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The Many Davos

Amazing how fast we slide right back into "real life."  Davos was only a couple of days ago and already I'm neck deep into my normal work. 

It is worth taking a moment to reflect on the many faces of the Davos experience.  Each person attending has many options to choose among, and you can't do it all.  Here are just a few of the Davos' I saw in action last week. 

Deal Davos (aka bilateral Davos)

You come to Davos to meet with a handful of specific people who are also there at the same time.  Your time is dedicated to a moderate room in some Davos hotel, as your team runs a steady stream of key customers, suppliers and potential partners through.  Davos as nexus for minimizing global travel.

Political Davos

You see Davos as a place to get exposed to leading politicians from around the world, where you can hear Tony Blair, Angela Merkel and King Abdallah of Jordan and a hot of others.  A place where American politicians get exposed to world opinion and protest, not so much from the folks outside the gates of the WEF, but from leading businesspeople around the world. 

Educational Davos

You get educated on the big issues facing your business and society (often the same issues).  Top experts explain these issues with a depth and sophistication you rarely get elsewhere.  You have interactive workshops and role playing with 40 other CEOs, digging into issues from completely different vantage points.  I especially enjoyed the Digital Piracy workshop where a handful of us had to develop and present the "Commercial Pirate's Manifesto!" 

Sporty Davos

You get to drive fast cars.  Ecologically friendly fast cars.  Skiing and sledding and snowboarding and cross country.  Parties of every way shape and form, especially tuned for customers.  Music and arts experiences. 

(Global) Society Davos

You can spend all of your time on social issues, hanging with the heads of NGOs (the international name for nonprofits), major labor unions, religious leaders and of course the social entrepreneurs.  You can learn more about the environment, about human rights, about development aid, about the digital divide, about microfinance, about healthy food and about disaster response.  I was excited to be part of two sessions about improving disaster response through technology and corporate engagement with NGOs. 

Ideas Davos

You get to see lots of inventions and new company ideas: a huge variety.  I saw a 3 Watt LED light bulb as bright as a 60W bulb but cool enough to hold in your hand.  I saw a pair of adjustable eyeglasses for kids in the developing world that cost less than $1 a pair to make.  I heard about medical advances to combat strokes and diabetes.  My favorite of these was an invention that you swallow and it takes pictures of your digestive tract, instead of needing the dreaded sigmoidoscopy.  It was nicknamed "the light at the end of the tunnel!"

Young Davos

You get to meet up and coming business, media and political leaders: the people who will likely be at Davos in the future.  I enjoyed seeing Mayor Gavin Newsome and his girlfriend, who I thought was just a gorgeous actress but also turned out to be a top Stanford Business School graduate planning on advancing films on social issues.  Plus, the WEF is staffed by an army of brilliant young people eager to change the world, people like Jesse Fahnestock who used to run Bookshare.org for us.

Friendly Davos

You get to spend lots of time with people you know through Davos over the years or other aspects of your life.  The pressures of day-to-day work aren't there, and you can spend an hour impromptu with someone you had always wanted to meet.  In a past year, I got to spend an hour chatting with David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate and then-president of Caltech, my alma mater.  At an alumni event, I would get 60 seconds! 

Conclusion

You can't do it all, as I said above.  The hardest decisions to make are what to not do.  What blend of the Davos cocktail will you have is a big challenge.  For example, I decided this year to avoid political Davos because I thought other things were more important to my work.  The richness of the experience lets you give up on some parts and still feel like you didn't shortchange yourself.  But, it's very hard to get enough sleep! 

I walked away with easily 60 business cards of people with whom I should be following up.  Some of them will get involved with Benetech and that will be great.  Some will send new people my way and vice versa. Some of them are on similar paths to mine and I know we'll be helping each other advance. Davos is just another branch of the great karma bank. 

Hope I get to go back again!

Davos07 - The Search of Life - Sir Martin Rees

 

The Fate of the Universe and the Search of Life by Sir Martin Rees and Christopher Chyba. What recent scientific discoveries have changed the plausibility of extraterrestrial life ?

Davos07 - Yossi Vardi's pocketpedia

 

Yossi shows his revolutionary personal pocket assistant

Malaysia Party

Every year there's a big party at the WEF on the last night (Saturday).  Countries vie to sponsor the main event, throwing a big show and serving up their best food.  Of course, the reason is economic development.  After the opening show, we were treated to a short video extolling the virtues of investing in Malaysia.  Knowing their audience it prominently featured a beautiful golf course (and of course beautiful Malaysian women). I was surprised how attentive the audience was to this commercial.  Willing participants in a transaction of an evening of entertainment for a four minute video. 

The Malaysians had brought a dance troupe, and it was fun. It had more of a feeling of a traditional cultural experience than last year's India party (which was Bollywood to the max).  After singing some Malaysian songs, the four top singers switched to popular (American) music.  Lots of Motown.  And of course, we were dancing up a storm.  There was also two other venues for music: one was sort of a jazz nightclub with jazz duos and the other had South African singers followed by  recorded dancing music.    
My challenge with these parties is that they go very late.  Because I'm staying at the Schatzalp, the last train up the mountain leaves at 2 am.  If you miss it, the next train is at 6 am!  And, there were some people who ended up on the 6 am funicular.  Of course, I caught the 2 am train and ended up in the lounge of the Schatzalp talking about the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) project and getting a CD of Amazonian music from my Brazilian buddies (the big column in Brazil's major Sao Paolo paper was entitled (Jungle Boys go to Davos!).

Over the five years I've attended the WEF, the level of protesting has gone way down.  I like to think that inviting social entrepreneurs and other representatives of wider society has played a role in this.  Of course, the issues are different and the U.S. presence seems lower. 

I did run into a nice protester on the street.  Uli was protesting against the Swiss banks taking five times more money in from the developing world than it puts back out.  His direct concern was about corrupt elites that stash their ill-gotten gains in Switzerland.  He was advocating for legal changes that would allow more transparency in such cases and permit countries to recover looted assets.  We had quite a pleasant chat. 

Of course, not all of the interactions were pleasant.  One night after a party, one of my fellow social entrepreneurs got hit in the head by a snowball thrown by some punks shouting slogans.  However, my buddy felt it was just drunk kids acting up rather than a political act!

Snow and glorious sunshine give hope for optimism

It's just a glorious morning here in Davos. The sky is dark blue, the sun shining high in the sky and the snow is deep. It's like a picture postcard and people are rushing off to ski.

