Let’s Go KIBO! A binational, youth-led Robotics program for Jewish and Arab children

The proposed Let’s Go, KIBO! program addresses several major interrelated problems that are exacerbated by the current regional war, which mostly impacts vulnerable children and youth, and has deteriorated Jewish-Arab relations over the past six months. Specifically, the Let’s Go, KIBO! program addresses the following problems: 1. Jewish-Arab relations are at a precarious stage, with tensions rising since the war broke out, an apparent increase in levels of fear of the other, and alienation between young Jews and Arabs. 2. Thousands of Jewish and Arab children are displaced and dispersed throughout the country, facing trauma, resorting to risky behavior, and in need of respite and informal enrichment and educational frameworks that provide support during times of uncertainty; 3. As the displaced children struggle to adjust to their interim educational solutions, many studying in makeshift schools,  there is a need to help them catch up and return to a normalized educational mindset that encourages creativity and learning, increasing their motivation and investment in learning; and 4. There are prevalent tech-related and other educational disparities between peripheral and central Israel students that begin at a young age, further placing the displaced Jewish and Arab children, most of whom from the periphery, at a disadvantage when it comes to gaining skills necessary for the 21st century and succeeding in today’s dynamic reality.

The use of robotics and technology to reignite the love and joy of learning, while strengthening Jewish-Arab relations through the common language of innovation, lays at the core of the Let’s Go, KIBO! program. As such, the program engages Jewish and Arab elementary school students who are facing times of adversity, uncertainty, and displacement, leveraging an innovative educational opportunity to strengthen ties, build confidence, and serve as a much-needed time of solace for the kids. 

  The proposed Let’s Go, KIBO! program is an informal educational program that combines Robotics with therapeutic qualities to both intrigue curiosity and serve as a much-needed respite for displaced children facing trauma and learning challenges. Kibo, developed by DevTech, is a research-based, hands-on robot designed to introduce young children (ages 3-9) to the world of coding and robotics in an engaging, screen-free, and creative manner. This innovative tool enables young learners to acquire STEM skills while having fun through coding, problem-solving, drawing, talking, building, and dancing. MEET’s Israeli and Palestinian young alumni teamed up to pilot the use of KIBO as a platform to address the three interrelated challenges outlined above, providing much-needed immediate relief to displaced children while closing tech-related gaps in their education, and encouraging positive learning experiences that can benefit the children in later stages of their life. 

The program’s one-day, project-based learning program spans 5-6 hours and is aimed at 1st to 3rd-grade students, typically aged between 6 to 8 years old. The program offers young Jewish and Arab participants a chance to fully immerse themselves in the world of KIBO, providing a brief respite from the daily stresses and uncertainties they face. In a fun and playful environment, children are encouraged to explore their creativity, learn basic coding skills, engage in decorating activities, and ultimately present their unique projects.

Building upon the success of our one-day activities, we have developed a comprehensive and intensive 5-7 days summer program, in a format of a summer camp. This immersive program is tailored for a more sustained engagement of Jewish-Arab children. The program is modular and runs in a continuous daily format or as a once/twice a-week afterschool opportunity.

The proposed Let’s Go, KIBO! program uses Kibo's user-friendly block-based programming system which allows for easy customization and programming of the robot, enabling a wide range of tasks, from basic commands to advanced sensor integrations. Based on the existing system, the MEET alumni team tailored a program best suited to Arab and Jewish children, 1st to 3rd-grade students, between 6 to 8 years old, in distress and trauma. Based on a successful implementation of the program between December 2023 to March 2024, we plan to expand and grow the program’s reach, engaging over 800 children from dozens of displaced communities from Israel’s northern and southern peripheries, of diverse backgrounds. The target group will be comprised of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Bedouin children who relocated with their families to interim housing solutions throughout the country. Many of them face serious psycho-social challenges, hardship in regaining a sense of control, high drop-out rates, a tendency to risky behaviors, and more. The targeted communities include: those who relocated to Kiryat Gat, such as Kibbutz Erez, Kibbutz Nir Oz, and others; Bedouins from the North, and northern communities including Shlomi, Matzuva, Kiryat Shmona, Bar’am, Arab al-Aramshe. Additionally, we start collaborating with various regional councils in the South and in the North of Israel, including Sha’ar HaNegev and Mateh Asher, and partner with Jewish, Arab, and bi-national educational organizations across Israel, such as Hand-In-Hand schools and more.

