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Summary Report for 2009

For over 25 years, Ethiopian Israelis have been attempting to break out of the harsh socio-economicreality in which they live and integrate into Israeli society. Tech-Career provides an innovative solutionand a unique opportunity for Ethiopian Israelis to climb the socio-economic ladder. Tech-Career offersEthiopian Israeli young adults the opportunity to acquire the necessary knowledge, experience andskills to succeed in Israeli high tech industries, to develop their careers and to make the transition from

economic and social dependence to independence.

The high tech industry is one of the most sought after, rapidly developing and financially rewarding

industries in the Israeli job market, with a constant demand for professional employees. Approximately100 Ethiopian Israelis currently work in the high tech industry in Israel; most are graduates of Tech-Career. When Tech-Career was established in 2003, there were just four Ethiopian Israelis working

professionally in the high tech industry. The majority of young Ethiopian Israelis have neither thematriculation nor psychometric exam grades required for acceptance into university technologyfaculties and the expensive tuition at Israel's colleges rule these out as a reasonable option.Tech-Career provides an innovative solution and a unique opportunity for Ethiopian Israelis to attain high

level employment and climb the socio-economic ladder quickly.

During 2009, Tech-Career continued all ongoing programs, cooperation with other organizations andbegan to explore options regarding the organization's future development. This period has been a

challenging one, and the global economic crisis has affected Tech-Career activities, especially jobplacement.

Achievements

1.

Tech-Career now has an active alumni association whose members contribute significant financialsupport to Tech-Career in order to help current students. In 2009, graduates' contributions amountedto $20,000. Tech-Career's alumni are also involved in our ongoing activities: giving guest lectures,

volunteering to tutor students, and in our placement efforts, offering graduates direction andguidance.

2. When Tech-Career was established, there were justfour Ethiopian Israelis working professionally in thehigh tech industry; now, there are approximately100; most are Tech-Career graduates. We currentlytrain approximately 100 students annually.

3. Tech-Career has strong partnerships with companiesin Israel's high-tech industry and with governmentaland non-governmental organizations. Because of our

successful cooperation with the Ministry ofIndustry, Trade & Laborthrough theJohn BryceTraining Center, the Ministry requested that Tech-Career submit a tender proposal in order to convert

our relationship into a direct one. If Tech-Career issuccessful (we submitted the tender proposal inDecember, 2009), the Ministry will become one of our donors.

4. Tech-Career has been asked to establish additional program sites in other Israeli cities to bring Tech-Career training to a wider population, due to the growing reputation of excellence and results.

Tech-Career's major activities during this period included the following:

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A. Technology Training Program: Tech-Career's intensive Technology Training Program includesprofessional technological training, personal development workshops and job placement services.Our combined program offers participants the opportunity to acquire the necessary knowledge,

experience and skills to succeed in the Israeli high tech industry, to develop their careers and tomake the transition from economic and social dependence to independence.

1. Software Development Dot.Net (11 months) Course curriculum emphasizes the latestMicrosoftprogramming technologies and includes: Office, Networking, C#.Net, SQL, UML, Object

Oriented programming, Winforms Applications, ADO, HTML, Java Script, ASP.Net and a final

project.

2. Software Development COBOL (7 months) - Tech-Career's 1st COBOL course began inAugust 2009. Course curriculum includes: COBOL, System i, SQL, Embedded SQL, RPG, zOS,JCL, CICS, DB2. COBOL, an early computer language developed by IBM, is still widely used in

business, finance and administration systems. There is an increasing demand for youngemployees in this field;IBMapproached Tech-Career to begin training in COBOL since thecorporation would like to provide COBOL developers for their partners and customers.

3. Software Quality Assurance (SQA) (6 months) - Curriculum includes: Introduction to softwaretesting, SQL database, Quality Center, test planning and implementation.

