PRESIDENT PERES HOSTS MAJOR INSTAGRAM USERS ON MISSION TO ISRAEL WITH STANDWITHUS
Instagram Photographers, with over 2 million followers collectively, are sharing their first experience of Israel with the world
President Peres welcomes the Instagrammers
(Jerusalem, Israel – September 5, 2012) – Israeli President Shimon Peres posed for a very special team of photographers at his official residence: 10 major Instagram users, from around the world chosen to participate in a project called 'Once in a Lifetime HD'.
Instagram – the photo-sharing application recently bought by Facebook for $1 billion – is an increasingly popular way to share photos online. The photographers collectively have 2 million followers and they showed the President the best images they have captured while in Israel. The Instagramers also got an opportunity to photograph the president on their iPhones as he posed for them at the famous Presidential Gardens.
The group, which includes seven Americans and three Europeans, arrived in Israel on Sunday hosted on the trip led by Israeli students who are part of the StandWithUs Israel Fellowship at Tel Aviv University, the leading nationwide Israeli public diplomacy program.
StandWithUs Fellows of Tel Aviv University with President Shimon Peres
The ten Instagramers are: Carli Kiene (@inkedfingers), Joey Mena (@nerdx), Sam Horine (@samhorine), Bex Finch (@bexfinch), , Angeliki Jackson (@astrodub), Steph Goralnick (@sgoralnick), Dave Temple (@kewiki), Jorg Nicht (@JN from Germany), Eelco Roos (@croyable from Holland) and VuTheara Kham (@vutheara from France).
"We are thrilled to see this Once in a Lifetime HD experience come to life and to finally get a chance to meet our incredible Instagramers. They are in for an unbelievably photographic journey, which I'm sure their millions of followers will enjoy. We are uploading the photos online every day our website for updates and inviting people to join in by uploading their best photos from Israel and tagging them #IsraelHD," said Roey Rafael, an Industrial Engineering and Management student at Tel Aviv University and project member.
The Instagrammers capture the President's image, while he takes photos of them!
For the reminder of their stay, these 10 hand-picked participants will enjoy a very visual and carefully-planned trip across Israel, showing the country's diversity of landscapes, historical sites, multicultural society and unique nightlife. During the trip, these popular Instagramers will document their personal experience of Israel via Instagram, sharing their photographs in real-time with their vast number of followers.
"It has been thrilling planning this trip and seeing it all come to fruition," explains Ben Goldman, a Law and Accounting student from Tel Aviv University, "I'm so pleased that so many people will get a chance to see the real Israel; the one that we know and love".
StandWithUs Israel Director Michael Dickson presents President Peres with 'Only Israel'
- a StandWithUs photo pocketbook showcasing how Israel offers extraordinary gifts to humanity.
This is the 3rd such annual StandWithUs bloggers trip, bringing influential bloggers to Israel to learn about its diverse reality, meet top officials and experience first-hand all that Israel has to offer, the twist this year being that all participants are influential on Instagram.
Website: http://www.onceinalifetime.org.il/
Follow the photos on Instagram via #israelhd
Media Interest in the group
Screenshots from the visiting photographers Instagram accounts:
This photo taken by @kewiki who says "For thousands of years, people have come to 'The Wailing Wall' to leave their prayers to God. This young soldier is now taking his turn (I have left some of my own as well)."
About the StandWithUs Fellowship
The StandWithUs Fellowship is an elite leadership program in Public Diplomacy for Israeli students. The program is currently in its 6th year, and runs on six different campuses nationwide: The University of Haifa and the Technion, The Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Tel Aviv University, Bar Ilan University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ben Gurion University of the Negev and Sapir College, in partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and The National Union of Israeli Students. The Fellowship is the flagship program of StandWithUs, an international, non-profit Israel education organization, that ensures that Israel's side of the story is told in communities, on campuses, in libraries, in the media and throughout schools via brochures, speakers, conferences, missions to and from Israel, and thousands of pages of Internet resources that are distributed globally.