It's such a difference from earlier in the week when the snow was absent and there was talk of gloom for the tourist industry and real concern about the
changing climate.

Delegates at the World Economic Forum pushed climate to the top of the agenda but rather like the sunshine there is a genuine feeling of cautious optimism
between delegates of all sectors. Everyone agrees that action is urgently needed and there is a commitment from business and government leaders to put
into practice what they are preaching.

The message that the planet has finite resources and our behaviour is affecting everything really deeply has finally sunk in. It seems that the leaders will
act immediately and that what's causing this sense of optimism. Many deleagtes speak of this being the best annual meeting for many years.

Tony Blair's keynote address from yesterday was well received. He seemed relaxed in his delivery and his words about the tasks ahead made absolute sense. He spoke like a real international statesman with a grasp of the global agenda.

If only he hadn't embarked on that mad adventure in Iraq with George Bush then he would be regarded as the leader of this generation, remarked one delegate from the USA over coffee afterwards. It will be interesting to see where Blair goes  when he leaves office later this year but many people at Davos would like to see him play the role of international statesman and leader on the globalstage - maybe a little like the role Bill Clinton currently plays.

Asking a question for the floor another delagate praised his efforts forencouraging and supporting multi faith dialogue amongst the religious leaders. He caused much laughter by claiming that if Blair hadn't been Prime Ministerhe's have made a very good cleric!

As the tables are packed away and the vast security arrangements are taken down, Davos is returning to normal. Let's hope that the wave of optimism turns into action and that next year delegates can talk about what plans have been implemented during 2007 and what's planned ahead. The snow of course is
guaranteed next year - let's just hope that the plans being laid now mean that the climate remains secure and that Davos retains its picture postcard
landscape with white snow all around for decades to come.

Mel Young - President and CEO, The Homeless World Cup

The Commoditization of the Elite Class under Globalization

Today I watched the webcast titled A Business Manifesto for Globalization again, and I tends to agree with what Carlos Ghosen, CEO of Nissan and another car manufacture in France, he claims that while people dealing with globalization today, those who are benefiting from globalization do not feel it, and those who are being hurt by globalization do feel it, and scream about it. Indeed there are cons and pros of globalization, there are pains and gains of globalization, there are joys and sadness of globalization, and there are winners and losers of globalization. However, if we look at globalization deeply, we will find that there is one thing is for sure, that is, the Commoditization of the Elite Class under globalization, for country, for business and for people.

In terms of countries, G7 used to be the elite class club, and with the addition of Russia, now it’s G8, and people are talking about to expand G8 to include Brazil, Indian and China (BIC), some people even go further, they want to see a G13, can you believe that? There will be more and more countries that can be categorized as elite countries, and that means the commoditization of elite class at the country level. It is the change that brings to us by the globalization.

At business level, if you look at the change of entry barrier of being a Fortune 500, you won’t be surprised we could easily expand Fortune 500 to Fortune 1,000 in a just a few years if we do not raise the bar for the entry. Each year you can see more and more startups go public, being listed in many stock exchange markets worldwide, such as NYSE, NASDAQ among others. On the hand, competition in virtually every industry becomes more and more fierce, more and more business have to go and find their own blue ocean by combing the overall cost leadership and differentiation as competitive strategy in order to gain their competitive advantage. That means the commoditization of elite class at the business level.
Now if under globalization, some countries gain more through their business expansion in other countries, while some other countries lose because of their loss of domestic markets; at individual-level, that mean more job opportunities or less job opportunities, increasing salary or decreasing salary, hence better living standards or worse living standards. In those developed countries, while their transnationals are gaining more market shares in those developing countries, not only their blue collars in the manufacture sector, but also those white collars at the service sector, such as lawyers, doctors, dentists, issuance agents, stock brokers, journalists among others, are feeling being threatened on job security since more and more jobs in their sector being outsourced to those emerging countries, such as Indian and China. That is a crystal clear demonstration of the commoditization of the elite class at the individual level. I believe most of the negative side of globalization are coming from the individual level, since democracy in those developed countries drive those politicians to speak up for their fellow citizens, the used to be elite class, now the scapegoat of the globalization

While all of the above all are true, personally I am quite optimistic on globalization, since I believe everything might be outsource, however, you could not outsource your innovation, and if you are good at innovation, which could serve as your unfair advantage, then no one could replace you being as part of elite class, whether as a country, a business, or an individual.

So under globalization, what are we competing for? No overall cost of leadership any more, it is Innovation that could truly make us standing out in a crowded and commoditized world.

This concludes my Davos Forum series, hopefully see you in person at Davos Forum 2008 on site, and I shall report for you live there at that time   

Technology Pioneer in Davos

I am here in Davos as a participant of the World Economic forum where the formal sessions have just concluded and all I can say is Wow! We were selected late last year as a Technology Pioneer and to actually come here has been the most surreal experience of my life. I have been able to shake hands with some of my heroes and some of the people I don’t really like, but who are powerful enough that I went out of my way. I passed kings, presidents, prime ministers, senators, ayatollahs and gurus. I even had dinner with some of them. It was amazing to just sit in front of Tony Blair talking about a vision of a more effective global organization and realize that this is not a television in front of me.

I was thinking about the best highlights for me and it was really hard because there are thousands. From a business perspective, I was pleasantly surprised how valuable it was networking with the top of the high tech industry, but that still felt a bit like a Silicon Valley event. Some of the best sessions for me were the dinners where you can sit down with the most brilliant people in the world and talk about the most extraordinary things, and the workshops where you brainstorm with some of the most brilliant people in the world.

I took  the train from Zurich to Davos with Geoffrey Moore. Geoff was on Documentum’s board, so I know him well, but it is still great to spend so much time with such a busy man and influential thinker. We discussed some of the trends away from computing and more toward collaboration and communication. He also gave me lots of hints on how to get the most out of Davos. This is Geoff’s sixth year at Davos and he hosted some of the best sessions.

Yesterday, I attended a session on innovation that was moderated by a correspondent for CNBC and observed by Tim Brown, the CEO of Ideo, and a professor from a Swiss Institute. I was in a group that included C. K. Prahalad, one of the greatest thinkers on the subject. Each group was tasked with the creation of a new product using different innovation models. We created a new game and film company that would take advantage of new gaming technologies with a sort of market-based collaboration between designers and customers. We were up against stiff and I was the one who presented our results. Bernard Liautaud, Chairman of Business Objects, did a fantastic job of presenting a carbon-trading fashion company using a terrorist cell market model and I believe that got the most votes. Our product didn’t do very well, but it was an honor to be able to work with CK.

