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SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUEDESIGNING A BETTER MOUSEPADLike any young businesspeople, the employees of a new Jerusalem company called Swish have worked hard to design, produce and market an innovative new product. But unlike most companies, Swish is staffed entirely by 16 and 17-year-olds. The efforts of the 13 teenagers -- students at Ohr Torah Stone's Jennie Sapirstein High School for Girls in Ramot - were rewarded in early summer with the position of second place in the finals of Israel's Young Entrepreneurs 2000 competition. And they've already closed sales deals with companies in Israel and the U.S.Swish's product is a mousepad that features a clear window where a photo or other personalization may be inserted. The students designed the Mishtachlef -- a name that plays on the Hebrew words for "changing surface" - as a solution to the sterile, impersonal decor of many hi-tech offices. After raising their own initial investment by running a snack bar in school, the girls handled all the management, design, production and marketing themselves, with mentoring assistance from NewsDataCom Services, a Jerusalem hi-tech company.
As the Ramot students worked to surpass 118 other groups in the Young Entrepreneurs competition, they learned a lot about running a business - and about themselves as well. "It's not easy to be a manager, especially when you have to manage your friends," admits CEO Yael Loshinsky. "But I learned that there's business and there's socializing and you have to separate between the two." Yael and several other Swish staff members are already envisioning careers in the business world - and meanwhile, they're continuing to market the Mishtachlef.
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The achievement of the Sapirstein High School group came just months after another milestone synthesis of Torah and technology at an Ohr Torah Stone high school. In March 2000, the computer club at the Neve Channah High School for Girls in Efrat won honorable mention in AT &T's Virtual Classroom Competition, an international contest aimed at encouraging global cooperation through electronic communication and website building.