Symphony of DREAMS

A collaborative vision for creativity, community, and resilience – putting heart into the machine. Composed and conducted by Gavin Sealey and the STEAM DREAMS Collaboration.

1. The Score: DREAMS

At the heart of all our projects is DREAMS — Dialogue, Reflection, Ethics, Awareness, Meditation, Storytelling.

• It is both an existential complement to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) and a thinking protocol for individuals and communities.
  
• DREAMS asks not only what we do but why we do it. It connects the instrumental with the existential, guiding communities from dialogue to storytelling, from purpose to an enabling narrative for action.

2. The Movements: Synergy to Symphony

Movement I: Community Intelligence (NAIC, STEAM DREAMS, Newham Mosaic)

• Negotiating AI as a Community (NAIC) frames AI as a subject of dialogue, reflection, and ethics. AI, like any new technology, must neither be accepted without thought nor rejected without thought. Like the Internet, it is both potential blessing and potential bane. Which destiny is realised, and to what extent, depends on how we use it as individuals and as communities.
  
• STEAM DREAMS gathers community organisers, activists, and educators in Newham for collaboration — resisting competitive silos in favour of cooperative, organic development.
  
• Newham Mosaic serves as the online front for the STEAM DREAMS collective — connecting local initiatives, sharing narratives, and providing an infrastructure for communication.
  
• Together, they are building a community hackerspace ethos, where dialogue and co-creation are the foundation for literacy in AI, sustainability, and civic engagement. The ‘hackerspace ethos’ is defined as:
  
  ‘..  a shared commitment to openness, collaboration, learning by doing, and challenging traditional hierarchies. It emphasizes freedom, autonomy, and the free circulation of information, while distrusting top-down authority. Hackerspaces are physical spaces where individuals with shared interests in technology and making can come together to learn, create, and collaborate on projects.’
  
  The STEAM DREAMS community hackerspace does not currently have a physical home but we have started meeting at the Carpenters Cafe project building in Stratford.

Movement II: Education & Empowerment (I-AM Project – As example)

• Based in Addis Ababa, the I-AM Project equips young Ethiopians with skills in Imaging, Animation, and Media. Set up by animator/educator Trevor Jarvis with the support of the local Ethiopian World Federation Dr Melaku Beyan Association (EWF-DRMBA) it has established a reputation for engaging students in learning through principles not dissimilar to those of NAIC and the Community Hackerspace.
  
• It uses DREAMS and the Five P’s (Premises, Principles, Policy, Planning, Programme/Practice), SMART Objectives and SWOT analysis to balance vision with strategy.
  
• With support from EWF, Saint Mary’s University, and the U.S. Embassy, I-AM aims to build Addis Ababa as a regional hub for animation, creativity, and cultural pride.
  
• Adding an AI and a Transnational Dimension: through NAIC principles, I-AM can introduce students to AI as a partner in creativity, and to UK students as partners in collaboration, starting with playful engagement in the fictional world of  Stormhaven before or alongside working with international industry professionals (gaming, film, special effects) who have already contributed to the I-AM project during its pilot phase.

Movement III: Creative Worlds (Stormhaven Chronicles & Writers Guild)

• The Stormhaven Chronicles is a living, collaborative story-world, developed episodically and open to co-authorship.
  
  “.. the purpose of these stories is more than just entertainment or distraction, it is the exploration of concepts about ourselves and the world. I think that is the deeper purpose of all fiction.”
  
• The Stormhaven Writers Guild (SWG) invites writers, artists, and technologists to extend the world through prose, graphic novels, interactive fiction, AI-assisted art, and even games. The first in-person SWG Writers Workshop was held at Royal Docks Centre for Sustainability (RDCS) on the University of East London’s Docklands Campus.
  
• Stormhaven is more than fiction: it is an experimental playground for collaborative creativity, a space where participants can explore identity, ethics, and imagination.
  
• Potential synergy: learners from the I-AM Project could use their imaging and animation skills to co-create African-inspired cultures within N’Ume (e.g., Gharissa or Durdessa), linking African creative traditions with global storytelling. Additionally learners from the I-AM Project could make connections with learners from the Community Hackerspace. These connections would make real-world collaboration between the groups more likely particularly if ‘synergy to symphony’ is intended as underlying all aspects of our work.

Movement IV: Climate, Transition, and Transnational Links

• Partnerships with Climate Emergency Centres, Transition Towns, and UEL initiatives extend DREAMS into environmental and sustainability work.
  
• These connections bring a transnational dimension — situating local projects like Newham Mosaic and I-AM within a global movement for resilience, justice, and creative adaptation.
  
• The Citizen Science Fair and similar initiatives, emerging from community activists and organisations and supported by the University of East London and other institutional partners, further strengthen the link between community knowledge and systemic change.