Let’s Go, KIBO! builds on MEET's 20 years of experience in running a top-notch regional STEM education, in long-term partnership with MIT, and running binational programming in volatile times in the region. For 20 years, MEET accumulated know-how and expertise in harnessing technology to advance bi-national Israeli-Palestinian, Jewish-Arab programming for youth. MEET is fully binational, led by the students, alums, and bi-national staff and Board of Directors, ensuring that both Israeli and Palestinian voices are represented. MEET's Board is made up of leaders from all sectors of society, including some of the region's most influential entrepreneurs, VCs, philanthropists, and activists. MEET's reputation as one of the best educational programs in the region, attracting over 1,600 applicants each year, of whom we select and enroll 120 students annually, lays the groundwork for the success of the program.

The program leverages MEET’s impressive base of over 800 Israeli and Palestinian alumni, who are encouraged and provided with skills and opportunities to use technology and innovation for social impact. The Let’s Go, KIBO! program was designed and launched by a dedicated team of MEET educators, under the leadership of Loai Qubti, MEET Computer Science Curriculum Lead. Extracting best practices from the pilot stage and in the growth phase currently, the team developed a comprehensive curriculum, lesson plans, and training tailored to the unique needs of teaching at displaced Jewish and Arab communities.

Furthermore, MEET has a strong culture of youth leadership throughout every level of the organization, with three alumni serving on MEET's Board of Directors. MEET has established partnerships with some of the strongest and most respected companies in Israel and the world, including META, Riskified, AppsFlyer, Lemonade, Monday.com, and many of Israel's top VC firms. Finally, MEET’s staff is comprised of professionals with deep expertise in shared society and binational work, educational programs, alumni community-building, tech, and CSR. 

The program is designed, initiated and managed by Loai Qubti, Computer Science Curriculum Lead. Loai graduated from MEET in 2017 and has been involved with MEET ever since; From serving as a teacher assistant to an instructor of CS, he is now leading the Computer Science curriculum with all its operations; mentoring and training leads, instructors and TAs to deliver a curriculum he has been working on for several years. Loai is currently following his passions, studying Digital Games in Cologne, Germany; Whilst working on several other projects including start-ups and serious games.

The program is run and managed by Layan Musallam Naddaf, Evaluation & Information Manager at MEET. Layan joined MEET in 2020 as Computer Science Instructor, and later on as a Student Program Coordinator. Currently she is managing Salesforce processing, analyzing and reporting data, also building evaluation plans and reports for the different programs at MEET. She finished her BS.c. in Industrial Engineering and Management majoring in Information System at the Technion.

Kenda Zoabi, another MEET alumni, involved in the program, has accumulated over three years of professional experience as Computer Science Instructor, Teaching Assistant, and Project/alumni coordinator.

Building on the expertise and experience of MEET for over 20 years in running STEM programs in the region, from December 2023 to March 2024, the MEET alumni team delivered KIBO educational sessions to children from Jewish and Arab communities displaced by the war in Shlomi, Matzuva, Kiryat Shmona, Sderot, Bar’am, Arab al-Aramshe, and Kibbutz Mefalsim. Approximately 120 displaced children were engaged in these efforts. We are currently in the growth and expansion phase, where we acquired additional kits, gained experience in effectively running the program, evaluated a pilot, extracted best practices from it, and hired the necessary staff to take it to the next level – which includes both engaging larger numbers of children and creating an effective platform for Jewish-Arab relation building, lowering fears and dispelling stereotypes among adversarial groups in Israei society. 

As the Let’s Go, KIBO! is a youth-led solution, we require extensive mentoring support from Solve to offer guidance across various aspects of project development and distribution, and based on our prior knowledge and recommendation by MIT colleagues, Solve can seriously impact our efforts to grow and expand the program, reaching more communities, diversifying children impacted by it and reaching new untapped communities and areas we were not capable of engaging thus far.

The Let’s Go, KIBO! program is innovative in the intersectionality of several components that together offer a sum that is greater than its parts, including: 1. The program uses existing technology in a new, more elaborate way, to address a new need – the educational, psycho-social, and recreational needs of displaced children that are under duress and uncertainty; 2. The program is a new initiative for Jewish and Arab children that connects them through the use of technology and Robotics, rather than imposing direct peacebuilding efforts that might further intimidate, the language of technology connects and overcomes barriers; 3. The program is a bilingual, binational educational approach that effectively lowers barriers and dispels stereotypes among children and youth who usually do not interact, let alone study and create together; 4. The program is alumni-run, so young people address other youth and children’s needs and can best relate and design solutions to engaging other young people; 5. The program is a groundbreaking Robotics experiential educational approach that ignites curiosity, love of learning and a fun way to acquire skills and know-how for children and youth; 6. The program is inclusive on all levels – from the mixed Israeli-Palestinian, male-female founding team, to the instructors, to the children and their families. 