The last session before Blair’s speech was a lunch session with some of the leading forward thinkers and CEOs of the future about what that future might look like in 2015. I sat next to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, who was overly enthusiastic about a future where no needs to leave their room as holograms deliver your companions and even your outdoors right in front of you. In the second session, I sat next to Shai Agassi of SAP, where he laid out a vision of a physical world analog to the internet that helps deliver physical goods and items to you the way the internet delivers packets of data. Arianna Huffington laid out a world where everyone was not having sex, because they were experiencing virtual sex. I’m looking forward to seeing the summarizations of the session that covered new emerging life styles, increased globalization, more power in emerging markets and opportunities to tackle global warming, ubiquitous access to the internet for all, and securely handle user’s identities.

On Thursday night, I was in a wine dinner hosted by Jancis Robinson, the UK’s leading wine critic. Geoff gave me a bit of a ribbing because I dumped his dinner session on Mergers and Acquisitions Heatmap, because Geoff would have rather been tasting the Bordeaux wines. The bottles, which ranged in price from $200 to $800 each, were paid for by a Mister Ahkmatov, an industrialist from Ukraine, who was himself hosting the Prime Minister of Ukraine. It was a very generous gesture with the most incredible wines and terrific commentary from Jancis. We were kicked out at 10 and retired to the bar with the remaining bottles of wine hanging out with one of the world’s greatest wine experts.

I don’t know how to describe last night without reusing all the same superlatives. It started off with a political dinner where I met with John Kerry and sat at the same table as Senator Patrick Leahy and the Undersecretary of Treasury for International Affairs. Senator Leahy had interesting off the record commentary. I even got to ask Barney Frank over at the next table some questions about Sarbanes Oxley. Then I went to the Accel party where I got to meet Shimon Perez and ask him his opinion on the future of Iraq. I met one of my heros, Michael Porter, afterwards, which was a real treat. We then headed over to the Google party, which was wall to wall mayhem with every known famous person around. I met Sergey Brin and Larry Page but got to spend more time with Larry in a session on city design this morning. The guy is a renaissance man having figured out new models for flight transportation and influencing the design of Google's new $1B facility.

This evening I am heading out to the Geek Dinner, which originated back when the techies weren’t allowed at the Grand Gala. I have been told the Geek Dinner is much better. I understand that everyone will give a prediction as to what will be coming up in the next year.

I’ll write some more about the week later, but for now I have run out of adjectives to use. I would like thank Mitchell Baker, CEO of the Mozilla Foundation, for yield her spot to me for the Tech Pioneer competition, Dave Sifry, CEO of Technorati and who deservedly beat me in that competition, for yielding his seat at dinner and Mitch Kapor for his help in the conference.

John Newton - Co-founder Documentum and Alfresco

I am here in Davos as a participant of the World Economic forum where the formal sessions have just concluded and all I can say is Wow! We were selected late last year as a Technology Pioneer and to actually come here has been the most surreal experience of my life. I have been able to shake hands with some of my heroes and some of the people I don’t really like, but who are powerful enough that I went out of my way. I passed kings, presidents, prime ministers, senators, ayatollahs and gurus. I even had dinner with some of them. It was amazing to just sit in front of Tony Blair talking about a vision of a more effective global organization and realize that this is not a television in front of me.

I was thinking about the best highlights for me and it was really hard because there are thousands. From a business perspective, I was pleasantly surprised how valuable it was networking with the top of the high tech industry, but that still felt a bit like a Silicon Valley event. Some of the best sessions for me were the dinners where you can sit down with the most brilliant people in the world and talk about the most extraordinary things, and the workshops where you brainstorm with some of the most brilliant people in the world.

I took  the train from Zurich to Davos with Geoffrey Moore. Geoff was on Documentum’s board, so I know him well, but it is still great to spend so much time with such a busy man and influential thinker. We discussed some of the trends away from computing and more toward collaboration and communication. He also gave me lots of hints on how to get the most out of Davos. This is Geoff’s sixth year at Davos and he hosted some of the best sessions.

Yesterday, I attended a session on innovation that was moderated by a correspondent for CNBC and observed by Tim Brown, the CEO of Ideo, and a professor from a Swiss Institute. I was in a group that included C. K. Prahalad, one of the greatest thinkers on the subject. Each group was tasked with the creation of a new product using different innovation models. We created a new game and film company that would take advantage of new gaming technologies with a sort of market-based collaboration between designers and customers. We were up against stiff and I was the one who presented our results. Bernard Liautaud, Chairman of Business Objects, did a fantastic job of presenting a carbon-trading fashion company using a terrorist cell market model and I believe that got the most votes. Our product didn’t do very well, but it was an honor to be able to work with CK.

The last session before Blair’s speech was a lunch session with some of the leading forward thinkers and CEOs of the future about what that future might look like in 2015. I sat next to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, who was overly enthusiastic about a future where no needs to leave their room as holograms deliver your companions and even your outdoors right in front of you. In the second session, I sat next to Shai Agassi of SAP, where he laid out a vision of a physical world analog to the internet that helps deliver physical goods and items to you the way the internet delivers packets of data. Arianna Huffington laid out a world where everyone was not having sex, because they were experiencing virtual sex. I’m looking forward to seeing the summarizations of the session that covered new emerging life styles, increased globalization, more power in emerging markets and opportunities to tackle global warming, ubiquitous access to the internet for all, and securely handle user’s identities.

On Thursday night, I was in a wine dinner hosted by Jancis Robinson, the UK’s leading wine critic. Geoff gave me a bit of a ribbing because I dumped his dinner session on Mergers and Acquisitions Heatmap, because Geoff would have rather been tasting the Bordeaux wines. The bottles, which ranged in price from $200 to $800 each, were paid for by a Mister Ahkmatov, an industrialist from Ukraine, who was himself hosting the Prime Minister of Ukraine. It was a very generous gesture with the most incredible wines and terrific commentary from Jancis. We were kicked out at 10 and retired to the bar with the remaining bottles of wine hanging out with one of the world’s greatest wine experts.

