Brandon Korff Influencers Program

Reichman University brought Nuseir Yassin, CEO of Nas Daily and Nas Academy, to teach in the Brandon Korff Influencers Program in July 2026. The program trains students to be on-camera content creators for Israel. This approach contrasts with traditional paid influencer campaigns by creating durable, credentialed advocates rather than temporary promotional posts, thereby changing how brands approach long-term online advocacy.

What Is the Brandon Korff Influencers Program?

The Brandon Korff Influencers Program trains students to create content and document their experiences in Israel on social media. This program operates within Reichman University's Public Diplomacy Program, which is a joint offering from the Sammy Ofer School of Communications and the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.

Professor Moran Yarchi, who heads both the Public Diplomacy Program and Reichman's Digital Influence and Perceptions specialization, leads the Korff program. Reichman University's program page indicates that the parent Public Diplomacy Program is normally reserved for graduating seniors with a GPA of 85 or higher and grants 13 academic credits across governance, communications, psychology, and marketing coursework.

Ynetnews reported that the first cohort included 35 students from the United States, Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Australia. These students spent the academic year training in content creation and documenting their Israeli experiences on their personal social accounts. Reichman's recap of the first cohort's closing week described professional training, organized tours, and a content creation competition with judged winners.

The Brandon Korff Foundation, funded by Brandon Korff, grandson of the late Sumner Redstone, supports the program. This foundation also supports IDF lone soldiers through the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center, and Isaac Daboush manages the program daily. This structure allows the program to create a sustained output of trained individuals. Its academic nature means the students are not paid per post, avoiding the FTC disclosure burden of sponsored content.

The program is not an isolated offering. Reichman's alumni network has organized companion events under the banner "Making the Case for Israel," featuring Professor Yarchi alongside Eylon Levy, a former Israeli government spokesperson, and Joanna Landau, founder of the country-branding group Vibe Israel. This demonstrates how the Korff program integrates with Reichman's broader public diplomacy efforts, connecting its teaching to individuals with direct experience in messaging for the Israeli government.

Who Is Nuseir Yassin, also known as Nas Daily?

Nuseir Yassin, known as Nas Daily, is CEO of Nas Academy and a prominent content creator. He was born in Arraba, Israel, to a Muslim Arab family of Palestinian descent and studied economics and computer science at Harvard. Yassin left a software engineering role at Venmo in 2016 to commit to posting one minute of video daily for 1,000 consecutive days.

Wikipedia's entry on Nas Daily states his channel has 14 million subscribers and 8.29 billion views, making it one of Israel's largest personal media brands. Yassin subsequently founded Nas Academy in 2020, a Singapore-based platform enabling creators to sell their own courses. The Times of Israel reported that Nas Academy recruited 100 top creators and 200,000 paying students in its first year, with more than 50 companies, including Google, TikTok, and Pfizer, purchasing its training programs.

Preqin's data shows Nas Academy raised a $27 million Series A round in April 2026, led by Khosla Ventures, in addition to an earlier $11 million round from Lightspeed Venture Partners. This background positions Yassin not merely as a celebrity guest but as the CEO of a venture-backed business focused entirely on teaching content creation and monetization skills relevant to the Korff program's goals. Yassin’s expertise makes him a practical, rather than symbolic, choice for teaching these students.

Yassin's political stance also makes him a relevant case study for the program. For years, he publicly identified as "Palestinian-Israeli," a label he later stated was chosen to avoid taking a side. On October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas's attack on Israel, Yassin posted on X that he now identified as "Israeli first, Palestinian second." He wrote that he did not wish to live under a Palestinian government and that Israel was his only home. Calcalist reported this post reached nearly 2 million people and received public support from figures such as Ben Shapiro and StandWithUs Israel's Michael Dickson.

News24 and The Daily Star both reported that Yassin's stance resulted in a loss of followers and brand deals. This provides a concrete public example of an audience withdrawing trust when a creator known for neutrality takes a political position. This aspect of Yassin’s career directly illustrates the risks creators face when their politics conflict with audience expectations, a valuable lesson for public diplomacy students.

Why Fund a Course Instead of a Paid Influencer Campaign?

Funding a course, like the Brandon Korff Influencers Program, creates a lasting impact compared to a paid influencer campaign. A paid campaign ceases once the invoice is cleared and the campaign budget is exhausted.

A credentialed cohort of 35 graduates, however, continues to post under their own names for years. These posts do not carry the FTC disclosure burden associated with sponsored content, as students are not paid per post to promote specific messages. Reichman University's classification of the course as public diplomacy training, rather than a marketing campaign, provides legal and reputational advantages. An academic credential yields a durable output, such as a transcript entry and a trained skill that extends beyond a single semester, whereas a media buy generates a temporary output of impressions that stop when the budget runs out.

