Global initiative to foster creativity and innovation
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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 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.
BE OPEN is launching its next global 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 believes that the ability for creative interpretation is not confined within the art and design industry. The series of online challenges reach out to those creative minds around the globe, who keep their eyes open, see inspiration in everyday life, and are able to transform it with their own unique vision.
On November 16, BE OPEN hosted a session during COP29 to talk about the multi-year competition programme in support of the UN SGDs and celebrate the winners of the most recent Design Your Climate Action competition.
At the Extreme Hangout Zone of COP29, the foundation shared the motivation behind its student competition programme that focuses on one goal every year, and has so far covered SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG2: Zero Hunger, SDG7: Affordable and Clean Energy and SDG13: Climate Action. The programme aims to encourage creation of innovative solutions by younger creatives, for a more prosperous and sustainable future.
BE OPEN announces the winner of #BEOPENCombinations, 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.