I don’t know how to describe last night without reusing all the same superlatives. It started off with a political dinner where I met with John Kerry and sat at the same table as Senator Patrick Leahy and the Undersecretary of Treasury for International Affairs. Senator Leahy had interesting off the record commentary. I even got to ask Barney Frank over at the next table some questions about Sarbanes Oxley. Then I went to the Accel party where I got to meet Shimon Perez and ask him his opinion on the future of Iraq. I met one of my heros, Michael Porter, afterwards, which was a real treat. We then headed over to the Google party, which was wall to wall mayhem with every known famous person around. I met Sergey Brin and Larry Page but got to spend more time with Larry in a session on city design this morning. The guy is a renaissance man having figured out new models for flight transportation and influencing the design of Google's new $1B facility.

This evening I am heading out to the Geek Dinner, which originated back when the techies weren’t allowed at the Grand Gala. I have been told the Geek Dinner is much better. I understand that everyone will give a prediction as to what will be coming up in the next year.

I’ll write some more about the week later, but for now I have run out of adjectives to use. I would like thank Mitchell Baker, CEO of the Mozilla Foundation, for yield her spot to me for the Tech Pioneer competition, Dave Sifry, CEO of Technorati and who deservedly beat me in that competition, for yielding his seat at dinner and Mitch Kapor for his help in the conference.

John Newton - Co-founder Documentum and Alfresco

Social entrepreneurs at Davos

People are often surprised when I tell them how social entrepreneurs are well received at Davos. We're full participants in panels, including being speakers. I think the reason for this integration is the strong support of the WEF's founder, Prof. Klaus Schwab, for the regard of social entrepreneurs.

One great example of this was a major reception held last night with the following hosts: Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce.com), Prof. & Mrs. Schwab, Michael Dell, Peter Gabriel (rockstar and founder of Witness), Alan Hassenfeld (Hasbro) and Marilyn Carlson Nelson (Carlson Travel). The reception was held in honor of social entrepreneurs and marking the release of a new book edited by Marc Benioff entitled The Business of Changing the World, which is a compendium of essays about business people and their engagement with the social sector. I had some great conversations with people explaining what Benetech does.

Talking to other Social Entrepreneurs

At least half of the highpoints of this week in Switzerland are the interactions I have with other social entrepreneurs. I feel very much at home with these folks, which are my peer community. Last night I was talking to John Wood about his book, Amazon.com: Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.  He gave me the direct advice of a social entrepreneur in the middle of marketing his first book: immensely useful. 

Moving on to dinner, I sat next to Garth Japhet of Soul City in South Africa, a doctor/social entrepreneur who leads an organization that uses media to influence behavior that affects HIV/AIDS. Garth was able to give me (in less than ten minutes) the reason why HIV spreads so much more quickly in southern Africa than in most other places in the world. He explained that immediately after infection, you are extremely infectious for around three weeks until your immune system beats HIV down to nearly indetectable levels. He noted that while southern Africans do not tend to have a larger lifetime number of sexual partners, they tend to have longer term relationships with multiple partners at the same time. Because a person might be with several long term partners in that several week initial peak infectivity, you will infect several people (and you are less likely to use a condom since it is a long term partner and not a one night stand). And if your partners are similarly oriented, they could infect several more people. Garth noted that a single infection leads to many more infections given this profile compared to societies where you might have as many sexual partners over your lifetime, but where the likelihood of having multiple partners during this three week period is much less.

Like many of my conversations with social entrepreneurs, I feel like I have a window into a crucial social issue from someone with an unparalleled vantage point. And, I get to have at least a dozen of these in-depth conversations every time I come to Davos!

Davos – a positive impact on the way businesses think and run

I think one of the most interesting and compelling things at Davos is how much this gathering of business leaders, politicians, NGOs, and other thought leaders has helped in sensitizing and exposing people to different dimensions of what is happening in the world. 

While it is true that businesses have to make a profit, and deliver value to the customers, it is increasingly becoming clear that businesses also have to create larger goals and sense of purpose, where they can make a definite and positive impact to change the world. The Davos atmosphere is very conducive to promoting these ideals in companies. 

The goal of the World Economic Forum is to make the world a better place, and you have business leaders working with other leaders to discuss all the global issues that we face, such as terrorism, pandemics or carbon emissions, AIDS, etc. We’ve got business leaders participating in intense debates that discuss these topics and I think it really helps them to understand the enormity of what is happening. So when they go back to their offices, I think that their thoughts and ideas get influenced by their Davos experience in some subliminal way, leading to more positive actions. This is truly the lasting impact of Davos on everyone who comes here.

Today, I also attended a very interesting discussion with Bill and Melinda Gates and Tom Friedman.  It really gave me tremendous insight into how Bill and Melinda look at the whole process of philanthropy and how they believe they can make a difference in solving some of the problems in this world. Whatever they had to say is really an important lesson for all entrepreneurs who also want to do purposeful philanthropy and is truly an inspiration for all of us.

Nandan Nilekani, CEO and Managing Director, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Davos07 - Niklas Zennstrom Skype

 

Niklas Zennstrom gives his highlights about Davos 2007, Skype and future of TV

Davos07: Jeff Jarvis after Davos

 

Davos07: Bo Y Shao - China

 

Davos07 - Adam Pasick Reuters in Second Life

 

Adam Pasick of Reuters describes the Davos in Second Life experiment.

Davos07: Pandemics (2/2) monitoring risk

Pandemics: Monitoring a Risk in Hibernation. After a period of heightened concern, the fear of a new global influenza pandemic has receded from media attention. Yet the risk remains basically unchanged and beyond influenza.

Davos07: Pandemics (1/2) monitoring risk

Pandemics: Monitoring a Risk in Hibernation. After a period of heightened concern, the fear of a new global influenza pandemic has receded from media attention. Yet the risk remains basically unchanged and beyond influenza.

Davos07 Chad Hurley co-founder & CEO You Tube

 

Exclusive: Lets all get running in Davos for peace

I can reveal a little exclusive.

The first ever Tegla Laroupe Peace Run will take place in Davos next year at this time to coincide with the 2008 World Economic Forum.

The first steps were taken at at meeting this morning held in a small cafe in the main street of Davos.Four people - Tegla Loroupe, John Gage, Sandra McCoy
along with me had arranged to meet to discuss how we could help support Tegla's Peace Foundation which operates in Kenya.

