World Day of Creativity and Innovation

The World Day of Creativity and Innovation (World Creativity and Innovation Day) is included in the system of international days of the United Nations. It was established by the UN General Assembly in 2017 in order to emphasize the importance of a creative approach to solving problems related to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The initiator of the World Day of Creativity and Innovation was Toronto resident Marcy Segal. She chose April 21 as the date, the day before International Earth Day to emphasize the importance of creativity to ensure a decent life and future for all inhabitants of the planet.

For the first time, World Creativity Day was celebrated on April 21, 2002 in Canada, the USA, Brazil, the Netherlands and Thailand. In subsequent years, France, Italy, Argentina, Belarus, India, Australia, Egypt, Peru, Chile, Malaysia, Great Britain, El Salvador, Morocco, UAE, Greece, Ecuador, Colombia, Slovenia and other countries joined the celebration.

In 2004, the organizers decided that one day was not enough to hold all the events, and established the World Week of Creativity and Innovation. It begins on April 15, which is very symbolic, because on this day Leonardo da Vinci was born — a vivid example of the “universal man” of the Renaissance, who actively used a creative approach both in art and science.

In 2017, in recognition of the importance of creativity and innovation for the economic growth of each country The UN General Assembly has included the World Day of Creativity and Innovation in the list of official international days of the United Nations.

In honor of this day, it is proposed to hold various thematic events designed to emphasize the importance of efforts to develop creative and innovative activities in various states, because such activities can give impetus to the development of the labor market, the empowerment of the population, the fight against poverty and hunger. During such events, for example, new inventions or scientific ideas may be presented to the general public.

For example, one of the interesting innovative concepts is “tiny houses” with an area of only 22 square meters, consisting of 1 room with an attic and a pull—out bed. Such houses were presented to the public in 2018, they are equipped with hidden storage systems, a kitchen and a bathroom, so they are quite comfortable for living, but they do not take up much space, require minimal consumption of building materials and are available to a wide range of people. The design of such houses was developed by the United Nations Environment Agency and the Center for Ecosystems in Architecture at Yale University in the USA in collaboration with UN-Habitat.

Another entertaining and useful project is a boat made of recycled plastic, known as Flipflopi. This boat was built from 10 tons of discarded plastic and set off on a grand 500-kilometer voyage from the Kenyan island of Lamu to the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar. She became the first traditional dhow sailboat to be made of plastic, the project was funded by Kenyan tour operator Ben Morison in 2016, and an innovative boat was built by Ali Skanda and a team of volunteers.