Dream Space: The journey so far…

Dream Space opens in March, 2018

In 2018 Microsoft Ireland officially opened Microsoft Dream Space at One Microsoft Place.

At the time, the newly created innovation and education space at the company’s campus in Leopardstown was designed to open everyone’s eyes and minds – with a particular focus on students and teachers - to the possibilities offered by technology.

To make this happen, Microsoft invested €5m in the development and running of Microsoft Dream Space and set a target of engaging 100,000 primary and Transition Year (TY) students and their teachers over a four-year period.

Exceeding our target of 100,000 students in 4 years

By June 2022, over 130,000 students took part in a Dream Space experience through the variety of mediums that our programme offers – spanning in-person visits to our venues in Dublin and Belfast, engagement with our Dream Space TV series and our work directly with teachers in classrooms across the country.

Adapting, learning and scaling in new ways

By June 2024, our reach is now just shy of 300,000 students across the island of Ireland. This reach and impact was achieved due to the innovation of our team at Microsoft who adapted existing programmes whilst adding new ones in response to what our education communities have requested and continued to utilise.

For example, in the last three years, the team have added:

Dream Space TV: Engaging episodic STEM Lessons with 8 series now available, one of which is available in Irish.
Dream Space LIVE: Schools across Ireland, and beyond, joining the team as they stream live interactive lessons from our "Stream Space" in Dublin.
Dream Space in the Community: Working with communities and family learning programmes to bring Dream Space to young people outside of school settings, with an emphasis on reaching areas of rural Ireland.
STEM Passport for Inclusion: A partnership between Maynooth University, Microsoft Ireland, SFI and the Dept. of Education. The Dream Space team co-designed and deliver the Level 6 module that participants complete to support their entry to STEM courses at third level.

Growing our programming to support our communities

We have grown a lot and are committed to continuing this growth to support communities as best we can. We are on a mission to empower 1 million students across the island of Ireland and to achieve this our Dream Space team now support over 15 project streams, all free of charge. These projects are broad ranging which allows us to meet students, teachers, parents and mentors where they are on their STEM journey, in both formal and informal education settings in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Researching and evaluating impact

Since 2018, research has been a key part of the Dream Space journey, including evaluating the impact of the Dream Space programmes including the Dream Space field trips experienced by students and Dream Space TV. Research conducted by Maynooth University shows that there was a 42% increase in the likelihood of girls wanting to pursue STEM after their Microsoft Dream Space experience. We also know from this same research undertaken with girls coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, that a Microsoft Dream Space experience resulted in a 30% increase in STEM career aspirations and increased their confidence by 80%. While so much has been achieved with our programmes in Microsoft Dream Space, the team has the ambition to do even more. Join us on the next stage of the journey.