We are all big supporters of Tegla, the international renowned long-distance runner, in her attempts to build a school and enourage people to run rather than create war on the border between Kenya and Uganda. Sandra is chairperson of the newly formed USA foundation while John, chief researcher and vice
president of Sun Microsystems, has been a huge fan ever since he first met Tegla at last year's Davos gathering.

I also met Tegla for the first time at last year's event and we have stayed in touch since then. Tegla is a huge supporter of my own organisation, the Homeless World Cup, and she came down to this year's event in Cape Town.

We were chewing over some ideas and thinking about how we could raise funds for the Foundation when we came up with the idea of organising various Peace Races in different cities around the world with proceeds going towards Tegla's great project.

Then we hit on the idea of including Davos in the programme of races and what better time to have the race than when everyone was gathered at the World
Economic Forum.

So, next year I can exclusively reveal that there will be at least four runners taking part - Tegla, Sandra, John and myself but we will be encouraging as many
other people as possible to join in. Watch this space!

There are some wonderful discussions at Davos - particularly this year - but as a social entrepreneur I am always driven to the practical application of anything. So while people talk about ending poverty, stopping wars and protecting children I worry that nothing will actually happen. It's easy to talk but much more difficult to act.

So this morning's meeting was a joy. We just used our joint passion for Tegla's vision and applied our creative thinking and came up with a plan. We agreed to
make it happen and within a few minutes we are announcing it to the world.

It will happen. It will help make a difference to some people in Kenya. It's a small offering but it is positive. If everyone did something - however small - then we will change the world forever.

Mel Young - President and CEO, The Homeless World Cup

Davos07 - Andrés Velasco, Minister of Finance of Chile

Davos07 - Dave Sifry Technorati

Dave Sifry, head of the blog search engine Technorati, explains his first Davos experience, including the evenings...

Setting You Agenda before Shaping It

• “I think there is a world      market for maybe five computers.”
       –Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
• “There is no reason anyone      would want a computer in their home.”
       –Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,      1977
• “640K ought to be enough      for anybody.”
       –Bill Gates, 1981

I think if you are familiar with today’s technology, you won’t be surprised how ridiculous the above forecasts were, and those forecasts were all made by those visionaries, who shaped the agendas at their times and some of them are shaping our agenda now. Now let me show you the following forecast who was freshly made:

• The World Only Needs Five      Computers - … Let’s see, the Google grid is one. Microsoft’s live.com is      two. Yahoo!, Amazon.com, eBay, Salesforce.com are three, four, five and      six. — I’ll bet at least one, maybe the largest, will be the Great      Computer of China) … - Greg Papadopoulos, CTO of Sun Microsystems

So is it back to old days again? Yes and no. Let’s put aside technical details on why computing paradigm is shifting to old ways again, one thing is for sure. That is, the future is hard to be predicted; hence the agenda is tough to be set, it holds for both elites and grassroots. For you to understand my agenda better before shaping it together, let me show you a few more examples, before yahoo! went to public, who knew it was a huge business opportunity for online ads except both Jerry Yang, David Filo and a few VCs who visited Yahoo!’s old office located at a garage? Who would imagine the wild popularity of both myspace and youtube except their co-founders as well as a few VCs? When I was a fresh graduate student in the Fall of 1994, saw the system administrator at our Lab who set up Mosaic web sever and browser clients for us, I never thought that it could led to quite a few successful IPOs, just to name a few: Netscape, Yahoo!, amazon, ebay among others. Even for seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor like Rob Ryan, the founder of Ascend and Entrepreneur America, in his book titled Entrepreneur America, expressed his regret on not investing on Pierre Omidyar’s eBay, which cost his opportunity on increasing his fortune even more significantly. On the other hand, the smart angel investor might be Andy Bechotolsheim, who wrote a check in the amount of less than his half year’s salary for tow co-founders of google, and generated a ROI that no one could ever imagine after google went to public.   

So I would suggest all of us, whether for our business, for our country, or for our world, setting the agenda first, even primary, and then shape. Shaping an unsettled agenda is like driving on a frozen lake, it is way too dangerous.

Ed Y. Zhang

Frontier Blog - Making History of High-tech Industry

India is Still Everywhere

I recently had an interesting conversation with BBC where they commented to the fact that India had a fantastic participation in Davos last year. The theme was of course about “India Everywhere”, and one year from then, BBC wanted to know where we stand today.  My response was that India’s development is a continuous process and the Indian business community, as well as the Indian Government, have an ongoing engagement with the World Economic Forum with the goal of continuing the development.  India continues to grow at a very healthy pace, a GDP growth of 8%, and there is an ongoing interest regarding the confidence within the business community in India and its ability to grow. This growth cuts across several sectors which includes manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and of course services. Burgeoning confidence is now making Indian businesses look outside India for expansion, which means they are making investments in Europe, US and other places.  Meanwhile, India has become the second most attractive destination for foreign direct investment, which displaces US from the second position, and this is very significant. That means there is enough visibility for India to attract both the investments as well as businesses development, which has positioned India as a growth market. It is a fact that while there is a talent war going on in India, the country is still the most attractive destination for talent. We have a scalable infrastructure, the scalable resources, and also a significant technology talent pool of about 300,000 engineer graduates in the year. India has made significant progress since last year’s WEF, and  I look forward to returning next year with more good news.

On a different note, Infosys recently hosted a Breakfast Debate where the topic of focus was “Sustainable Development,” a key issue the world is currently facing. What occurred was a very healthy debate with very active participants across the board, including the Chairman and CEO of Shell as well as several other dignitaries.  It was very well represented by both the head of businesses and as well as some of the people from NGO community and some from academia.  We discussed the challenges of sustainable development, especially in regards to India and China, which are quickly emerging markets.  With such rapid economic development, how can collaboration between the western world and these markets help to ensure that this development can be tempered so that India and China do not have to necessarily contribute to the carbon dioxide emissions as it has happened in the West, and how can technology be leveraged to improve the situation?  This discussion is partly caused by the fact that today there are no real global standards in measuring carbon dioxide emissions, so what can governments and regulators do to de-incentivize activity by those who contribute more and incentivizing those who are doing a great job in protecting the environment?  It is these types of conversations between the influencers of industry and government that can only occur at the World Economic Forum.

BG Srinivas, Sr. Vice President and Head - Europe, Middle East & Africa

Each year brings new discoveries

I was in two sessions yesterday and found both to deliver what I have come to expect from the Forum – thoughtful debates and interesting dialogues.

