Shiri Goren and Avner Dolinger, Industrial Engineering and Management students who work together at the global corporation, ADAMA, in collaboration with Ofir Geller, a programmer by profession in his own private startup, initiated a “Hasbara” project (hasbara meaning an organized effort or program to educate the public about a particular matter, public diplomacy) to raise awareness and create identification with the Israeli hostages in Gaza. The three developed a tech solution, entitled aMiss, which is designed to improve Israel’s hasbara efforts on the world stage, and also bolsters the battle against anti-Semitism.
The innovative tool was recently adopted by the Civil Advocacy Center (Israel’s largest hasbara organization), and its goal is to boost feelings of affinity, personal acquaintance, empathy and identification with the hostages among numerous communities in the US, Europe and other regions around the world.
Since people naturally find it easier to relate to and identify with others who are like them, Geller, Dolinger and Goren built an accessible Internet tool that, by means of a simple, short questionnaire, matches the user with the hostage who is most like him in terms of characteristics such as age, family status, hobbies, personal attributes, area of occupation and others, thus enabling the user to feel a personal connection with them. The project’s goal is to “shock” and deliver “a punch to the gut” among numerous population groups who are unable to comprehend the scale of the tragedy that has befallen the State of Israel and its citizens, and cannot grasp that every one of the hostages has a name, a face, a whole life, just like each one of them and us.
The development team consists of three partners: Shiri Goren (28) of Tel Aviv, an Industrial Engineering and Management student, who works in the Supply Chain Department at ADAMA; Avner Dolinger (27) of Givatayim, also an Industrial Engineering and Management student, who works in ADAMA’s Global Operations Department; and Ofir Geller (38), a programmer by profession, who works in his own startup, Language Zen.
Shiri Goren, Avner Dolinger and Ofir Geller are young, ambitious, and highly motivated to break down professional borders, and now, national borders as well. In November 2023, the three took part in a hackathon aimed at finding tech solutions to Israel’s hasbara problems, hosted by the Afeka Academic College of Engineering, where Avner and Shiri are students. The hackathon was attended by some 250 engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, project managers and social media experts from the worlds of hi-tech, with the goal of building new tools and solutions to hasbara-related problems. The hackathon lasted for 26 hours straight, and at the end of the event, no less than 35 multidisciplinary teams presented their deliverables.
The innovative idea proposed by the team led by Shiri, Avner and Ofir won the distinguished third place and recently, they were approached by the Civil Advocacy Center Headquarters with an offer to join the tech array and execute the project. The three accepted the offer, and have recently been working at full steam together with the development team they assembled, to further the project as quickly as possible and disseminate it among a large number of publics around the world.
The Civil Advocacy Center is Israel’s largest hasbara organization, and was set up within 48 hours from the launch of the October 7 attack. Its purpose is to spread the truth and fight anti-Semitism worldwide.
About the project
On October 7, more than 240 people were abducted from Israel, an inconceivable number. Ludicrously, because of the large number of people involved, the personal connection with the kidnapped diminished, and the captives were transformed from human beings to statistics.
The goal shared by Avner, Ofir and Shiri was to enhance the feeling of connection and identification with the hostages around the world. Since people naturally find it easier to relate to and identify with people who are like them, the three built a tool that matches the individual user with the one single hostage who is most like him or her in terms of age, family status, hobbies, personal attributes and other individual features, based on completion of a short personality questionnaire.
In other words, a 30-year-old woman who has two small children will be quick to identify with Shiri Bibas, who was kidnapped together with her husband and two little children, Ariel and baby Kfir, and taken to the Gaza Strip on October 7. They have not returned since.
Connection and identification with hostages can also be established based on hobby, academic background, area of occupation and numerous other attributes they may share.
The project, entitled aMiss, aims to deliver a “punch to the gut” among communities in the US, Europe and many other parts of the world, who find it hard to grasp the scale of the tragedy and have difficulty realizing that every hostage has a name, a face, a whole life – just like they themselves and each of us.
Shiri Goren and Avner Dolinger explain: "The name aMiss conveys the literal meaning of the word in English – “wrong”, “out of order”, as well as “miss” – I miss you, and also “miss” in the sense of a “blunder”. All these words are a harmonious fit with the subject and our feelings: because of the blunder, the pain of missing them never stops, and this situation is definitely wrong and completely out of order."
Link to the hackathon website: Afeka