Councillor Adam Smyth, South Dublin County Council, Emma Phelan, Eimear Fitzpatrick, Community Affairs Lead, Microsoft Ireland and Liam Rashid student at Old Bawn Community School, Tallaght
Microsoft opens €1m new Dream Space hub in Grange Castle
MICROSOFT Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith, officially opened the company’s new €1m Dream Space hub at its data centre campus in Grange Castle.
He was joined by students, teachers and community groups.
Schools across South Dublin and Fingal County Council areas are invited to register for hands-on learning experiences at Dream Space @ the Data Centre.
The dedicated learning and skilling hub will provide a wide range of tailored STEM and AI experiences for primary and post-primary students.
It will also help build awareness of the wide-ranging career opportunities available in the digital infrastructure sector.
Dream Space @ the Data Centre marks the next step in Microsoft’s mission to create lasting benefits for people living near its current and proposed data centre operations.
More than 5,000 students from schools in counties Dublin and Kildare are expected to participate in learning sessions at the hub over the next 12 months.
Through the new facility, Microsoft is delivering on its Data Centre Community Pledge to be a responsible and supportive neighbour to communities that host its data centres.
Since 2018, Microsoft has invested over €6.5 million in Irish communities close to its current and future data centre operations, supporting programmes that advance community prosperity, sustainability and wellbeing and directly benefiting more than 135,000 people to date.
Dream Space was first introduced at Microsoft’s Leopardstown campus, One Microsoft Place, in 2018. Since then, more than 550,000 students have taken part in its STEM and AI education sessions, developing the skills and confidence to become the next generation of digital leaders.
Building on Dream Space’s strong foundations in coding, robotics and AI, the hub at the Data Centre features a new curriculum that introduces learners to the specific technology and skills needed to support the digital infrastructure sector.
These will range from electrical engineering and physical computing to cloud operations.
Supported by a mini data centre lab and many other hands-on learning experiences, the facility will bring to life the technology, skills and careers powering the digital world for learners.
Microsoft has invested €1m in the development of the new hub.
This comes from a €4m investment fund that was set aside by the company in March last year to help ‘Skill Up Ireland’ for the era of AI.
An integrated approach to STEM skills development across Dream Space @ the Data Centre and Microsoft Ireland’s other skilling and education initiatives, such as the Collinstown Data Centre Academy, will help to build awareness of pathways into further education, apprenticeships and careers in the data centre and broader technology sector.