The first session revolved around what, or rather, whose standards should apply in emerging markets. This is a very important discussion as standards are directly related to cost and now there is a fear that standards can be used as barriers to entry for emerging market MNCs into well-developed markets.

I was happy to note that there was consensus on the view that there are too many standards and too many requirements. Rationalizing all these is important and we should have a single set of standards across what is legally required, what is an industry standard, and what is the company standard. After all, multiple audits done by multiple organizations can be quite confusing.

The second important point which came out was that in these standard bodies, (and standard bodies should really be organizations which are globally respected), there must be representation from developing nations and you must facilitate developing nations to participate and be part of the standards setting process.  There were also a lot of discussions about government’s role, and general opinion shared was that government’s role must be limited unless it is legally required. 

The other interesting session I attended was on innovation.  This is a session I always enjoy attending because I am passionate about innovation. In this “hands-on” session we tried to work with three different models: the open source model, “Al-Qaeda model” and lastly the “market lead” model.  The whole exercise was fun and it was very interesting to see how everything progressed.  These types of sessions are an integral part of Davos – there was a high level of good participation and excellent discussions.

Of course, in addition to these sessions, Davos has had its fair share of socializing and fun as well. Last night, Infosys had a cocktail reception and we were overwhelmed with the response. There was great Indian food and many people could be overheard saying that it was “probably the best food in Davos” - or at least it was the best variety of food at Davos!

Today is Saturday and things are winding down.  When we arrived in Davos we all thought we were going to experience some mild weather with no snow, but towards the end it is a pretty white winter here in Davos, lots of snow in fact! Compared to last year I believe this year has more snow.  It has certainly been a very fascinating week for me here.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, President and Chief Operating Officer, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Great session on Depression

This year's session on depression was a first at Davos. The room was packed and many people had to be turned away. It included a rich panel discussion from a diverse group of expert panelists from different disciplines.

Dr. Tom Insel, Director of  National Institute of Mental Health presented several interesting facts. Depression is a very pervasive disease that affects 6% of the population in any given year. More people in the US die from suicides, usually caused by depression, than from car accidents.  The economic costs, including productivity losses, is by far the highest among all chronic disease.  A company that has 20,000 employees is likely to have a staggering 1,200 employees who are afflicted at any given time.  The fact that the session was completely full and there was a lobby full of people waiting to get in suggests that this is a topic that effects many, and that is is a topic people want to learn more about.

The good news is that this is  a highly treatable condition which typically has a biological basis that is not completely understood. Many well known  artists, CEO's and political leaders  have had severe and recurring episodes and yet were able to overcome them and go on to lead highly successful lives.The bad news is that It can be a very debilitating condition that, if untreated,  affects all important aspects of  productive life. Clinical depression must be distinguished from  temporary episodes of grief, bad mood or general state of funk that people refer to when that say 'I am depressed.  Yet  a large percentage of sufferers go untreated. Reasons for under treatment include dismissing the condition as not serious, resistance to take medications because IT only masks the symptoms  and the general stigma associated with mental illness.

The inclusion of this session the the 2007 annual  conference is highly commended given depression's tremendous human cost and its large impact on productivity in the workplace,  I hope the session will be enlarged in the future, not only in terms of venue but also in terms of content.  In particular, adding successful  people who have suffered from depression in the past, and have the courage to talk about it, can send a very powerful message about the misguided stereotypes, as well as a message of hope about the ability to overcome the condition. It is one other way the WEF can further its mission of improving the state of the world.

Using the Internet to combat the root cause of terrorism

The session on Terrorism at this year's annual WEF meeting highlighted two themes. First, there was agreement that the fight against terrorism cannot be won by security measures alone, and ultimately needs to address the 'root causes' such as poverty, unemployment, and youth despair. Second: Every panelist repeated the familiar mantra that Islam is a peaceful religion which has been hijacked by a few extremists. This post looks at how the Internet, particularly the mobile Internet, can be enlisted to provide a real contribution to addressing some of root cause issues.

Let me begin by saying that the idea of Islam as a peaceful religion is not a universally accepted truth by all Muslims. The suicide bombers typically expect to go to paradise after their suicide. One can also appreciate this fact by just looking at reader commentaries on mainstream news sites such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, or on other Islamic web sites, . The radical Islamists find enough religious text to justify what they are doing. One recent high profile case of extremism justified by religious scripture, is the case of an Afghan social worker who had to be smuggled out of the country to escape a likely death sentence, based on Koranic text, for converting from Islam to Christianity. Yet there are plenty of Koranic verses mandating tolerance towards the 'People of the Book', who are the Christians and Jews. This historical tradition of tolerance in Islam is clearly being overlooked by the local population and even some of the mainstream Afghan religious leaders. Such religiously legitimised positions are indeed a very potent root cause that contributes to extremism and can turn economic alienation into terrorism.

The Internet can be used to drive the message of a peaceful Islam home to the local masses and help rebut the highly selective and and misguided opinions or fatwas justifying violence. Imagine if the thoughtful and well considered opinions of respected religious scholars are frequently beamed to local cell phones. This could be possibly done as part of a government or NGO sponsored programs to provide the local poor with practical advice on farming, health, school education, religion and other practical issues. People can be further engaged in surveys, quizzes, commentaries and so on. Given how prevalent cell phones are in Muslim countries, such programs, if well designed and made easily accessible, can gain enough critical mass to reach the disaffected grass roots. It will admittedly not reach everyone. However, it can reach enough people who are successful enough to own a cell phone, that the dissemination of peaceful messages can have an impact.

The broad consensus at Davos is the need to address root causes. The Davos constituencies of governments, NGO's, media and businesses, particularly from the Muslim world, are well positioned to explore such usage of technology to help solve a vital problem cost effectively. An initiative like this kills two birds with one stone by helping economic development by providing knowledgeable and practical education and advice, and at the same time promoting tolerance and counteracting religiously justified violent ideology. It will make the message of the conference much more powerful and effective, on a much faster time scale than the years it takes to improve local economies enough to absorb rampant poverty and unemployment.

Magid M Abraham, comScore Networks

Davos Wrap

This year's World Economic Forum was dominated by the internet. Global traders discussed it, sessions were blogged on it, newspaper executives talked endlessly both about their own sites and the extraordinary aquisitions and mergers turning internet geniuses into billionaires.

