Strategy

Dream City is an interactive experience in which students’ digital visions of sustainable and socially responsible public goods & services come together in a collaborative digital world.

This collaborative and interactive campaign will engage students and communities with the latest advancements in art, generative ai, and immersive technologies. It provides them with insights into future technologies, fosters their capacity to shape that future, and contributes to building resilient communities. Dream City will be made real using immersive technologies where students will get to walk into their co-created world, explore drone-created digital twins, and take virtual field trips from just about any device that can connect to the internet. Portals will connect neighborhoods and travel can happen at the speed of light. Students and teachers will be able to interact with and create with AI tools. Students will explore using AI tools as part of the workshop to ideate and generate concepts and then they will learn the tools to bring those concepts to life. Through AI curriculum agents teachers will have access to AI agents trained on the curriculum and workshop materials to help them find navigate and onboard quickly, and make using Dream City a positive addition to their arsenal of tools.

GoalThe Dream City collaboration will scale by building on the works of other strong non-profit organizations and leaders already serving this community's youth. Through this skilling and workforce development initiative Dream City will grow in South Florida and build its muscle to engage with 25,000 students in the 2025.

Dream City is a component of a broader, multifaceted strategy aimed at tackling pipeline challenges that restrict diversity in STEM fields, narrowing the digital divide within our community, and fostering a growth-oriented culture that nurtures the emergence of future business leaders and innovators from our South Florida counties.

ActivationsOctober 2024

• Pilot curriculum with Crockett Foundation

December 2024

• Computer Science Education Week Collaboration with Broward County Public schools

• Facilitate Multiple workshops at different schools

April 2025

• Bite-Con Hackathon week and Collaboration with the Boys & Girls Club

• Emerge Americas -> Showcase Dream City with multiple Partners

June 2025

• Tri-County Museum Summer Camp Push (Frost Science, Museum of Discovery, Con Science Center)

September 2025

• Collaboration for scale with Code.org or Khan Academy

CommunityThe Dream City challenge will host professional development workshops and curate tools/tutorials that are low-calorie, low-cost/no-cost, and accessible across multiple platforms. Through this initiative we will future proof our next generation, empower digital transformation for non-profits, and bolster workforce development for our current educators.Innovation in EducationHigher order thinking skills are critical for success in knowledge work, specifically in STEM fields. The Dream City challenge will use project-based learning and tools that will exercise students' spatial reasoning skills and higher order thinking.Did you know that spatial reasoning (the ability to understand the relationship between 3D objects) is critical to success in STEM fields, and it can be taught using 3D tools?! The challenge will exercise students’ minds, prepare them for the future of work, and engage them in creative thinking that will culminate in a world built with their creations!Using simple open source/accessible applications students will use their imagination to build and create 3D objects that will reside they have only found in their dreams. Learning the basics of building 3D objects and understanding how they relate and interact in a larger interactive space engages and exercises their higher order thinking skills.Cutting Edge Technologies Workforce SkillingSpatial ComputingFocusing on spatial cognition and using a cutting edge platform created by a startup in South Florida and in partnership with Mud Foundation, Dream City will come to life using immersive technologies (webxr, ar, vr, mr) and available on phone, PC, and headset. This innovative approach and platform will enable art and technology to come together to provide experiences that extend human perception and interactions between the real and digital worlds.Copilot AgentsParticipant will us AI tools like Designer/Dalle for inspiration as well to help them to create assets for Dream City. To enhance the offerings of Dream City using Copilot, we can integrate several AI-driven features:

1. AI-Powered Curriculum: We will develop AI-powered curriculum in partnership with educational institutions like the Frost Science Museum. This curriculum can include interactive lessons on prompt engineering and creative AI tools like Designer and DALL-E to inspire and assist students in creating assets for Dream City.

2. Interactive Greeter: Implement an AI-powered greeter for Dream City. This greeter, trained on the content of Dream City, can interact with participants, provide guidance, and answer questions, making the experience more engaging and informative.

3. Professional Development: Use Copilot as a curriculum accessory for professional development. Teachers and educators can interact with an AI chatbot to get support, resources, and training materials, enhancing their ability to teach and guide students in using advanced technologies.

Where are we investingHere is the crawl, walk, run, grow where we are starting to investCrawl: Build Curriculum

1. Building AI Powered curriculum in partnership with the Frost Science Museum

Walk: Creativity/Buzz

1. Dream City Exhibitions and Partnerships

2. 1. Partner with Artist and collaborate to show the potential of Dream City

Run: Scale by training and workshops

1. Enable Professional Development workshops (train the trainer) for Non-Profits and public educators

2. 1. Working with larger organization that we can scale through the systems,

   2. 1. University Partners

      2. Boy and Girls Clubs

      3. STEM ecoSystems

   3. Enable each organization to have their own azure cloud hosted Dream City.

Sustainable Growth:

1. Dream City Challenges

2. 1. Curate the best of content and annually showcase the content tog

   2. Dream City walk throughs in planetarium and other VR pop up domes

How it will workDream City will need students’ help to envision and create in 2D or 3. Dream city needs everything: buildings, businesses, fashion, landscapes, parks, retail, transportation. This city needs all the future they can envision. Example design prompts include:

• New ideas for forms of renewable energy

• Sustainable and accessible transportation

• Creative entrepreneurship

• Housing solutions

• Art for public good

TeamThis collaboration has been in the works for over 8 years. Leading the Dream City Challenge is Yeah Art, Mudd Foundation, BASE STEM, Film Gate, and Microsoft Philanthropies. Each individual organization has a proven track record and extensive experience serving different areas of the communities. What is new here is we are leveraging each other’s expertise, experience, and commitment, providing thought leadership and focus. By establishing processes, simplifying complex technologies, and connecting an ecosystem of hundreds of partners in South Florida (and beyond) we are democratizing awareness of the variety of creative technologies available, creating a future proof workforce and resilient community, all while fueling student engagement in STEAM careers.SponsorshipCalling for sponsors! Cities need everything! Sport Teams, Stadiums, Businesses, Billboards, Fashion, and Brands! Join our Dream team and save a piece of Dream City. Your donations will enable us to scale, and add additional challenges and experiences for students by enabling students/artists to enable your brand/logo to inhabit Dream City.Main Contact: [e-mail]; [e-mail]Team LeadsDarrell Booker, Microsoft PhilanthropiesDenise Mendez, Microsoft Mixed RealityJaRonn Thompson, Yeah ArtLisa Milenkovic, BASEStem.org, Broward STEMRodolfo Peraza, Mud Foundation, NextReality

CollborationsKatie Gittleman, NSU, Director of STEM Initiatives and OutreachAnalisa Duran, Frost Science Museum, Knight Director of Science EducationTracy Leon, Young At Art Museum, CEO