The Israeli startup encouraging social responsibility and volunteering

From volunteering apps that connect people with nonprofits, waste that turns into reusable plastic, brain and body scans that provide immediate medical assistance, and robots that save the bees and the food chain, there are plenty of Israeli startups that are focused on doing good.

Today, volunteering is about more than taking social action, and has become an inseparable part of many companies' corporate activity. Numerous tech companies hold volunteering programs year-round in an attempt to provide added value to employees.

Israeli startup Vee offers a complete solution for nonprofit organizations’ needs, by streamlining volunteering. The company is headed by 22-year-old May Piamenta, who shared her journey in an interview with Calcalist. “I set up my first business in eighth grade, purchasing swimwear and then selling it on. I sent out deliveries throughout the entire country, with the operation being run out of my home in Dimona,” Piamenta told Calcalist. “I sold the company at the end of eighth grade and joined a robotics program. I realized that I connect with the entrepreneurial part of the group and that led me to raise funds for the program. During this program, I encountered many non-profit organizations that require help and many companies that want to help but don’t know how.”

May Piamenta.

Piamenta, who founded the company when she was 20, has been involved in charity and volunteering since her teenage years in Dimona, a small town in southern Israel. During those years she led a global non-profit project with millions of volunteers across 32 countries where she realized that traditional management tools were cumbersome, unscalable, and difficult to use to achieve her goals in community management.

“Towards the end of my IDF service, I understood that I wanted my next business to tackle this challenge, but I didn’t have enough money to start. So instead I set up a company that helped build websites for people and companies within 24 hours. After six months we managed to raise funds for the new company so I brought in my cousin Gil Amsalem (CTO) and we recruited our third partner Avi Amor (COO), as well as a development team that volunteered to work on the project.”