‘Not Giving Up This Opportunity’: Orthodox Women Innovate Through War
Even missile sirens and a 12-day conflict with Iran could not stop the Jerusalem College of Technology’s biggest hackathon from producing real-world defense and tech solutions
In the early hours of Friday, June 13, as the semifinals for the 48-hour hackathon at the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) were underway, sirens signaled the start of the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, abruptly disrupting the carefully planned event.
The 8th annual Hack.Her.It competition, organized by the Schreiber LevTech Entrepreneurship Center at JCT, brought together 136 Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish women to create technological solutions to challenges presented by a range of companies and organizations, according to the college.
Orlee Guttman, co-founder of the center, told The Media Line that JCT—a religious engineering, health sciences, and business college with separate campuses for men and women—is the only Jewish religious engineering school of its caliber in the world.
After living in Israel in the 1990s and later moving to Canada and the US, she returned in 2015 to take on her current role.
“I was passionate about creating a bridge between academia and industry, and working on Haredi employment,” Guttman said.
She explained that many in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities have limited exposure to the tech industry—and some are unaware of their own potential.
“These hackathons are meant to prove to our students that they have the ability to create products,” she said.
During these hackathons, participants have 48 hours to develop a functional solution, she said.
“There are many hackathons in the world, but most don’t require a working prototype or functioning technology at the end of 48 hours—we do,” she said.
In recent years, Guttman said, more defense-related challenges have been presented—projects many students enjoy tackling because they relate directly to their daily lives.
It’s something that impacts their lives as they’re running towards shelters or their friends who are soldiers who have PTSD
“It’s not something that is just theoretical. It’s something that impacts their lives as they’re running towards shelters or their friends who are soldiers who have PTSD,” she said.
Although many participating companies and organizations were defense-related, she noted that other industries were also represented.
The event began on Wednesday, and by all accounts, Guttman and her team felt it was the biggest hackathon yet and was running smoothly—until 3 a.m. Friday.
“We start hearing these very strange sirens going off, which were unlike sirens that we had seen before,” Guttman said, recalling how the next three hours were spent trying to get the women home safely.
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By Tuesday, she said, the semifinals were completed over Zoom, but the finals were postponed until July 4, after the war ended. She added that planning for each hackathon begins about three months in advance.
“There’s an incredible amount of logistics behind the scenes to make this a true 48-hour event—48 hours straight,” she said.
One participant showed remarkable resilience by continuing with the event despite the war’s toll. Yael and her husband lost their home when an Iranian missile hit their building, yet she still joined the semifinals on Zoom from a friend’s apartment, Guttman said.
A participant in the annual Hack.Her.It competition hosted by the Schreiber LevTech Entrepreneurship Center at the Jerusalem College of Technology. (Jerusalem College of Technology)
For Shani Levy, a member of the winning team CrashPoint, the war and postponement made the competition even more stressful.
“I think it was more nerve-wracking because when you’re into it, you’re totally into it. You’ve got 48 hours—you know that’s the time. And when you have more time, plus the stress over the war and everything, I think it gave us more stress, but it ended good,” she told The Media Line.
Based on a challenge from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), her team developed technology to locate fallen drones. Hostile fire causes about 70% of drone crashes, and often the devices lose their GPS signal, she said.
“If they’re falling in enemy territory, it’s also a risk for information to fall into enemy hands,” she explained.
They created two models to find the drones—one using sound to categorize the object that struck the drone, Levy said. That information is then fed into the second model, which uses artificial intelligence and physics to calculate the location radius of the fallen drone.
Levy said winning the competition shocked her and gave her the drive to keep going and take on similar projects.
The third-place team created technology to detect post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and provide early warnings for current and former soldiers, Guttman said.
Guttman said she aims to create systemic change for women in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities.
“We want them to teach their daughters differently,” she said.
She explained that the goal is not only to empower these women, but also their daughters, by providing role models—women who can remain in their communities, keep their values, and succeed in technology and leadership.
Guttman spoke of the passion and determination she sees among the women in these competitions.
“Most of our hackathons—probably the only ones in the world—have a nursery operating from about 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. because we have so many nursing mothers,” she said.
A couple of years ago, she recalled, a mother who had given birth less than a week earlier participated with her newborn, despite Guttman advising her to stay home and rest.
I’m not giving up this opportunity
“She said, ‘No, this is my third [child]. I know what I’m doing. … I’m not giving up this opportunity,’” Guttman said.
She noted that defense has long been a male-dominated industry, but many of the students are young and unaware of the barriers that exist.
We never tell them that there is a barrier to them entering the field, and they don’t know there are barriers. They’re going to break them before they even see them.
“We never tell them that there is a barrier to them entering the field, and they don’t know there are barriers,” she said. “They’re going to break them before they even see them.”
Since war affects everyone, she said, they need as many people as possible working on solutions.
These hackathons have spawned companies like TrekTag, launched by last year’s winning team, Guttman said. The product is a bracelet that operates without cellular or Wi-Fi service and is designed to prevent people from getting lost, especially while hiking.
Another startup, ScheduLearn, was developed by students from an international program on the men’s campus after tackling a challenge in their own earlier hackathon, she said. The platform is designed to simplify class scheduling for schools, reducing what can take weeks or even months of work to about 30 minutes. Guttman said they view this startup as their “grandchild,” since the business that presented the challenge originated in the center’s pre-accelerator program, which trains students to build startups.
Levy said they plan to continue developing their product and collecting more data to improve it. While it was initially designed for the IDF, the team also wants to make it available for use by private companies.
Addie J. Davis is a recent graduate of the University of North Texas and an intern in The Media Line’s Press and Policy Student Program.
