i-dream conducts training workshops in school for promoting eco-friendly lifestyle, to partner with Climatemiles

There could be various reasons for one to start his/her venture. While in most cases, passion and solution to a problem/ pain lead to entrepreneurship, for some, a cause becomes motivation for starting up. One such entrepreneur is Rohit Prakash, who deserted his professional career to launch i-dream – which creates sustainable (Green or eco-friendly) schools by training the young students on the right knowledge and the tools. i-dream helps them understand various elements of sustainability through its action-oriented training programs, which impart the most updated knowledge and provide skills to students to evaluate between options and become smart decision-maker.The startup offers three school training programs – EcoSlate, Audit and Energy Audit and Nokia Planet ke Rakhwale . From Grade 6 to Grade 12, EcoSlate trains students on different elements of sustainability - such waste, water, air, food, biodiversity, climate, and carbon footprint. On the other hand, Energy Audit is a typical program for any grade, running for about 8-10 hours. “In these 8-10 hours, we start with some basics about an element of sustainability and then move on to training a child on how to build a tool that can help him/her to evaluate, measure and manage the same element. For example, if a child in Grade 6 is a part of our course, he/she will learn about waste, “ said Prakash.

Nokia Planet ke Rakhwale is an activity-based workshop session for selected group of 40 students. Through the program, the startup teaches various aspect of e-waste collection and how to cut carbon and toxics from the environment. Importantly, i-dream brings interesting angle to the training workshops by designing the content in a manner such that it has a number of games, activities, case studies, films, role plays and exercises.So far the startup has engaged with 1,200 schools across Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Punjab, through its partnership with Nokia. i-dream generates revenue through charging schools on a per-student basis for conducting the program, and also gets funded by the government and corporates.

The company plans to enter into a 50:50 partnership with a Bangalore-based sustainability consulting company, Climatemiles. The joint entity will offer more sustainability solutions and training programs to the schools. “We are also investing significantly in building technology platforms that can help us expand faster without losing out value of making our schools sustainable,” concluded Prakash.