Foundation in honor of Nova victim spearheads innovative technology to combat antisemitism 

October 10 is a day forever etched into the memory of New Jersey resident Morielle Lotan. It’s a day that not only shattered her family but a day that changed the course of her life’s mission.

After more than 48 hours of waiting to hear her nephew’s whereabouts after the October 7 massacre, she and her family received the message that 23-year-old Adir Mesika was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival.

Mesika was hailed as a hero after he charged at terrorists outside a shelter, saving the lives of three people inside. The American-Israeli was known for his larger-than-life personality, his love for his military service, and being a problem-solver to his core.

Lotan says she and her nephew bonded over entrepreneurship and remembers asking Mesika before he was killed how his military experience shaped who he was. She remembers him saying, “People knew that if you gave me a big problem, I would figure out what to do.”

For the past year, Lotan spent countless hours taking deep-rooted problems and working to create innovative solutions. Turning pain into purpose, and as an entrepreneur who has studied international security and intelligence failures, she realized just days after October 7 that a major security problem had not only been imminent for Israelis but for Jews around the world for years.

“While the world focused on Israel’s intelligence breakdown, we saw a parallel failure on US college campuses and in our society,” said Lotan.

With an immediate rise in antisemitism following October 7, widespread protests saw the use of Hamas and Hezbollah flags and slogans such as “globalize the intifada.”

College campuses in the United States also became a center point of contention, as thousands of students mobilized in quick fashion from coast to coast to boycott their universities’ relations with Israel, putting fear into thousands of Jewish students.

“When I saw the celebration of October 7, coupled with what we were seeing on college campuses, that was it,” said Lotan. “The alarming speed of antisemitism’s resurgence, coupled with the realization that we are fighting with a slingshot while the enemy employs technologically advanced weapons, adds a deeply sinister element to this fight.”

The fight was energized for Lotan into a mission called The ADIR Challenge Foundation, which focuses on sourcing, incubating, and developing solutions that innovate the fight against antisemitism.

Named in Mesika’s memory, the foundation has engaged thousands of people in the last year with its first innovation challenge and inspired 420 people from 25 countries to submit their inventions. Winners received mentoring from highly skilled tech, business, and legal experts and were awarded grants to kickstart their ideas.

“We saw that innovation and combating antisemitism was sorely lacking, and we set out to change that,” Lotan said.

The event

After more than a year of fundraising, hundreds of hours worth of mentoring, and gap analysis research, The ADIR Challenge Foundation hosted the Innovate to Illuminate Shark-Tank style event in Central Synagogue in Manhattan, where three teams presented their solutions to combat antisemitism and hate, specifically on college campuses.

The 400-person audience voted through an app for which idea they liked the most, and the winner claimed the $10,000 grand prize.

AN INVENTION to transform how hate crimes are reported on college campuses was the crowd favorite. Reportify, which uses generative AI, automates and streamlines the reporting process with a user-friendly design to make it more seamless.

Co-founders Danielle Sobkin and Hannah Levin created the innovation after October 7, when they experienced difficulty submitting their own incident reports to their college.

“Not a single person did anything,” Sobkin said after she would submit an antisemitic incident to her school. She explained there was never a follow-up to her filed reports or accountability for those involved in the incident, which has been a similar problem for other college students around the country.

Reportify says its platform is designed to empower students to report using simplified methods and to have longevity for future students.

“Times have changed, issues on campus have changed, dynamics have changed… technology has changed. As we’ve seen from the other side, they’re leveraging that, and we aren’t,” said Sobkin. “For the first time, it [Reportify] is putting students in the driver’s seat of solutions.”

Sobkin said joining The ADIR Challenge Foundation accelerated their timeline to help get the funding they need to dive deeper into this project.

“I was happy for the girls, and I really do think that for students, by students, is something we have to pay attention to,” said Lotan.

The two other teams that participated in the challenge were from Israel and presented on Zoom. Oct 7 Community OS initiative is an online, centralized platform that brings together information, resources, organizations, and people in communities to mobilize together.

The app will counter hostile propaganda, according to CEO Omer Dagan, who served for 30 years in the IDF and was the former commander of the Central Tech Unit.

“We know from our past, from the Six Day War and other occasions in Jewish history, that we can beat the other side even if we are outnumbered,” said Dagan in his presentation.

The third team, from Israel, was Support On The Spot, which is an initiative offering immediate emotional and practical support to individuals in distress using technology with community action to help those in need.

Although all three groups were competing against each other for the grand prize, Lotan said she had received feedback from the teams about how bringing their ideas together could enhance the overall mission and fill gaps that exist.

“The three of them will have ways to work together that will make them stronger than they can each be on their own,” said Lotan.