Rupert Murdock, top dog of the media moguls, spoke about NewsCorp buying MySpace and how his move had first been laughed at (for the price he paid) then hailed as a great deal.

Google's billion-dollar purchase of YouTube was viewed as both brilliant and stupid, depending to whom you chose to listen.

And the children (really, they are) who started these silly sites like Flickr (on which you place your holiday pictures for only $250 a year) and FaceBook (where you connect with friends) spoke to seasoned journalists like myswelf as if we were idiots.

And believe me, we are. They are worth billions of dollars, individually. We are not.

The founder/owner of FaceBook told me he, like, wanted to, like, connect people. Nah, he wasn't really interested in the money. But he did use the capital he generated from received revenues for advertising to, like, buy more servers.

"Yeah,"he said laconically, "we doubled capacity in the past six months and will probably do so again."

And what does the site do? "It, like, connects people. College students mainly. Who share the same interests. We have about 16 million of them."
If you are a baby boomer, this was a Davos to make you feel old. Generation X is on the move, and the move is powered by Web 2.0 -- not that I understand what that means.

More conventionally, the expert economists who gathered in this Swiss mountain village all agreed that the world's economic outlook for 2007 was similar to 2006: another "goldilocks" year in which the three bears would stay away and the bulls would run again, perhaps just a little bit slower.

China, India, the US and Japan were all looking good as engines for the world economy.

One bear who might be lurking behind the trees in the woods was the housing market in the US, and a session entitled "What's that hissing sound?" was devoted to the US housing bubble, now beginning to leak.

Global warming was a big issue again with German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying it deserved to top the global agenda, and because of it Al Gore is again seen as a possible contender for the US Democratic nomination because of his "Än Inconvenient Truth" movie success about the planet's heating.
But even on the US election, everyone came back to saying the internet and blogging and new people-friendly websites are likely to be enormously influential, for the first time.

MoneyWeb's Alec Hogg and I had an argument about newspapers, he suggesting they are dying. In fact newspaper circulations grew five percent globally last year, but then again I have been dealing with this opinion on our impending death since 1973 when I first started in the industry.

Delightfully, Rupert Murdoch agreed with me that newspepers will still be around for a long time.

"Existing brands remain very very strong, and will still be around for a long long time. It is up to them to make their mark on the web and to do even better there than they do now," he said.

There were great discussions about blogs and bloggers, about a site called "dig" where stories are voted on, and if they get bad votes they drop down into a hole as they are "dug" by voters.

Davos also had the interesting session about the latest space missions, what depression was costing countries, how singles are running countries now and the womanisation of the workforce, sessions on colour and scent and technology.

There was geopolitics, examining who will succeed the US as a hyperpower, and influential politicians like Tony Blair and Merkel and President Mbeki made thoughtful inputs.

Each year at Davos, one country or continent has been the focus. Last year it was India. Before that China. Even Africa had its year.
But this year, it was the year of the internet. It overshadowed mere countries as its influence continues to grow globally, to grow and grow in multiples of digital doubling.

One day I am determined to understand it all.

Peter Sullivan - Group Editor-in-Chief, Independent Newspapers

So Much Unfairness of Things

In the session "A Business Manifesto for Globalization", economist Joseph Stiglitz said that as a result of globalization "countries as a whole have gained more than they have lost but that doesn't mean that individuals as a whole are better off." Renault and Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn remarked: "Most people who are hurt or think they are hurt by globalization know it; most people who benefit do not know it."

So who are the winners and losers in this age of rapid and merciless globalization? There are the impoverished of course, but many of the poor particularly in Africa are losing out because they remain untouched by globalization and have not yet benefited from the advantages that it can bring. What about those people whose lives have been humming along nicely but are now finding themselves outsourced or outfought in the competition for jobs or customers? One panelist yesterday said that more people are appreciating the unfairness of globalization because it is hitting skilled workers in the knowledge-based and service industries - middle-class folks in uncompetitive sectors or without niche skills that keep their jobs secure. These are the persons whom globalization is bringing down or at least tripping up.

On the first day of the meeting, Arianna Huffington spoke at the US update session of how middle-class Americans are using credit card debt to buy basic necessities. From my own experience as a 40-something print journalist, I know of many professionals my age and older who have been "globalized" out of their jobs and have struggled to find new employment, full employment or new careers. Many knowledge workers who thought that their education and skill sets had set them up for life have suddenly found themselves sliding off the globalization wave. I guess the erosion of the middle class is so shocking in many countries where upward mobility has become the norm if not part of the culture. If whole groups of people fall back and have to moderate their expectations, that will only create more divides in this divided world.

So it was quite refreshing to hear Larry Summers, the former Harvard President and ex-US treasury secretary, speak about the unfairness of things and the elitism - intended or unintended - that even the most enlightened may be party to. When a participant at the session on freedom suggested that the "spirit of Davos" might be the basis for a framework of global governance, Summers said: "There is a great and profound concern about the cosmopolitization of elites. There is a deep concern that this networking of the elite is not something that is fundamentally directed at the interests of regular working people - people who work hard and play by the rules."

Globalization is now a personal matter. Many ordinary, earnest people who expected to live comfortable lives in clean, well-lighted places have found that even if they play by the rules and work hard, they might not get on; they may even go backwards. Life is no longer that simple.

The Solution - Narrowning the Widening Gap

As I mentioned in my yesterday’s post, amid the huge growth opportunity at the inflection point of the New Economy, we have to seriously think about the formidable challenge we face right now: that is neither energy conservation, nor climate preservation, since those issues I would like to call them second-hand issues, that we should worry about in decades, if not in hundreds of years. Please let me clarify myself, it does not mean both energy conservation and climate preservation are not that important, in fact they are important, but not as important as keeping a peaceful world for all of us to survive and prosper. Keeping a peaceful world should be on the prime position of any growth agenda. Without address this most important issue, it is like teach a kid who could barely walk on how to play golf.

So what is the solution for the challenge to secure a peaceful world in order to sustain and forge economical growth? First of all, there is no silver bullet. However, if we look at the issues we are facing in today’s dynamic yet risky world, most of them are due to conflicts, and those conflicts have triggered and are triggering wars, both military and trade wars among many countries. Why? because the old order of the old economy are being destroyed, and the new order of the old economy has to been established yet. During this transition period, much more conflicts, both economical and political, are being produced. If you look at the history, many major wars happened during the transition period, and we should warn all of ourselves, we, as rational people, should not allow such kind of tragedies happen again in our life time for the God’s sake. No more fight please.

