Making the Ideas of Young Children a Reality with Piet Grymonprez

What is your Dream Machine? In this episode of Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood welcome Piet Grymonprez, author and Co-Founder and Managing Director of MyMachine. MyMachine is a for-purpose non-profit that has a unique and multi-award-winning methodology that unites students in primary, secondary and higher education to co-create “Dream Machines” invented by children.

 Tune in to hear how Piet and his fellow Co-Founders created MyMachine, why they’re asking children to create a “Dream Machine”, and what a Dream Machine is in the first place. Piet explains how MyMachine challenges the creativity of students at every grade level, from primary school to college/university, inspiring them to think big.

Piet describes how MyMachine’s methodology adapts to each child’s personality and how it encourages them to be open, take risks, share their ideas, and develop creative confidence. Then, he shares how teachers can collaborate with MyMachine and start their own chapter.

Piet’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:

1. Whatever you want to do with your kids/students, challenge yourself to do it with an open-ended approach.
2. Don’t make it a competition. 
3. Embrace systems thinking. Explain to yourselves and your students that the world we live in is complicated and that’s okay. That’s how it should be.

Piet Grymonprez is Co-Founder and Managing Director of MyMachine, a for-purpose non-profit working globally. MyMachine has a unique and multi-award-winning methodology that unites students in primary, secondary and higher education to co-create “Dream Machines” invented by children. 

 Based out in Belgium, Europe, Piet and his team have grown MyMachine so far to 13 countries on 3 continents.

 MyMachine has been widely recognized and endorsed by the likes of United Nations, Harvard, The New York Academy of Sciences, Richard Branson, The Qatar Foundation, The Lego Foundation, Fast Company, and MyMachine was recently inducted into the renowned HundrED Hall of Fame. 

Piet is the author of the book “What Is Your Dream Machine? How Children Change Education Worldwide”, with a foreword written by Sir Ken Robinson. 

He is the founder and co-founder of different industry cross-over networks in his native country. Prior to MyMachine, he worked in higher education for 15 years, establishing research collaborations with companies around the world.