Israel & Entrepreneurship Day in Brazil

Felipe Neves describes his 2018 Stanford Law Israel Trek experience as “one of the most incredible experiences of my life.” He recounts how excited he was to visit Israel and learn about the culture and the entrepreneurial mindset – and his desire to now return with his wife and family. 

After he graduated from Stanford, Felipe spent a year working at a New York City-based law firm, and then returned to Brazil to work as the Head of Google Workspace for Education in Latin America at Google Brazil. Felipe certainly enjoys his job, but his face really lights up when he speaks about the two nonprofit organizations he founded and still runs, one of which is the biggest civic education nonprofit in Brazil. Felipe’s organizations, called “Civic Education” and Constitutional Law in School Project,” provide knowledge about the Brazilian legal system, and help bring opportunities such as scholarships and internships at top tier law firms to low-income students. Felipe describes the organizations as a “full cycle:” the organization helps students earn scholarships to better schools, which in turn makes them better prepared for standardized testing and allows them to receive public grants to attend law school for free. Once they are in law school, the organization provides training in both hard and soft skills to prepare students for law internships. 

When he received an email about the itrek Microgrant program, Felipe was inspired to connect the work at his nonprofits with the trip he’d taken during law school. “I wanted to be able to tell the students about Israel, since my Israel Trek was such an impactful experience.” The resulting project was an “Israel & Entrepreneurship Day” for the students in Felipe’s nonprofit program. With a mission to provide the students with a holistic view of Israel and the Jewish community, Felipe invited people he knew in Brazil who were connected to Israeli and Jewish businesses. “When you are talking to someone, you can better understand where they are coming from.” The majority of students Felipe works with through his nonprofit are Black, so he saw an opportunity for them to relate to Jews, another minority, in a different way. “I wanted to be able to provide them with another perspective about diversity.”

The event was a full day affair, located at Inteli, a technology university in São Paulo. The two speakers at the event were Daniel Mehler, Founder of Adatex, one of the largest rubber thread producers in Brazil, and Adolfo Bobrow, Founder of Puket, one of the largest clothing companies in Brazil. Both successful business owners are Jewish, and closely involved with the Brazilian Jewish community. The presentations were divided into two components: history and religion, and business entrepreneurship and the immigrant experience. After sharing their unique stories, the floor was opened for students to participate in a Q&A. “The speakers were really happy to share about their roots and their origins,” Felipe said. 

About 40 students attended the event, and all shared incredibly positive feedback from the experience: “the students learned things about Israel culture and history, and they learned about why Israeli society is so focused on entrepreneurship.” The itrek Microgrant allowed Felipe to rent a high end space, purchase lunch and a t-shirt for each attendee, hire a photographer, videographer, and designers for the invitations, and provide a book for each guest: Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Within two months, Felipe plans to host a meeting with the students to discuss the book, and to hear about what they learned. He also hopes to host this event at least once a year, citing the importance of connecting the students he works with to the Israeli community.

You can watch a video from Israel & Entrepreneurship Day here!