DREAM:IN
DREAM:IN was initiated to shift the focus of people, leaders and designers from needs to dreams. To dig deeper, find an inclusive alternative to the conspicuous agenda of growth, where the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer and the world is not necessarily getting better. It aims to re-distribute opportunity,thereby wealth by creating/ advocating/ promoting and supporting a new stream of consciousnes, a new basis for individual and collective action. To start dreaming, to stimulate the imagination and to reduce fear. And thereby create an inclusive agenda of development. People have to wake up & start dreaming, start believing. And we have to work towards bridging the gap between dreams and reality by sharing dreams, by creating reports, ventures and plans that will change the world.
About You
About You
First Name
Sonia
Last Name
Manchanda
http://twitter.com/#!/sonia_manchanda
Facebook Profile
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Idiom Design and Consulting / Spread education
Organization Website
Organization Country
India
Country where this project is creating social impact
India
Is your organization a
For‐profit
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
DREAM:IN
What change do you want to bring to the world?
DREAM:IN was initiated to shift the focus of people, leaders and designers from needs to dreams. To dig deeper, find an inclusive alternative to the conspicuous agenda of growth, where the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer and the world is not necessarily getting better. It aims to re-distribute opportunity,thereby wealth by creating/ advocating/ promoting and supporting a new stream of consciousnes, a new basis for individual and collective action. To start dreaming, to stimulate the imagination and to reduce fear. And thereby create an inclusive agenda of development. People have to wake up & start dreaming, start believing. And we have to work towards bridging the gap between dreams and reality by sharing dreams, by creating reports, ventures and plans that will change the world.
What are the primary activities of your project?
Created in India by a global team, the DREAM:IN project began on 8 January, when 101 students travelled more than 25,000 km across India to capture thousands of dreams of ordinary citizens. Following what we called the DREAM:IN Journey, our team launched the DREAM:IN Conclave, a gathering of more than 50 leaders in design, education, business and government. The DREAM:IN Conclave was an opportunity to not only share the dreams of the Indian people with key decision makers, but also develop networks to transform these dreams into realities. In less than six months, the DREAM:IN project has been embraced in India, showcased in the US, and adapted in Brazil. An online portal/social network that enables people to upload their dreams and interact with each other is in development and a foundation aimed at enabling dreaming is also being set up. In addition to the above, DREAM:IN plans to conduct journeys, camps, conclaves and other field activities in the future.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
India is a country driven by innovation. DREAM:IN hopes to harness innovation at grass root levels. Organizations like Kiva help people by acting as loan officers and giving financial support to people, DREAM:IN goes many steps further and tries to connect with people on a personal level, finds out what they are dreaming about, what they aspire to be and what they dream for, for their country, family and the world. Instead of providing only financial aid, we are trying to find answers and solutions to these dreams by creating collective solutions in the form of venture ideas to answer/relate to a complete set of dreams. There is also a foundation being set up that will aid and help people to dream, connect with our global network of professionals and experts in various fields. Movements like Awaaaz.org look at the world from a negative perspective. They have been very successful in creating change, we at DREAM:IN however believe in taking the positive approach towards change. DREAM:IN inspires positive thinking in each person it touches. It brings diverse sets of people together to influence positive change and to create inclusive action. It is an innovation breakthrough that challenges that the pyramid need to be tilted, so that the bottom does not remain at the bottom but experiences the dynamics of emerging economies.
DREAM:IN engages local communities and global networks.DREAM:IN creates venture ideas that are environmentally, socially, economically sustainable
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
DREAM:IN was primarily intended to target the Indian community (the entire population, across states) to find out what different Indians were dreaming about and how this could bring about postive change in India. It applies to everyone really, all people, poor and rich, people from different financial and cultural backgrounds, governments, leaders, followers, youth, women etc. What started as a project intending to target a few people, has turned into a movement that everyone in the world can be a part of. We have engaged with various kinds of people, that fall under all economic classes, political situations, ages, genders etc. in India, on a one-on-one level. So far, nearly all the people that we have engaged with through DREAM:IN have reacted positively and have all expressed their interest in wanting to participate in future DREAM:IN activities.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
It started in one person's head, morphed into a journey. Reached people who saw merit in the argument, who came forward to support it. Parsons School of Design, Carlos Teixiera, Bruce Nussbaum, Kishore Biyani, Dr. Ranjan Pai, a dozen educational institutions, scores of academicians, film makers, designers, management professionals, hundreds of students and thousands of dreams.
Sonia Manchanda, a design thinker & communication design professional, she is also the co-founder of Idiom. Her projects include designs of many nationally recognised brands in education, retail, health, space and the look of the Commonwealth Games. A graduate of NID, she is co-founder of Spread, a radical design thinking initiative and Director-Design of DREAM:IN. The whole idea started when Spread was conducting a design leadership workshop, and Sonia asked her driver what his dream was. She was astonished to find out that his dream was a mere necessity to most people and by sparing a little time and money, his dream could be realised. Over the next few months, along with Carlos Teixeira, Co-director, DREAM:IN, she dove deep into the concept of dreaming, what they actually mean to different people and how important it is to keep dreaming. The project has constantly evolved since it's inception and has continued to change and grow in ways that she had never even imagined. What started as an idea to send people on a journey and have a conclave to develop ventures has spiraled into a foundation, a social network and a movement that is gaining new followers every day.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Conceptually speaking, much like any other peoples movement, the project can only be measured through the ever growing popular steam and support it gathers as it goes along...by the number of people it touches and influences and the many ways in which it is adapted to create inclusive agendas. See Project: http://vimeo.com/23845426
See Journey: http://vimeo.com/20062129
See Conclave: http://vimeo.com/23624637
DREAM:IN has created its own neural network of believers from across borders, across continents, cultures, across nations. To New York (prototyped at the Parsons New School of Design), to Curitiba (helped create Green Dreams, an initiative launched with the support of UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research), Colombo, Sao Paulo (discussions are to create DREAM:IN Brazil), Chile. The journey has just begun, needs to grow exponentially.
