Dream Blog
Read about Dream Tank news and recent events, watch archived content, and more!
Dream Tank Featured on Techstars #GiveFirst Podcast
Check out Dream Tank on Techstars’ #GiveFirst Podcast!
The Give First Podcast co-hosts David Cohen and Brad Feld, Techstars co-Founders (along with David Brown and Jared Polis, now the Governor of Colorado), and are each lifelong entrepreneurs and startup investors. They are dedicated to Giving First and helping entrepreneurs succeed. Techstars has been a supporter of Dream Tank since day 1, and is helping Dream Tank build a sustainable revenue model to serve millions of youth globally.
In this episode, Co-host David Cohen and Dream Tank Founder + CEO Heidi Cuppari discuss the future of youth in entrepreneurship, as well as the essential role that creativity and imagination play in business. Joining Cuppari was Amalia Rose Battle, one of Dream Tank’s young innovators. Battle believes that youth involvement can affect the world in ways that many adults overlook. She shares her projects and goals, saying, “kids have fresher ideas and more imagination.”
On the future of innovation, Cuppari said, “How can we use these incredible different cross-sector approaches in solving the sustainable development goals…We need moonshots, we need radical imagination.” She emphasized that the young voice was missing in discussions of world development. This gap in viewpoint inspired her to create Dream Tank, a global youth-centered problem solving network.
Cuppari founded Dream Tank on the belief that children hold the key to making a world-changing impact.
Cuppari cited a 2030 goal of “Dream makers address and help solve five out of seventeen global goals”, a dream that she believes lies in the hands of the youth. The “Gamer-mindset” in particular is an asset that many youth possess, a tool that can be used for global outreach and impact.
Thank you Techstars for collaborating with us!
Go Big From Home: Dream Makers Wear Masks
Our June 5th Reverse Pandemic Hackathon has since passed, but you can still join and #GoBigFromHome to help flatten the curve, even in isolation! We had dozens of amazing and creative entries, but small acts of consideration and thoughtfulness are just as important and as effective at ending the pandemic.
Staying at home, social distancing, and wearing a mask are all easy ways you can help flatten the curve and keep those you love safe. Masks help protect those around you, and create herd immunity–helping protect those that are immunocompromised or unable to wear one themselves.
Put your imagination to use and decorate your masks with fabric paint, or sew one out of a fun, patterned fabric. We at Dream Tank love all sorts of creativity–not just in entrepreneurship! Tag us in pictures with your mask @wearedreamtank and use #GoBigFromHome so we can see what you create!
We also want to know how you’re spending your time in quarantine! Share your work, projects, and activities with us on our socials. We’d love to see what you’ve been up to!
Dream Tank is so proud of its creative, innovative community, and we know that together we can Go Big From Home and help flatten the curve to end the pandemic.
Design The Future Accelerator – ERacism + Re-imagining Education
Following the success of 4 years working with youth, Dream Tank is offering this 6 week accelerator, Design The Future, that will guide youth, along with a cohort of other youth and inter-generational leaders, from the art and power of dreaming to activating the changes they wish to see in the world. What sets Dream Tank apart is the quality of attention paid to youth’s dreams, passion and purpose through the mentorship of successful entrepreneurs. Youth voices will be heard and will be supported through the design and launch phases of their entrepreneurial journey.
Design the Future will include deep focuses/dives on personal development; the conception, design and launch of Dream Makers’ (youth ages 8-28) own individual enterprise, whether they already have an idea or a business, or not; and a weekly collaboration with your fellow Dream Makers and Game Changers towards redesigning education or your chosen collective impact theme from the below topics.
Design Challenges will be presented to youth entrepreneurs to collaborate with cross-sector leaders for moonshot goals for humanity, using a tried and tested model for collective impact. Focus will be built around the world’s most urgent challenges and the framework of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, taking youth through the stages of Dream-Design-Collaborate-Launch of ideas others have thought impossible. This program includes collective impact and the entrepreneurial journey. Our program will be taught virtually, off line, and in small ‘home circle’ groups with age groupings of 8-11, 12-15, 16-19, 20-28, but all skill building, deep dive workshops and collective impact projects will be inter-generational.
The program will culminate in a one day ‘demo day’ and collective impact summit with cross sector leaders in attendance.
The youth have called for a primary focus on ERascism: Eradicating Injustice and this will now be a component integrated into every piece of programming.
Other topics proposed by youth Dream Team Leaders:
- Healthcare Aid/Assistance
- Mental Health
- Community Resilience
- Economic Restructuring/Digital Economy
- Education
- Open Innovation
We are proud to announce the completion of our first Summit on June 5
On June 5, Dream Tank Dream Makers hosted a virtual summit.
Here are some exciting stats from our event, including the top three finalist of our Hackathon:
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We had an intergenerational, diverse group of leaders from 12 countries attend
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17 venture finalists and top 3 winners
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Press Release: the press release, sent out Thursday evening June 4, went up to 93 publications and 58 million people plus more than 3400 media member views
Following on this success, we are busy organizing a Dream Tank summer experience. Stay tuned!
Meanwhile, please sign up to join our movement here, and/or join our slack channel to connect with our growing global team and hackathon participants!
Dream Tank is a 501c3 non-profit social enterprise. Contributions to DreamTank ™ are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.