All the world’s a stage for Cambridge entrepreneur

A new online talent show platform has been launched by a Cambridge graduate in the hope of confirming Shakespeare’s idea that ‘All the world’s a stage’. Aptly titled StageYou.TV, it has been created by Deepamala Abeysekera, a Sri Lankan alumna of the university’s Judge Business School as a new online talent show for the performing arts.



 

Start-Up Chile

StageYou.TV has made it to the top 105 from 31 destinations out of over 1,400 startups that competed globally, generating $ 40,000 of equity – free seed capital in the prestigious global accelerator program, Start-Up Chile.

Start-Up Chile is a program created by the Chilean government that seeks to attract high potential entrepreneurs to bootstrap their startups, using Chile as a platform to go global. The program, unique in the world, and catalyst of similar initiatives such as Startup America, Britain, Brazil, and Greece, is the ideal opportunity for bootstrappers to receive funding without ceding equity while utilising one of the strongest Latin American economies as their launching/development platform. Start-Up Chile has been featured in The Economist, BusinessWeek, TechCrunch, and Forbes, among others.

StageYou.TV is a virtual audition platform for talent, to discover and be discovered, unleashing your star within. StageYou.TV attempts to replicate the world stage online for performing arts, in the intersection of social media, video sharing and reality TV.  

The entire performance environment is brought online. Anyone can upload their talent, get rated and be discovered by the public, celebrities and talent scouts. StageYou has a unique algorithm that installs a strategy for a user to become a star. It is a platform for user generated contests and also caters to users who want to simply perform as part of their self expression without the pressure of a competition.



Chasing a dream

Deepamala Abeysekera,  Founder of StageYou.TV , was treading towards her childhood dream of working in the United Nations being selected as the only student from 2007 LLM batch at University of Nottingham, UK for bursary to intern at UN headquarters, New York.  She had just begun to live her dream.  

She says “Alas! The initial idea of StageYou struck me like a thunderbolt. UN didn’t inspire me anymore. I had started to believe in the non- existing figment of my imagination as opposed to the tangible reality and establishment I could see for real. I had started to hibernate.”

She returned home to her company Aspirations Education and tried to give up her idea for three years until last year, determined to give it a shot, submitted it as an enterprise project to University of Cambridge and got selected in September 2011.  

Today University of Cambridge has featured StageYou.TV not only in the University, Judge Business School, and Center for Entrepreneurial Learning, but also in My Science UK – the portal for research and innovation – that highlights science, research, universities, R&D companies and research centers in UK and WhatsOnStage.com, a great site for London theatre ticket discounts reporting all of theatreland and all UK theatre.



The early stages of StageYou.TV

“Deepamala was an excellent student who learned and applied much with unbounded enthusiasm and energy. StageYou.TV has the ability to be a worldwide success. She has shown incredible pioneering spirit in progressing this innovative idea. I have no doubt that her strong vision, endless passion and unforgettable charisma will lead to her success,” stated Roy Proctor, Mentor, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK.



“Deepamala was one of only 30 candidates to be selected for the Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. During the program, she developed StageYou.TV as her major enterprise project, taking it from the early seeds of an idea through to the real venture you see today. Throughout the program she demonstrated passion, ambition and determination to succeed with this as her project and as a result has made extremely significant progress.”

 “When Deepamala, our Managing Director came up with the concept of StageYou.TV we decided to give it our best and sponsor it as it is a truly innovative platform that gives an opportunity for many to realize their aspirations, furthering the vision of Aspirations Education,” stated Ajith Abeysekera, Chairman , Aspirations Education.

He added: “As a premier consultant in global education in Sri Lanka, Aspirations Education in addition to career guidance, has always engineered opportunities for people to realise their aspirations, such as creating Sri Lanka’s first ever education-based TV reality series, Pathbreakers. Aspirations Education Foundation, our social duty arm, also sponsored Colombo Model United Nations, and the recent ‘Theatre Fest 2012 – Aspire to Excel’. StageYou.TV, we believe, will be truly unique.”



More about StageYou.TV’s founder

Deepamala Abeysekera believes that innovation happens in an intersection of diverse ideas, disciplines, cultures and experiences, when they combine and collide. StageYou.TV is a result of her 31-year journey so far which has strived to embrace a gamut of experiences.

She read for her Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship – University of Cambridge, UK, LLM in Public International Law – University of Nottingham, UK, LLB – University of London (UOL), BSc Economics & Management – London School of Economics, UOL, Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism, with training from BBC World Services at Asian College of Journalism, India, and Diploma in Journalism, Sri Lankan Foundation Institution.

She was the 2007 recipient of Human Rights Law Center Bursary, University of Nottingham to pursue the internship at the United Nations Headquarters, where she interned at the Security Council, DESA and the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, NY and assisted in 63rd General Assembly.

She was also the recipient of Madanjeet Singh full scholarship award from South Asia Foundation to read for the Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism, Asian College of Journalism, India and the recipient of Inwent full scholarship for International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) Germany. She was also the recipient of the award for ‘Outstanding Performance - Best Performer’, Diploma at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.

Co Founder and Managing Director at Aspirations Education, she has over eight years of experience in organisational development as Aspirations Education has evolved to be a premiere consultant for global education representing over 100 universities world over.

She pioneered Pathbreakers – Sri Lanka’s first-ever education based TV reality program implemented by Aspirations – and contributed to the development of the Aspirations Foundation, the social duty arm of Aspirations, a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact.

She was a Board of Director of the Global Compact Network Ceylon – Local Network of United Nations Global Compact. She also hosted 75 interviews of key leaders in the nation building exercise from a diverse range of fields as a TV presenter on ITN Network

Past student of Vishaka Vidyalaya, she completed her studies in the mathematics stream, and engaged in a range of extra-curricular activities. In her childhood she has had the privilege of studying under some of Sri Lanka’s renowned personalities in the many fields of art and excelling in them.