See DREAM:IN NY showcase: www.dreaminnewyork.wordpress.com
See DREAM:IN Brazil showcase: www.dreaminbrazil.wordpress.com
Objectively the measure of success is in the number of dreams, believers and realisers we bring together to make the near static pyramid that we are all part of into a more dynamic one.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
1,001- 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
DREAM:IN hopes to reach the target of sharing 1,00,000 dreams in a year, a million in 3 years and a billion dreams in 7 years - shared as an open source of data, touch lives of over 1000 students, 100 leaders and policy makers, launch DREAM:IN in Brazil and Sri Lanka by 2012 for which local teams are ready. Also create 100 ventures and implement 38 ventures. Besides culling insights that will be spread as a newsletter (11,000 copies).
DREAM:IN has been prototyped to demonstrated in a short period of time, that it is possible to sensitise society – to the dreams of a particular cross section of people, to catalyse solutions and see results by mobilizing talent and resources.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Currently, we haven't faced any real barrier as such in taking this project forward. We are at a pivotal stage, a stage in which we are moving forward from a project into a developing and sustaining a foundation and a web portal. We require funding and support to move in to phase 2. We are currently in talks with organisations and individuals across the world to come and partner with us on DREAM:IN. We are also actively seeking funding and entrepreneurs to take these ventures forward so that the dreams that they relate to, can be realised.
Tell us about your partnerships
It started in one person's head, morphed into a journey. Reached people who saw merit in the argument, who came forward to support it. Parsons School of Design, Carlos Teixiera, Bruce Nussbaum, Kishore Biyani, Dr. Ranjan Pai, a dozen educational institutions, scores of academicians, film makers, designers, management professionals, hundreds of students and thousands of dreams.DREAM:IN has created its own neural network of believers from across borders, across continents, cultures, across nations. To New York (prototyped at the Parsons New School of Design), to Curitiba (helped create Green Dreams, an initiative launched with the support of UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research), Colombo, Sao Paulo (discussions are to create DREAM:IN Brazil), Chile. The journey has just begun, needs to grow exponentially.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$500,001‐1 million
Explain your selections
So far the project has been funded by The future group and Mr. Kishore Biyani, Manipal University and Dr. Ranjan Pai and Idiom Design and Consulting.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
We have a created a detailed business plan explaining the above question. DREAM:IN will be evolving from a project into a foundation and a social enterprise. The foundation will aim at spreading the message of dreaming, realising individual dreams and conducting many DREAM:IN journeys and conclaves throughout the year while the social enterprise, the DREAM:IN portal will be an online place where people can go upload, share their dreams, believe in other's dreams, interact with people that share similar dreams and connect with each other and our network of experts to work together to possibly realise some of these dreams and most importantly to create the world's biggest database of dreams - of raw, qualitative data, unlike ever before. To get an idea of the dreams we are talking about, please see our vimeo channel http://vimeo.com/dreamin . More so, DREAM:In will be taken to countries like the USA, Brazil, Sri Lanka and Chile. We are already in talks with collaborators from these countries on when and how to implement DREAM:IN in the above mentioned countries. We plan to make DREAM:IN a global movement within three years.
Challenges
Which barriers to employment does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Lack of visibility and investment
SECONDARY
Lack of access to information and networks
TERTIARY
Restricted access to new markets
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
DREAM:IN plans to connect people. Through our process so far of capturing dreams, we realised that most people haven't been exposed or connected to the right people/organisations so that they could realise their dream. These dreams could be anything from education to business aspirations. We are also connected to a vast group of design thinking professionals called nodes (across borders) that will lend their expertise to any of these dreamers once the portal is up. The above mentioned barriers perfectly describe the three key problems most of the people we have interacted with, face.
Are you trying to scale your organization or initiative?
If yes, please check up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Grown geographic reach: Within host country
SECONDARY
Grown geographic reach: Global
TERTIARY
Repurposed your model for other sectors/development needs
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
Currently, we are focusing on the first two. While we will be setting up the foundation and portal, we will also have on-ground activities throughout the year across India that will cover most of the geographic area of the country. DREAM:IN is also in talks with collaborators in countries like the USA, Brazil, Chile and Sri Lanka to take DREAM:IN there. In the future, we also plan to customise DREAM:IN for various communities and groups of people for their social/developmental needs.
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
We hope to collaborate with all the above mentioned entities at some point in the future
 | 100 weeks ago Sonia Manchanda updated this Competition Entry. |
| 100 weeks ago Sonia Manchanda submitted this idea. |
