This is one in a series of DREAMQUEST interviews. They exist to encourage you to follow your own dreams. What follows is a look into the journey of JAMIE BUCHANAN-DUNLOP.

Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop is both an expeditioner and an educator. He is the founder of Digital Explorer as well as the co-founder of iNomad and Offscreen - all of which engage young people on big issues. His mission: to take working-class British teens to see the world on their own terms, give them the tools to report back to their peers on their experiences, and watch them connect with the world. As well as teaching geography and citizenship to 11-16 year olds, Jamie has led expeditions to the Himalayan regions of India, Pakistan, and Tibet as well as the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

(Video shown with permission)

I spoke with Jamie at length, and he graciously allowed me to interview him.

How many kids do you take on expeditions each year?
At the moment, I run one Digital Explorer expedition taking between 8 and 15 pupils (per) year. However, the whole point of the Digital Explorer is that we can capture that magic of an expedition and transmit it to classrooms across the UK and further. In February 2007, we took 9 pupils to the Emirates and Oman, but we had 20,000 follow their experiences everyday online. I think that we should be more ambitious when we look at youth expeditions and measure their impact, rather than the pure numbers involved. Having said that, I would love to have the funding to run about six expeditions a year focusing on the big global issues.

What types of things do Offscreen, Digital Explorer, and iNomad teach kids?
We don’t teach kids much at all, and that’s the whole point. Maybe we share some basic expedition skills and help them develop digital media and art skills, but that’s about it. The important aspect is to facilitate pupil to pupil education. What the pupils have to say is the most important thing, and being a teacher, I know that any message is far more likely to be taken on board if it comes from someone the same age and from a similar background. All I do is provide the structure and support to allow for this flow of ideas and experiences from the world to the classroom.

What would you say has been your biggest success story?
Working on the Offscreen Student Expedition was incredibly rewarding. It was great to join the work that Offscreen had been doing with art and the Middle East with the methodologies we have been developing with the Digital Explorer. The results have been fantastic, and we have produced an alternative view of the Middle East for schools around the world.

What is your idea of personal success?
I am not sure what personal success looks like at the moment. It’s easier to think about what I would like to achieve… a global network of youth expeditions, with pupils exploring the world on their own terms, beaming back their messages and experiences to the classroom; pupils everywhere learning from their peers, rather than the agenda-laden messages and media they often receive; and an academy for young explorers, so that we can give them the skills to be the leaders. I think that exploration will be fundamental to human development this century. We think we know the world, but there is so much more to explore and understand from cultures to places to processes – global warming, poverty, life in cities, water, sustainability, cultural conflict. Young people have to be part of the tradition of exploration, and that means all young people based on talent, and not on the ability to fund their expeditions.

If you could give one piece of advice, what would that be?
"You must be the change you want to see in the world." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

More about Jamie's work can be found on Digital Explorer, Offscreen, and iNomad.