Press and News – BeOpenFuture

BE OPEN announces the winners of Designing Futures 2050: International Competition for Young Creatives Centred on the UN Sustainable Development Goals

29 May 20259 June 2025Lilia Valieva

BE OPEN has identified the winners of the First, Second and Third prizes for “Designing Futures 2050,” its sixth international competition for students, graduates, and young professionals. This initiative seeks to inspire the creation of innovative solutions by young creatives for a sustainable and prosperous future, aligning with the objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Programme.

The jury panel for Designing Futures 2050 has been assembled

18 April 20259 June 2025Lilia Valieva

Designing Futures 2050 is our sixth international competition for students, graduates, and young professionals. This initiative seeks to inspire the creation of innovative solutions by young creatives for a sustainable and prosperous future, aligning with the objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Programme.

In 2019, BE OPEN established the competition programme to raise awareness among young professionals in creative and engineering fields about the urgent need for action regarding the Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to this one, BE OPEN has held 5 competitions and covered SDGs 2, 7, 11, 12, and 13.

BE OPEN at the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2025 at the UN in Geneva

5 April 202525 April 2025Lilia Valieva

On April 2-3, BE OPEN joined the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2025 at the UN offices in Geneva. The theme of the forum was “Advancing Sustainable, Inclusive, Science- and Evidence-based Solutions for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its SDGs”. The forum brought together UN governments, international organizations, civil society, academia, youth, the private sector and other stakeholders to discuss strategies for accelerating the insufficient progress towards the SDGs.

BE OPEN launches ART LIMITLESS: a celebration of inclusive arts and artists

3 April 20259 June 2025Lilia Valieva

Art Limitless is a new project of BE OPEN Art online gallery tailored specifically to display the competition, publications, webinars, master-classes and other sources of knowledge and guidance on sustainability in arts.

Inclusive arts practice is a flexible, creative process that ensures equal access to the arts for all marginalized and discriminated groups, including people with disability, as audiences, artists and participants.

BE OPEN Art launches the second regional competition of 2025 to support emerging artists of Oceania

1 April 202528 March 2025Lilia Valieva

BE OPEN Art, an online gallery set up by Elena Baturina’s humanitarian think-tank BE OPEN, continues to run BE OPEN Regional Art, the regional competition for emerging artists aimed to support those whose art best represents their regional, cultural and ethnic identities, for the third year now.

BE OPEN debuts at the 4th annual Sustainability Week Asia conference

28 March 20259 June 2025Lilia Valieva

On March 25, BE OPEN visited Thailand, as The Economist Group’s signature sustainability summit returned to Bangkok for the fourth time. Sustainability Week Asia rounds off a series of global conferences – from Cape Town to New York – which bring together the world’s foremost experts and industry leaders shaping the transition to a more sustainable future.

BE OPEN congratulates the winner of the BE OPEN Cultural Tapestry Open Call to celebrate the richness of diversity and cultural identities

12 February 202512 March 2025Lilia Valieva

BE OPEN announces the winner of #BEOPENCulturalTapestry, a recently finalised creative open call across social media. With open calls, by asking the participants to share their vision with pictures and photographs, BE OPEN aims to support creativity as a universal approach, and build bonds between people around the globe.

BE OPEN Cultural Tapestry was dedicated to celebrating the rich tapestry of human culture, the colourful threads of meaning, identity, traditions and customs, languages and symbols interweaved into a beautiful pattern of the everyday life rooted in sustainable relations, inclusivity and acceptance.BE OPEN encouraged the subscribers to capture glimpses of vibrant kaleidoscopes with each facet reflecting a unique story of a person, community, or even country.

BE OPEN Art launches the first regional competition of 2025 to support emerging artists of South Asia

5 January 202518 December 2024Lilia Valieva

BE OPEN Art continues to run BE OPEN Regional Art, the regional competition for emerging artists aimed to support those whose art best represents their regional, cultural and ethnic identities, for the third year now.

The first stage of the third year of the programme run will cover the countries of South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. The stage will traditionally last three months, and the regional winner for South Asia will be announced and awarded 500 euro in early April.

BE OPEN Art congratulates the winners of the Regional Art Competition in Southern Africa

5 January 202518 December 2024Lilia Valieva

BE OPEN Art is ready to announce the results of the last stage of BE OPEN Regional Art in 2024 which covered the countries of Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

BE OPEN Regional Art is a region-based competition for emerging artists, aimed to support those whose art best represents their regional, cultural and ethnic identities. Throughout 2023 and 2024, BE OPEN expert community have been selecting artists to feature them in the BE OPEN Art gallery, offer greater visibility and encourage the public to vote and thus select the monthly and the regional winners. The winner of each regional stage receives a money grant from the foundation.