The Let’s Go, KIBO! program is premised on MEET’s theory of change that IF young Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish-Arab, children and youth are provided with the opportunity to learn and create together, gain 21st-century skills and shared experiences through innovation and tech, THEN the children and youth will overcome preexisting stereotypes and fears of the other, regain the joy of learning through creative methodologies, and be better positioned to build stronger ties and overcome some of the educational and technological disparities that disadvantaged youth and children face today. 

The feedback we receive on the program is great, it's accessible and provides the three-pronged aim: advancing shared Jewish-Arab experiential education that uses technology to overcome barriers; providing psycho-social respite for children in trauma and displaced, and offering a real educational added-value to overcome innovative disparities.

Premised on the theory of change, the Let’s Go, KIBO! program’s two-pronged impact will be both strengthening Jewish-Arab ties and relations among children and youth today, and all the while overcoming barriers to the empowerment and individual educational strengthening of children from more disadvantaged backgrounds. 

Specifically, the program’s goals for 2024-5 are: 1. To engage 800 Jewish and Arab children in an innovative Robotics-based educational program that will lower fears of the other 2. To facilitate a positive experiential educational process in which hundreds of peripheral children will regain confidence and joy in the learning process; 2. To use technology and robotics to have a lasting impact on the lives of hundreds of children in Israel, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds who are in need of support. 

Targets and indicators include: 1. Recruitment, retention and attendance rates of the target 800 children who will participate in the program; 2. Low drop-out rates of around the 75% among the participating children, and high attendance rate of 80%; 3. Multiplier effect of the program on siblings, family members and community members of the children, to advance a more tolerant and conducive learning environment for the children; 4. High buy-in of dozens of MEET alumni and instructors into the success of the program, ensuring we build on their know-how and skills to offer solutions and constantly improve the program; 5. Extent of skills and know-how acquired by the participating children in the program, that prepare them for life.

The proposed Let’s Go, KIBO! program uses Kibo's user-friendly block-based programming system which allows for easy customization and programming of the robot, enabling a wide range of tasks, from basic commands to advanced sensor integrations.

The Let’s Go, KIBO! team consists of 10 MEET Alumni, proficient in delivering the learning program in both Hebrew and Arabic. They underwent curriculum and educational training to excel in the unique teaching method developed for this initiative. Working in pairs, each unit guides a group of 16 children, requiring four KIBO kits to facilitate their learning.

We began with a smaller-scale pilot in August 2023, which was later expanded in December 2023, two months after the war broke out, and ran through March 2024, engaging over 120 displaced children from various communities throughout Israel. We are now growing the venture further and wish to reach wider and increased children from diverse communities.

MEET is dedicated to equal national and gender representation throughout its programs, staff, Board, and alumni leadership. As such, we are a 50-50 Israeli-Palestinian, Jewish-Arab, and male-female student and alumni program. Over the past two years, MEET has intensified organizational efforts and resources to admit a more diverse student body, which impacts the alumni base’s diversity and other components of our program. We admit a larger number of Palestinians and reach more underserved Israeli students from peripheral communities. Our extensive recruitment process is designed to reach many and overcome possible disparities in the process of completing our in-demand three-year STEM program, run in partnership with MIT.

MEET is a non-profit and the Let’s Go, KIBO! program will be fully supported by philanthropic, corporate, and private donations. The participants will not pay for the services, and we will raise support from corporate partners such as Appsflyer, private donors, and foundations to support the program and its expansion in the next three years.

The Let’s Go, KIBO! will advance sustainability on several levels: 1. The program is designed to ensure alumni buy-in to the long-term success of the program. This is based on MEET successfully re-introducing graduates and alumni into the organization, providing ample opportunities for them to serve in key roles. With several graduates sitting on our Board and serving as staff, the know-how, capacity, best practices, and investment remain in the organization and serve to constantly improve the program’s impact; 2. MEET has consistently raised financial support and funding from a diverse base of donors, foundations, corporations, individuals and governments, ensuring a stable base of support; 3. Through our strategic partnerships with MIT and multi-national technology corporations (Facebook, Fiverr, Dell, Riskified, Microsoft, Appsflyer, Samsung NEXT), as well as contacts with local stakeholder individuals and organizations, the program will surely echo beyond its completion and impact wider circles in the long-run that will partner in its support and sustainable expansion.