Where would you place yourself now?

Application central - post #1

Where would you place yourself now in your professional or personal journey?

And there are so many stories to tell, too many, such an excess of intertwined lives events miracles places rumors, so dense a commingling of the improbable and the mundane! I have been a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you’ll have to swallow the lot as well. (Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children)

I chose the path of politics, public diplomacy and conflict resolution as much as it chose me, many years before I was even born. The path was being paved for me for over a hundred years and now I feel I must follow it – letting it guide me but also continuing to pave it forward as I go. The first step was made so far back in my family’s history it cannot be traced exactly, yet it seems that the first traceable step in my fate’s journey started in 1917 with the Pogroms in the Ukraine.

The next steps were the Holocaust, the fall of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's independence and my family immigrating to Israel. My steps as a teen included growing up during the second intifada in Jerusalem, becoming a proud Seed of Peace and a student at the Mahindra United World College. As an adult I started adulthood with two years of army service as the Director of the Russian Branch of the IDF Spokesperson Unit. My media skills led me to take the first steps in the world of media where I worked for five years.

My path has now led me to the PresenTense and the sphere of social innovation. I know that the next steps will be three fold – professional, academic and personal. In my professional track I strive to create my own venture and am now working on 2 technologic start –ups. In my academic path I aim to create a new methodology to create and analyze threats. In my personal life I wish to make a change in the social and political environment in Israel. I wish to do this through entrepreneurship, innovation and economic development. I have seen the tools of entrepreneurship; professional networking and mutual economic dependence create meaningful and long lasting connections between people of different religions, nationalities, colors and genders where many other methods have failed.       

I, Alina Evgenivna Shkolnikova, later variously called Alina Shkolnikov, Ilana, Bazooka and even Commander, have become heavily embroiled in fate – at the best of times a thrilling sort of involvement at the worst a humbling association. I have been a swallower of lives; and hope to continue on that path. 

* Application was written while still working for PresenTense.