Who Are We?
Making Ideas Happen - by enabling youth become Future Ready
We are a bunch of storytellers, learners and curious dreamers with appetite for exploring boundaries of design and celebrating youth crafters and creators from all walks of life! At Dreamverse, we blend immersive, gamified learning, technology with real-world experiences to help young people (18- 29 years) transform their skills into sustainable careers. To do this, we create goal-oriented, contextualized learning journeys with a focus on building key Future of Work skills like financial literacy, critical thinking, creativity, ceffective communication and, confidence building etc. in a supportive & relevant ecosystem!
While our work is not restricted to, but often aligns with educational institutions, startups, NGOs & companies looking to deliver highly engaging, contextualized, data driven outcomes at scale.
Why We Exist?
In today's fast-paced digital economy, young talent often struggles to turn skills into sustainable livelihoods, facing uncertainty and low self-esteem...
Dreamverse exists to change this narrative!
Comprising of 27.3%* of the total population, India’s youth is facing a high unemployment rate of 9.2%**! India needs more than 5 million entrepreneurs to create employment for all!
Our youth can lead this mission by becoming job creators! Yet, millions of talented Indian youth struggle to turn skills into sustainable livelihoods. On one hand where traditional education falls short in providing market-ready skills; gig economy and entrepreneurship paths remain illusive due to limited mentorship and support, leading to: Low Self-Esteem | Lack of Clarity | Undervalued Talent | Misaligned Learning | Career Stagnation.
Dreamverse began with a mission to help young people from all backgrounds build and enhance essential future work skills—financial literacy, critical thinking, communication, and confidence—enabling them to rediscover and refine their hobbies and talents into full-time vocations!
*Sources: (1) Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, GoI (2) Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), as per June 2024
How we came to be?
We took Richard Bach quite literally when he said, “With the adventures we choose and the mysteries we solve, we build our credentials, write our introduction to others around the world who value adventure and mystery themselves.” The last few years have been a ride into solving one mystery after another, sheer curiosity driving passion to become our profession. So, here is a glance into the verse we are creating, one question at a time.
2018
Questions:
“Why are craftspeople leaving skills behind to partake in unskilled labor?"
"Why are talented hobbyists shy of entrepreneurship?"
Challenge:
Young people in craft communities lacked exposure and the skills to create value from their craft, opting instead for immediate financial means like labor work. They were under-confident, lacking clarity and mentorship to start and grow businesses in an ever-changing economy.
Actions:
- We spent a year in the foothills of the Himalayas in a media-dark zone, creating a low-cost makerspace to introduce the young Monpa Tribe to technology-led design and innovation.
- We also worked with young people in Rajasthan, helping them build future-ready skills through an immersive Fellowship program focused on reimagining entrepreneurship and gaining necessary mentorship.
2019
Question:
"How can we create exposure around design and innovation skills at scale?"
Challenge:
Design is highly qualitative, and scaling it while ensuring quality is a challenge.
Actions:
- Worked at an Indian Policy Think Tank focused on Innovation and Entrepreneurship to understand the processes behind scaling innovation interventions.
- Brainstormed with professionals and industry leaders from South Asia in an experiential program at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, focused on driving innovation and amplifying impact across disciplines.
2020 - 2022
Question:
"How can we create tech-enabled ways to reach people with limited access to the internet?"
Challenge:
During the peak of COVID-19, NGOs struggled to reach or retain learners.
Actions:
We discovered that listening and community building are core principles of learning. This led to Call-a-Kahaani, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) intervention through Udhyam Learning Foundation, reaching 10,000+ learners across 15+ states. Recognized as a top innovation by the World Economic Forum and Deloitte’s Uplink, this success inspired us to establish Dreamverse Learning Lab, to continue our experiments in learning.
2022 - 2023
Question:
"How can we improve learning outcomes through blended learning principles?"
Challenge:
While participants were engaging with our content through audio interactions, they struggled to apply their learning in everyday actions.
Actions:
We selected community leaders in villages and provided them with activity worksheets to use in Self-Help Groups (SHGs). This blended learning approach—combining audio engagement with hands-on group activities—touched the lives of over 8,000 rural youth. As a result, 4,000+ participants embarked on journeys of ideation, experimentation, and business creation.
2023 - 2024
Question:
"How can we build financially sustainable ways of delivering learning experiences?"
Challenge:
An increasing demand for financial support, paired with a lack of accountability for learning, was visible on the ground.
Actions:
We began productizing elements from previous interventions with dual-use cases. This led to Hunar ka Pitara, a game-based activity journal for artisans and hobbyists, and What’s in a Price Tag?, a digital game for young people exploring the monetization potential of their skills.
This is just the beginning of our journey, and we’re excited to keep dreaming & weaving new verses as we learn and grow
Meet the Dreamers…
Hello Dreamers,
We’re Ananya and Rituparna, and we’re thrilled to introduce ourselves and share a bit about our journey and our vision for Dreamverse Learning Lab with the hope that it will help you take a step towards your own dreams!
Our roller-coaster journey led us to a place where we can firmly believe that with a focus on design & enabling technology, learning can be re-imagined to empower every young person ! Ananya's background in computer science and new media design, fueled by her curiosity to explore the “new-normals” of digital-age learning, has taken her from the Himalayan foothills to the policy world, NGOs, and finally, to leading her own experiments as Dreamverse’s Chief Dreamer. Her journey has been about pushing boundaries and finding creative ways to make learning come alive for people everywhere.
Rituparna's journey has been a little different. She started as a historian, ventured into education as a Teach For India alumna, and found herself drawn to designing products that make a real impact. Over the past decade, she's worked on building solutions that go beyond the surface, focusing on human potential, collective action, and the power of design. For her, Dreamverse is all about blending technology, human-centered design, and purposeful storytelling to make learning meaningful and accessible.
Together, we’ve built Dreamverse to be a space where youth can harness their creativity, develop real-world skills, and shape their futures with confidence. We’re all about creating experiences that are not just educational but transformational! So if you’re as passionate as we are about learning and design that enables you to build your talents into a sustainable career, we invite you to join us in this adventure.
Let’s dream, learn, and grow together – the future is full of possibilities, and we can’t wait to explore them with you!
- With curiosity and purpose,
Ananya & Rituparna
Ananya Agarwal
Founder & Chief Dreamer
ananya@dreamverselab.com
Rituparna Das
Co-Founder & Design Director
rituparna@dreamverselab.com