During 2009, Tech-Career held 1 class in each SoftwareDevelopment course and 1 SQA course. Our 5th SoftwareDevelopment Dot.Net course (26 students, 23graduates) began in September, 2008 and ended in

September, 2009. Tech-Career's first COBOL course (19students) began in August, 2009 and will continue until

March, 2010. Our 3rd SQA course took place betweenNovember 2008-June 2009 (17 graduates). Both the

Software Development courses have been carried out incooperation with theJohn Bryce TrainingCenter/Blue Education and the Ministry of Industry,Trade & Labor. The COBOL course is also being carriedout in cooperation withIBM. The SQA course wascarried out in cooperation with theJohn BryceTraining Centerand the Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor. Two Tech-Career graduates are now

employed as instructors byJohn Bryce and have returned to Tech-Career to teach course modules.

Enrichment and Job Placement Activities

Tech-Career is committed to the successful employment of each of its graduates in the competitivehigh tech industry. Therefore, Tech-Career's personal development workshops and job placementactivities, which prepare students psychologically and practically for the transition to the high techwork force, are an essential part of our training process.

The workshops complement classroom training, aiming to strengthen our students' self-confidence, toprovide tools to deal with the new situations they will encounter and to ensure that our graduatessuccessfully integrate into the high tech world. In addition to the workshops, our students benefitedfrom enrichment activities.

Placement and enrichment activities during this period included:

Creative thinking seminars Learning development seminars

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guest lectures by Shai Vardi,Israel Discount Bank's Director of Information Systems andTechnological Division, historian Dr. Hagai Erlich, MicrosoftVP Ronen Samocha, People andComputers' Editor in Chief and Joint CEO Peli

"the Tiger" Peled, ENPExecutive DirectorNegist Mangesha, Tech-Career graduatesDaniel Mekonen, Benny Melaku, and DanielYaakove and others;

visits to high tech companies and departments:Ness Technologies, DSP,Israel DiscountBank's Software Testing Center,IBM;

a visit to Yad Vashem and the memorial site formembers of the Beta Yisrael community who

died on the way to Israel, weekly discussions

on current issues and events; personal development workshops: interpersonal

communication, self-confidence, strong points,identity, marketing;

career skills workshops: time management, personal responsibility, preparation for jobinterview, CV writing;

additional placement preparation sessions and job interview simulations; annual trip 3 day trip to northern Israel; participation in Sig'd holiday celebrations

B. Mechina ProgramIn September 2008, Tech-Career opened a Mechina Program in cooperation with the non-profit

organization One-to-One. Tech-Career's Mechina Program offered participants the opportunity toacquire the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed in science faculties in Israeli academic

institutions. The intensive 6 month residential course concentrated on key matriculation subjects

such as English and mathematics in addition to skills required to succeed at academic institutions.

Staff closely accompanied students, exposing them to the academic world. Graduates received

Tech-Career and matriculation certificates. Tech-Career's pilot Mechina course successfully

concluded in April, 2009 with 10 graduates. All graduates were accepted to Israeli academic

institutions for the current academic year, including competitive engineering programs at Israel's

top universities, the Technion and Tel Aviv University.C. Partnerships

Tech-Career has continued its successful partnership with theJohn Bryce Training Center, the

largest high tech private college in Israel, whose instructors give software development courses atTech-Career. Two of our graduates are now employed as instructors at John Bryce. The Ministry ofIndustry, Trade & Laboris an important party to our cooperation with John Bryce, and grantsour graduates professional training certificates. As mentioned above, Tech-Career submitted atender proposal to the Ministry at their request in order to convert our relationship into a directone.Tech-Career continues to forge new relationships and developing existing ones with various

companies in Israel's high tech industry for the purposes of training our students in the specificfields and latest technology required by the high tech market and to ensure job placement.

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Ongoing Challenges

1. Ensuring job placement for our graduates. This is increasingly challenging, as the number ofgraduates grows and considering the fact that many high tech companies slowed their hiring

processes this past year. In light of Tech-Career's obligation to place our students, we are makingevery effort to help all our graduates find rewardingcareers, holding placement preparation activities for

both students and graduates. Tech-Career's alumniassociation is also deeply committed to this cause.