3. The Conductor’s Role

• As convenor of the STEAM DREAMS collective, Gavin Sealey acts as a conductor: weaving creative, community, educational, and environmental voices into one symphony. As the symphony continues it will be the STEAM DREAMS collective as a whole that takes on this role.
  
• Netstorms Limited, while quiescent, can provide the technical backbone — building communication structures that embody a “DevOps for communities” model (email lists, open platforms, federated tools as alternatives to corporate-owned solutions). In the first instance colleagues with technical skills are being invited to advise on the development of better alternatives to corporate-owned solutions and help develop and run the physical Community Hackerspace.
  
• The result is a resilient ecosystem of collaboration, reflection, and narrative, leading to a resilient community using technology, creativity and connection to address real-world problems and contribute to positive social change.

4. Next Steps

• The Symphony of DREAMS is not a project but a process: a way of weaving together projects working in the space of creativity, community, ecology and technology into a collaboration for community resilience and renewal. Each movement is already in play — from Addis Ababa to Newham, from story worlds to hackerspaces. Together, they form an ecosystem where collaboration replaces competition, and where imagination leads action. We invite partners, funders, and collaborators to join in composing the next movement.
  
• Netstorms Limited, Gavin Sealey’s company, is already exploring liaisons with colleagues in the tech industries that will position it as a capable provider of tech products, services and training that support community development and collaboration. Netstorms Limited already provides the I-AM project with its website related services, and other Internet based support.
  
• I-AM is an established project in Addis Ababa and Gavin Sealey, a founding member of the project’s steering committee is not the only link between Newham and Ethiopia. The Suffragette and community organiser Sylvia Pankhurst who had in the early years set up a food kitchen for the poor in Newham’s Canning Town, is known for her support of Haile Sellasse and her later migration to Addis Ababa where she died.
  
• STEAM-DREAMS has support from a diverse range of community activists and organisers working at local and national levels. The team has experience and connections in several areas including community work, academia, social care and health services, and environmental action. We will:
  
  1) Continue to convene meetings and extend our collaboration,
  
  2) Explore Hackerspace and I-AM collaboration pathways
  
  3) .Map synergies across our projects and explore how  they can connect and collaborate for mutual community benefit.
  
  4) Support the retention of the Carpenters Cafe building for community use. The Carpenters Cafe is the current meeting space and could evolve into the physical home of our Hackerspace within Tee Fabikun’s established Carpenters Cafe project.
  
  5) Grow SWG participation and creative outputs.and contextualise it as a creative platform blending creative collaboration with creative use of technologies including AI.
  
• Newham Mosaic has an established website and community connections. It is an existing asset for the STEAM-DREAMS collective.
  
• The Stormhaven Writers Guild has had a successful first writers workshop, an established website with a small corpus of stories. It is ready to build on this.
  
• We have a distinct and coherent philosophical grounding and will be mapping synergies and the potential for symphony over the next few weeks. 

The Symphony of DREAMS is not written once and for all, it is improvised, evolving, and open for all who wish to add their voice.

Each of these initiatives also serves as an entry point for exploring how AI can support creativity and community, in line with our philosophy of Negotiating AI as a Community (NAIC). We will be exploring, in particular links between the prospective Community Hackerspace and the existing I-AM project. The graphics at the beginning and at the end of this document are intended to highlight our approach to the use of AI. For us, AI is not just a tool to use, but a relationship to negotiate.

This document will be shared on the Newham Mosaic website and elsewhere for open comment and discussion. I will be also talking to existing and potential partners privately and within the STEAM-DREAMS conversations for their feedback and to see how we can work together.

Here is the above article in PDF form.

‘A Symphony of Dreams’ is a concept in process of being fully formed. I’m proposing it – so it inevitably reflects a lot of my thinking and initiatives that I am personally involved in.

Consider it a foundation – or part of a foundation for a structure that we are building together. Add what you want, critique what you want. This is open planning, we are building, or composing, something together.

All voices are welcome.

If you are a tech developer, coder or techie of any sort, you may be interested in developing the communications infrastructure of the project or supporting the Community Hackerspaces through teaching or tech support.

If you are a community organiser, activist, fundraiser or strategist you may be interested in joining the STEAM DREAMS collaboration.

If you are interested in learning more about the way communities can use AI as a tool for empowerment and connection there will be a Community Hackerspaces network starting in the near future but express your ideas here/now.

If you are a writer/artist/musician/game developer or reader of fantasy join the Stormhaven Writers Guild.’

If you are a engaged citizen in Newham interested in connecting, conversing, collaborating and creating with others then be part of Newham Mosaic.

If you are part of the I-AM project in Ethiopia, working on Imaging Animation and Media in Addis Ababa, let’s look at how we can work together on transnational and environmental projects using tech tools including AI to develop and extend your learning and learning community. Let’s look at how Newham and Addis ababa can work together and learn from each other.

Gavin Sealey.