The Good Place Pavilion — Encouraging people to build a brighter future

DUBAI: They have come from all across the planet: 140 changemakers who bring sustainable solutions that make a real difference to people’s lives around the world.

These solutions – and the creators behind them – can now be found at The Good Place Pavilion by Expo Live.

Expo Live’s Innovation Impact Grant Programme is the first of its kind at a World Expo. It supports 140 grassroots innovators from 76 countries, demonstrating that innovation can come from anywhere and be made available to everyone.

An ecosystem that helps to connect grantees with multinational and government organisations, and each other, Expo Live is supporting social entrepreneurs and grassroots trailblazers from across the globe. The grantees are now in the spotlight at Expo 2020 as an essential component of The Good Place Pavilion.

Yousuf Caires, Senior Vice President, Expo Live, Expo 2020 Dubai said, “Their presence in the pavilion is giving everyone who visits a sense that they too can be a part of it. Hopefully, our visitors will be able to identify within themselves the same boldness, creativity, and ambition that has been the crux to these grantees being here today, while inspiring them to be part of the future we all want to see.”

This bold vision is reflected in the design of the pavilion, conceptualised by Ahmad Abdulrahman Bukhash, the Emirati founder of Dubai architecture practice Archidentity. In a concept embodying the desert meeting of the two late rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum and Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the design of the pavilion takes our minds back to the tent under which Their Highnesses met. 

There, they achieved a common vision for the betterment of their people through the foundation of the UAE. That very concept is embodied in Expo Live, through its promotion of creative solutions proposed by individuals from around the globe to create ‘the good place’ to serve humanity.

Ahmed Bukhash said, “That same concept highlighted to us the concept of having the transformative nature of thought. That was the link we made between the Expo Live initiative, which highlights transformative ideas all around the globe to transform people’s lives.”

The result is The Good Place – a stunning Bedouin tent-inspired pavilion, refined and finessed through Japanese architecture, with a smooth series of white origami folds creating a rippling effect. The journey starts before visitors even enter, where, under the shade of the arcade, the exhibition extends out of the inner façade to the exterior.

A living space, The Good Place amplifies the voices of Global Innovators, sharing stories of how ordinary people have made the world a better place. It serves as an incubator to foster creativity, dialogue, partnership, and innovation that has a positive impact on communities while encouraging visitors to ‘find their spark’ and become change-makers of the future.

“Our search is not over,” said Caires. “What about you? You could be next. Let’s talk about the things that you care about, the challenges that you see, the things that really bother you.

“We want to differentiate the experience here as something that’s personal, to give people who visit a nudge so they themselves are motivated to help to improve people’s lives and preserve the planet. We all have ingenuity and we all have a strong purpose to fill in this life.”

Source: Expo 2020 website