2. Ensuring the financial sustainability of Tech-Career.This is an ongoing challenge. Tech-Career continues

to explore possibilities for further cooperation withhigh tech companies, academic institutions andfunders (foundations, federations and private

donors) in Israel and abroad. As mentioned, ourgraduates, who we believe will be the economicallyindependent future leaders and social activists ofthe Ethiopian Israeli community, continue to be

part of our income.

Growth and DevelopmentTech-Career has been asked to create branches in two other Israeli cities in order to bring our trainingprogram to a wider population, due to the growing reputation of excellence and results. If we receiveongoing funding for this purpose, we will be able to begin to establish such branches. Tech-Career iscontinuing to consult with a number of partners in the planning process and to explore possibilities for

further cooperation with high tech companies, academic institutions and funders in Israel and abroad.

Tech-Career looks forward to the future, as an increasing number of Ethiopian Israelis lead the waytowards minimizing the gap between the Ethiopian Israeli community and the rest of Israeli society. On

this important journey, Tech-Career requires continued support.

Latest Updates March 2010 Tech-Career's 10th course, our first COBOL course has just graduated! Tech-Career's 11th course, an SQA course, is now under way Tech-Career has just been certified as a Microsoft IT Academy. This will allow us to expand training

possibilities in terms of curriculum, resources and certification

Tech-Career has just reached an agreement with the Israeli corporation Rad Binatto train CiscoCertificate Network Professionals (CCNP).

Tech-Career wishes to thank all of our friends, donors and partners over the pastyear:Donors:

Anonymous donors, Baron de Hirsch Fund, DM Charitable Trust, DSP Group, Friends of Ethiopian Jews,

Intel, Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, Microsoft Israel, Natan Fund, Private donors,

Rochlin Family Foundation, Tevet, Trump Family Foundation, UJA Federation of New York,

Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation

Partners:

Adam Milo, Bank Hapoalim, Bezeq, DSP Group, Extreme, IBM, Israel Discount Bank, John BryceTraining Center, Matrix, Menorah, Microsoft, Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor, MIT, Ness, Netwise,NDS, Pilat, SPL, Taldor, Yael Software and more.

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Tech-Career 2009 Budget and Expenditures in US$ ($1 = NIS 3.7) Budget

Expenditures January-

December 2009

Personnel 146,000 132,620

Operating Expenses 26,351 17,052

Professional services 6,757 6,757

PROGRAMS

Technology Training

Personnel 80,097 65,277

Training 342,486 270,728

Enrichment Activities 62,919 11,037

Job Placement Activities 52,865 36,065

Additional Operating Expenses 302,757 164,333Total 841,124 547,439

Mechina

Personnel 12,373 28,521

Training 3,108 3,261

Enrichment Activities 5,595 10,687

Additional Operating Expenses 14,958 17,084

Total 36,034 59,553

Total Programs 877,158 609,748

Total Budget for 2009 1,056,266 766,177

2008 budget shortfall + miscellaneous clauses 80,754

Total 846,932

Income for 2009 US$ ($1=NIS 3.7)

Anonymous 42,000

Arte 40,500

Baron de Hirsch Fund 45,000

DSP Group 5,600

DM Charitable Foundation 40,000

Natan 57,000

UJA-Federation of New York 80,200

One-to-One 60,660

Rochlin 35,000

Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco 42,000Tech-Career Graduates 17,500

Trump Family Foundation 8,700

Tevet 7,500

Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc. 50,000

Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor in kind 194,000

Private Donors 45,000

Total Granted 770,660Budget notes1. The past year was a challenging year in terms of fundraising: not all requests were approved, some were

postponed. As a result we were forced to cut back program activities.

2. The budget shortfall was caused by activities carried out in 2008 but paid for in 2009, relating to theestablishment of our third classroom, and by a deficit from 2008. We have covered this shortfall with a loan.