Jewish and Arab high-school students come together to participate in MEET. Photo courtesy MEET
MEET is an intensive three-year program for Jewish and Arab high-school students to learn computer science and business from a team of students, graduates, and faculty from MIT. The goal of MEET, based in Jerusalem and Nazareth, is to nurture a generation of young leaders, based on models developed in one of the top U.S. technological institutions. The curriculum (conducted in English) is heavily project-based, with students working together on lab assignments that culminate in large software engineering projects.
“For teenagers, technology is a natural common ground.”
MEET’s program was founded in 2004 by three MIT graduates: Anat Binur, her brother Yaron Binur, and their friend Assaf Harlap. As of 2016, more than 300 students have graduated from the program (as the MEET website proudly notes: “50% girls, 50% boys; 50% Palestinians, 50% Israelis”), and student recruitment takes place throughout the country. According to Noa Epstein, one of MEET’s CEOs:
For teenagers, technology is a natural common ground. They share an interest in technology development, in mobile applications, in all things innovative and new. Additionally, in the twenty-first century, regardless of if you are going to be a computer scientist or not, there is a basic set of technological skills that you need to have. We believe that by providing a medium and skill set that [are] useful for leaders, our students can go onto careers in government, the humanities or technology. No matter what they do, it is good for them to have this training.
L. Rafael Reif, the president of MIT, adds: “The genius of MEET is that it challenges Israeli and Palestinian students to work together to solve hard technical problems. And as they collaborate, they build a foundation of trust and respect that they can use later, to help solve the much, much harder problems that divide their people.”
