By Cheril Lee
Omaha, NE – Project Interfaith Executive Director Beth Katz was recently selected for and finished an intensive two-week business and humanities fellowship program.
The fellowship brought together 23 social entrepreneurs from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada. Katz says the fellows took part in a mini-business school crash course hosted by the business schools of Cambridge and Cornell Universities during the two week period.
Additionally, Katz says the intensive program also had a strong humanities component to it, "Part of the mission of the foundation, the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation that supported this initiative, is to support cross-cultural understanding and relationship building. So a majority of us fellows were either Jewish or Muslim. We had some different tutorials that focused on both Judaism and Islam and the history of both of those communities in both a North American and European context."
Katz says the sessions led to fruitful discussion, reflection and dialogue among the fellows. She says each participant had the opportunity to work on building out their business plans. Katz says each fellow also had the chance to do a practice pitch to potential investors to get their feedback.
She says the experience was extremely practical as well as inspiring.