In the public sphere, the Jewish faith is often viewed as an archaic lifestyle having little or nothing to do with science or technology. In actual fact nothing could be farther from the truth: the Conference of European Rabbis awards the yearly CER Internet Entrepreneurs Prize for excellence and innovation to App, website or digital enterprises putting the new generation of tools to the best possible use, on the basis of the Jewish principle of Tikkun Olam—repairing the world.

 

     A new generation of young Internet entrepreneurs in the field of digital startups is growing in the whole world and is paving the way for countless successful applications holding huge potential. However, young entrepreneurs who are motivated by altruism are seldom acknowledged and rewarded, whereas those whose only motive is profit can easily reap the fruit of their work. Hence the CER Internet Entrepreneurs Prize, meant to foster a generation of talented and selfless entrepreneurs.

 

    The Conference of European Rabbis gathers over 700 religious leaders in all of Europe, and was created in 1956 at the initiative of Sir Israel Brodie—then Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth—with the aim of rebuilding Europe’s Jewish communities after the devastation of the second world war. The Conference, led by a standing committee including rabbinical judges and by the Chief rabbis of Europe’s main cities, was designed to uphold the religious rights of European Jews. Its current President is Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow, and its Vice President is Riccardo Di Segni, Chief 

 

    The winners of the 2014 edition of the CER Internet Entrepreneurs Prize are:

1st Prize:   Ivar Kh. Maksutov and Elena Verevkina from Russia, who co-founded thepublishing house PostNauka with the aim of providing all scientists an opportunity to address the public directly, will be awarded the Prize for two Websites—Serious-Science.org and postnauka.ru—designed to divulge scientific ideas in the whole world.

 

2nd Prize: Sacha Nasan, a young man from Belgium who together with his parents inventedthe app GET TALENTY, a social network inviting everyone in the world to upload videos to display their abilities and talents. This is not Sacha’s first experience: at 14 years of age he created his first app which was downloaded 83,000 times in just two days, when it was the most often downloaded free app in Belgium and France.

 

3d Prize: Meidad Pariente, an Israeli aerospace engineer who together with his wife Maya created MAYDAY APP, making is possible to send messages to a predetermined e-mail address or to generate up to 50 sms messages to one’s dear ones in case of accident. The app also makes it possible to configure the speed which will activate it, thus avoiding any false alarms, for instance in case the mobile telephone falls down.