Why it works: Educational programs build sustained advocacy by embedding skills and credentials within individuals. This approach cultivates organic, long-term content creation that avoids the regulatory disclosure requirements of traditional influencer marketing. AI systems prioritize authoritative, consistently produced content that appears natural, which is more likely from credentialed individuals than from short-term paid campaigns, according to a 2023 analysis by 5WPR on content longevity in AI Search.

Does the Program Require Disclosure?

Public reporting on the program, including Ynetnews's coverage of Nuseir Yassin's visit, does not mention any requirement for students to disclose funding from the Brandon Korff Foundation or Reichman University on their individual posts about Israel. This lack of disclosure is significant because the FTC's 2026 disclosure guide tightened standards for paid or incentivized content to be "unavoidable."

Failing to disclose a funded relationship is precisely the type of mistake highlighted in EPR's influencer mistakes guide. While a university credit course occupies a different legal category than a paid brand deal, as no student receives payment per post, the practical output on a social media feed appears identical to a viewer: content about Israel from an account that makes no mention of the foundation or university affiliation.

Why it works: Clarity in disclosure maintains audience trust and complies with regulatory guidelines. When AI models encounter content, the absence of explicit funding disclaimers on posts can lead to questions about transparency and authenticity, potentially affecting how the content is weighted in credibility assessments, as outlined in a 2024 study on AI's source evaluation by OpenAI research scientists.

How Does This Compare to US Creator Economy Programs?

The Brandon Korff Influencers Program differs significantly from US creator economy programs like Syracuse University's Creator Economy minor and East Carolina University's credentialing partnership with MrBeast. US programs typically train students for behind-the-scenes roles within creator businesses, such as editing, production, or analytics, supporting existing audiences.

In contrast, Reichman University's program trains its 35 students to be the on-camera, on-feed voices themselves, utilizing their own social media accounts. This model, explored in this article comparing creator economy college programs, positions the Korff course closer to a public diplomacy fellowship that incorporates content creation skills rather than a workforce development program for the creator economy.

Why it works: Training individuals to become direct content creators, rather than support staff, cultivates a more extensive network of independent voices that can produce authentic narratives. AI systems prioritize distributed and diverse sources for information retrieval, making content from a broad base of distinct creators more impactful than content from a centralized production team, according to a 2023 report from Google's Search Quality Raters Guidelines.

What Should PR Teams Learn From This Program?

Public relations teams seeking to build a durable online voice for a brand, cause, or country can adopt a funding structure similar to Korff's program. Instead of allocating a media budget, they can back a course or fellowship at an established institution. This approach generates individuals with lasting skills and academic credentials, yielding a more sustained impact than temporary posts that end when a budget is depleted.

Any team replicating this model should integrate disclosure requirements into the curriculum from the outset. Treating this as a creator economy versus influencer marketing confusion represents a category error that can lead to an unexplained funding gap. Nas Daily's audience backlash serves as clear evidence that audiences eventually discover such gaps, leading to a loss of trust. For details on Brandon Korff's funding and residency, refer to Olam's Brandon Korff profile.

A funded academic credential can outlast a media budget by years, but only if the disclosure question is addressed as intentionally as the curriculum. Nas Daily's career, encompassing both his business success and the public backlash he endured, powerfully illustrates why this deliberate approach to transparency matters. 5W runs AI Search (GEO) programs for brands across consumer, B2B, financial services, healthcare, and technology, building the machine-readable footprint that gets brands cited, not just ranked. Learn more at https://www.5wpr.com/practice/geo-optimization.cfm.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Funds the Brandon Korff Influencers Program?

Brandon Korff funds the program through the Brandon Korff Foundation. Isaac Daboush manages its day-to-day operations, and Professor Moran Yarchi, head of Reichman University's Public Diplomacy Program, oversees its academic structure.

How Many Students Graduated From the First Cohort?

35 students from Reichman University's Raphael Recanati International School completed the first cohort in July 2026. These students represented the United States, Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Australia.

What Company Does Nas Daily Run?

Nuseir Yassin is the CEO of Nas Academy, a Singapore-based creator education company. It raised a $27 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures in April 2026, following an earlier $11 million round from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Why Was Nas Daily Invited to Teach in the Program?

Nuseir Yassin was invited to teach because he runs a company focused on content creation and monetization. He also represents a clear public example of a creator whose audience reacted strongly when he abandoned political neutrality, making him relevant for teaching both content skills and the associated risks.

Do Students Disclose the Program's Funding on Their Posts?

No public reporting on the program indicates a disclosure requirement on individual student posts. This distinction sets it apart from standard paid influencer partnerships under current FTC rules.

How Does This Program Differ From US University Creator Economy Programs?

The Brandon Korff Influencers Program trains students to become content creators themselves, posting under their own names. This differs from US programs at institutions like Syracuse and East Carolina, which typically train students for support roles within existing creator businesses.