Dreamspace Academy

Sri Lanka

Dreamspace Academy

Year 2019 Winner Project | Engage 2019 Science Breakthrough | Engage 2019 Winner Engage Winners

Presented by
Aravinth Panch

 

DreamSpace Academy is a Community Innovation Centre which was created to tackle authentic socio-economic and environmental challenges using Project Based Learning (PBL). Our mission is to empower creative minds through Maker Education, to create innovative solutions using Open Innovation, and ultimately leading them to become successful social entrepreneurs. It is essential that an organisation has a connection to the community which it creates solutions for, otherwise the solutions are not sustainable because the initiative is missing commitment and knowledge of the community. In our city and region there are several social issues that need to be solved, but yet most of the solutions are in efficient due to a lack of community knowledge and participation.

DreamSpace Academy is designed to provide Maker Education Workshops and provides a space to engage in prototyping, research and development, one to one coaching etc. The Space and the DreamSpace team are supporting the Youth and Children in diverse ways: from empathising to testing, at the age of 6 onward. DreamSpace Academy offers an electronic workspace, mechanical workspace and a co-working space for them to work on their projects. And again, DreamSpace Academy is not a MakerSpace, it’s a community innovation centre that works on real community issues translating them into solutions through science and engineering engagement.

 

More information about
Kishoth Navaretnarajah, Director, DreamSpace

Kishoth Navaretnarajah is the Co-Founder and Director of DreamSpace Academy, Sri Lanka. As an independent researcher he has research experience in different areas: Water, Climate Change and DRR, Peace-building, and VisAbility. He won many national and international awards for his excellence in Community Resilience; among them the National Award at the Stockholm Junior Water Prize Sri Lanka 2013, Excellence in Dilmah Eco-Innovation Award, Sahasak Nimavum 2015 RunnerUp, Speaker at the WaterSmart Innovations, Nevada 2016, and the Gold award of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award. In addition, he received a scholarship by the Swedish Institute for the Young Connectors of Future 2018. Kishoth, as a community builder, creates mechanisms to foster social change and influence future development through Social Innovation. With a background in peace-building, community development, and research, he works passionately for sustainable social impact.

As our finalist Kishoth Navaretnarajah has not been able to obtain a visa at first, Aravinth Panch (Co-Founder of DreamSpace) presented the project at this year’s Falling Walls Engage event. We are happy that Kishoth has been able to attend after all.

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