Bridging the gap: How Tech-Career is opening hi-tech's doors to Ethiopian-Israelis

Israel's high-tech sector is the engine of the national economy, the industry that turned a small country into the "Start-Up Nation." For 23 years, the nonprofit Tech-Career has been working to ensure that Israelis of Ethiopian descent can share in that success. 

The main barrier they are fighting isn't a lack of talent. "It's not about knowledge," says Shoshi Tessema-Nagosa, the organization's VP of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships. "It's about a lack of access to information. If I don't know what's out there, I'm not going to get there."

Tech-Career was founded in 2004 by Asher Elias and Glenn Stein. Elias, a young Ethiopian-Israeli with a tech background who noticed he rarely saw people in the industry who looked like him. A child of Ethiopian immigrants, Elias decided to build something for the next generation. His first class held just four students, meeting in a repurposed laundromat on a kibbutz near Jerusalem. Stein, an American Jew, brought the US bootcamp model to Israel, and served as a lecturer for the first cohorts of students alongside Elias. 

"Then it grew and grew and grew," Tessema-Nagosa said. Many doubted the model could work at first, assuming real change would only arrive a generation later. Elias kept building anyway. Today, Tech-Career is led by CEO Takele Mekonen, who has overseen the organization's growth to more than 1,400 graduates and its expansion into Israel's periphery, including a new branch in Haifa and a permanent campus now under construction in Lod.

Tech-Career aims not just to teach hard skills, but to provide networking opportunities, an area where many Ethiopian-Israelis are at a disadvantage. Many participants are the first in their families to pursue higher education. "I couldn't talk to my parents," Tessema-Nagosa said of her own path to university. "Once you meet people who have done it, it's much easier."

Tech-Career identifies candidates through meetups, webinars, fieldwork, and its alumni network. Admissions involves interviews, testing, and exams assessing analytical thinking and problem-solving. Motivation counts for as much as ability, since the program runs six to ten months of full days and invests in heavily subsidized apartments for the students. Participants range in age from their early twenties to mid-forties.

Tech-Career's model rests on three pillars, the first two being technical training and soft skills (time management, networking, résumé-building, and LinkedIn literacy). "A lot of young people say, okay, LinkedIn is like Facebook. Facebook is for old people, I'm not doing that," Tessema-Nagosa said. "An important part of our work is teaching them how to conduct themselves in the job market and what LinkedIn is as a tool."

The third pillar revolves around identity and belonging. Tech-Career devotes time to participants' shared cultural history, including the centuries-long story of the Ethiopian Jewish community. "Our history didn't begin when we came to Israel," Tessema-Nagosa explains. "We talk to them about what happened in Ethiopia, about our historical narrative, really connecting them to that, and also connecting it to technology. Research shows that people who are stronger in their sense of identity find it much easier to continue forward and progress.

“Because ultimately, whether we like it or not, when I enter a room, people will see that I'm a woman, they'll see that I'm Black, they'll see that I'm Ethiopian.”

Still, Tech-Career does not see itself as a support group. Its focus is placement. "Our goal is to integrate as many people as possible. I can't take a group of 25 students who already had a hard time getting to us, and then fail to find them jobs. From my perspective, that's a failure."

The organization studies placement data to adjust its curriculum based on industry trends. In 2022, it cut its once-popular software development track after finding demand for those specific skills had dropped. Today Tech-Career reports job placement above 80 percent, mostly into roles like QA, Data Analysis, Network Engineering, and Cybersecurity, with graduates going on to companies including AT&T, AWS, and Google, and some eventually founding startups or reaching CTO-level positions.

The program costs roughly NIS 28,000 per student, of which participants pay only around NIS 2,000 for residential programs – which also include subsidized apartments. Roughly 80 percent of Tech-Career's funding comes from philanthropy, with the remainder from government partnerships. Under Mekonen's leadership, Tech-Career has continued deepening these partnerships while pursuing an ambitious vision for growth. Further expansion depends on continued fundraising.

For Tech-Career, the payoff isn't measured only in individual careers, but also in ripple effects upon families and neighborhoods. "[Graduates] come back and tell people what they're doing, and then that young person thinks, 'Oh, wow, if he can do this, I can do this too,'" Tessema-Nagosa says. "Then they get jobs and earn several times what they were earning before. Their children then have greater access to private education. Later, their children go to university. There's this kind of chain reaction. Really a leap."

This article was written in cooperation with Tech-Career.

Alan Rosenbaum contributed to this article.