Entrepreneur Elena Baturina, who is Russia's richest woman and only female billionaire, believes in design thinking and started the creative think tank Be Open, an environment which should become "a space for communication between today's thinkers and tomorrow's doers."

Baturina, who is also the wife of the recently ousted Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. defines Be Open as a "design think tank, exhibitions and an awards scheme that will bring together the great minds of the 21st century and the next generation of innovators from the arts, science and business, asking them to imagine and then build solutions for the future."

The think tank will launch during this year's Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan - in collaboration with Interni Magazine and sociologist Francesco Morace—with a series of speakers from the worlds of art, media, business and science gathering over three days to exchange ideas about how design thinking can respond to and find solutions for current and future social, environmental and economic needs.

Following Milan, Be Open is scheduled to travel to other creative hubs such as London for the September London Design Festival, with New York earmarked for their respective festival seasons.