Emer Beamer founded Designathon Works to empower children globally to design a better world. Previously she co-founded Butterfly Works to co-create social change. Her first social enterprise was NairoBits, Kenya, a web design school for young people from informal settlements, started in 2000 and is still going strong, now a family of schools in 5 African countries.

Emer was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2016, and as Global Innovator of Dubai Expo 2020. eLearning programs she co-designed like 'World starts with Me' (Uganda 2004) and 'Learning about Living' (Nigeria 2007) are regularly adapted for new countries in Africa and Asia and won prizes from the World Bank and the United Nations.

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from University College Dublin (Ireland) and then studied Design at the Rietveld Academy in the Netherlands.

‘What if we radically re-imagined the way we see children? What if we saw them as changemakers, engaged humans, activists, scientists or inventors, and then helped them to develop their abilities for these roles’