards fostering sustainable
innovation through new and existing
Jewish organizations.
The partners encouraged looking past
the status quo. "Take Starbucks,"Landres
said,"and understand that the coffeehouse
experience was a new reality. I do not need
to worry about how to get there because I
just created the future'
The ROI Summit concluded with a gala
dinner at the northern port of Tel Aviv.
Prominent Israeli business owners, govern-
ment officials and other philanthropists
attended to meet the future wave of Jewish
innovators.

30-iCc/c
off all

Jewelry

Peter Weltman grew up in Huntington Woods.

He is a recent graduate of the Culinary

Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and

0

holds an Advanced Certificate from the Wines

and Spirits Education Trust. As part of the

ROI Summit, Weltman worked with the Israeli

Consulate of New York, Royal Wine Corporation

and cookbook author Janna Gur to promote

the foods and wines of Israel.

o

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September 3 • 2009

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