Launching the SDG programme, former UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon encouraged young people to take action: “Be a global citizen. Act with passion and compassion. Help us make this world safer and more sustainable today and for the generations that will follow us.” BE OPEN strongly believes in the creative potential of younger people and their ability to look at the world with fresh eyes and to come up with ideas no one has found before.
BE OPEN’s latest competition DESIGN TO NURTURE THE PLANET aimed to bring the talent and creativity of the global community to focus on SDG2: Zero Hunger. The competition called for innovative solutions that can contribute to how we transform our food systems to end food insecurity and create better conditions for an equitable and environmentally prosperous world.
In addition to the First, Second and Third Prizes of €5,000, €3,000 and €2,000 accordingly, allocated by the expert jury, the competition offered two more prizes: the Public Vote prize and the Founder’s Choice Prize.
The public vote was held online on the competition website and helped select the awardee of the Public Vote Prize of €2,000 out of 50 short-listed candidates with highest scores from the jury. We congratulate Karl Balevsky from Sofia, Bulgaria who submitted his project DropCrop that received most likes from the voters.
In order to accumulate water for agricultural purposes in arid areas, the DropCrop system uses the difference between night and day temperatures that is generally quite significant in arid areas. The condensation within a household, prompted by our everyday activities, may be enough to support cultivating greens in an efficient greenhouse. The system allows collecting condensation drops on natural surfaces and channel them through pipes into the greenhouse, providing additional watering.
Founder of BE OPEN, international philanthropist and businesswoman Elena Baturina expressed her highest regard for the winning submission: “To make a positive change a part of our daily lives, it is important to keep it simple, affordable and sustainable. Such little shifts to sustainable future are no less important than national programmes, that is why we are committed to promoting design-thinking and younger generations of creatives, to reveal and celebrate all the creative potential that they have to offer to solve the sustainable development issues globally and locally.”
BE OPEN and the partners of the competition are deeply thankful to all the participants and voters, who have dedicated their time and creativity to this competition, making the issue of food insecurity as well as possible design-driven solutions more visible and therefore more likely to be adopted to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.