From my perspective, those new conflicts are coming from the ever widening gaps between those rich (developed) countries and poor (developing and emerging countries) at country level, between those transnationals and those family business (or something like that), and between those rich people and those poor people at individual level. Let us take the business world as an example. We all endorse market economy, and market economy encourages competition-based entrepreneurship, which creates job opportunities for those non-entrepreneurs and contributes to the society through taxation among other social responsibilities. Those are all reasonable, however, the labor-capital relationship may not be sustainable in case anything unfair opposed to the labor side, or to the capital side, as we head of news on strikes at some countries in the Europe. So maintain a healthy labor-capital relationship through balancing is utmost important for a business to succeed. The same principle applies to the world affairs and individual level. No country wants its constant trade deficits, and no country wants its domestic markets dominated by those foreign companies. No people wants to staying poverty, and no people wants to stay in ignorance. So if those rich countries could think about more on how to help those poor countries in whatever means, and those rich people could think about more about how to help those people, we might narrow the widening gap. Of course nothing should go extreme, for example, tax reduction might favor those rich, and stimulate more investment opportunities, hence create more job opportunities, but heavy tax reduction might impact those poor who rely on welfare. Again balancing is the only way to go to solve such a chicken-and-egg problem

Attitude is everything, let us stay calm and work hard, to secure a peaceful and prosperous world – Let us compete instead of fight!

Ed Y. Zhang
Frontier Journal - High-tech Think Tank and Action Workbench

The MSM in Davos: Fear and Resolve... With a Pinch of Loathing Thrown In

Taking part in a number of Davos sessions on the state of the media (and sitting in on a number of others) is a bit like watching the characters in a slasher film: Who will be the next one to be gutted and left for dead by the crazed killer (in this case, the new media revolution)? It's like Saw III; only instead of nubile teens trying desperately to avoid being eviscerated, it's some of the most powerful editors and publishers in the world.

Even in the glorious confines of Davos, the fear is palpable. In contrast, the power players of the new media - Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Chad Hurley of YouTube, Caterina Flake of Flcker, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook -- are all smiles. At one event, Chris DeWolfe, the founder of MySpace, was asked what it had been like being absorbed by NewsCorp. "Heaven," he replied. Granted, he was sitting next to Rupert Murdoch when he said it, and there was a touch of irony in his voice, but his answer seemed an appropriate contrast to the purgatory the old media keep reminding us they're in.

Thankfully, amidst all the gloom and doom there was also a steely sense of resolve among the leaders of the MSM, who included Rick Smith of Newsweek, John Micklethwait of the Economist, Lionel Barber of the Financial Times, Steve Adler of BusinessWeek, Kai Diekmann of Bild, Robert Thomson of the London Times, and Arthur Sulzberger of the New York Times. If you'll forgive another movie metaphor, they're like the would-be survivors in The Poseidon Adventure -- frantically trying to figure out which way lies salvation, wondering: Will there be a morning after for traditional journalism?

It's this mindset that must have prompted Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, to recently warn his colleagues: Do not commit suicide out of fear of dying. Döpfner's warning was recounted by Michael Oreskes, the editor of the International Herald Tribune, in his insightful opening remarks at one media gathering. The gathering was regrettably off-the-record, but Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger captured some of the flavor while staying within the Chatham House Rules.

Adhering to these rules myself, I got permission from Oreskes to quote from his remarks, which laid out a survival strategy for traditional journalists (think Gene Hackman's preacher, although I trust Oreskes won't be dropping into a pool of boiling water anytime soon).

He asked his fellow editors to find hope in the fact that we are living in "the age of information overload" -- a time that calls out for editorial input and guidance. "The Internet offers us this alluring idea that all information is available to everyone all the time," said Oreskes. "But no one in their real life has time to absorb all that information, to make sense of it, to separate the wheat from the chaff. This is what journalism is for..." At the same time, Oreskes acknowledged that the journalistic process sometimes ends up with printing the chaff (never more tragically in recent times than in the run-up to the war).

The good news for journalists rethinking their antiquated business model is that, as Oreskes pointed out, "The appetite for knowledge and understanding of an increasingly tangled and complex world is as great or maybe even greater than it has ever been." However, "there are fewer people who want to pay for their news and more opportunities for advertisers to reach their audiences in new ways. As the front page story in last week's International Herald Tribune pointed out, for many media companies, 'Free is the New Paid.'"

But, as Oreskes made clear, it won't be enough for old school journalists to adopt new forms of distribution and new ways of generating revenue: "We need to adapt to the new attitudes of our audiences, too. Our authority and credibility used to come from our exclusivity and our control over the sources and distribution of information. In the future it may come just as much from our transparency and our willingness to interact with our audiences.... We must understand the message of change, but then we must combine that message with what we know inside ourselves to be the value of what we know how to do. And from that synthesis of tradition and change will come a new future for journalism."

Phew. Finally a horror movie with a happy ending.

Party time for India in Davos.....but hold on a minute

Once again, the world's business and political thought leaders have gathered in the Swiss resort town of Davos, and, once again, India is being toasted and is toasting itself. I'm watching from afar, in NYC, but avidly reading the coverage in news stories and blogs. My strongest impression is that there is a lot of happy talk about India and its prospects, which is appropriate, but not much talk about its challenges. People seem to be papering over the country's infrastructure deficit, which, by some measures, is slowing GDP growth by 2%. And, coupled with that is the problem of the haves and the have nots. The vast majority of Indians have been left behind as the tech economy takes off. And they vote. Signs of trouble are already showing up. Pro-business and pro-reform politicians are being defeated at the polls, replaced by people who promise voters free TV sets, free water, and free electricity. Wrapped together, the infrastructure problem and the country's unruly politics constitute a serious challenge to India's aspirations to become one of the world's top economies. So, sure, Indians should party at Davos. But unless they make huge amounts of progress back home, the hangover could be quite painful.

Steve Hamm, BusinessWeek

Day 4 at Davos – Banking the Unbanked

As Davos 2007 heads into the final straight, there are fresh issues popping up every minute that are provoking fierce debates.  Yesterday, I attended a session on ‘banking the unbanked’ which generated some interesting discussions about the huge population out there who are currently unbanked - not just in the developing world but in regions where we’d never expect this to be a problem.

Reasons for the lack of credit available in the less developed part of the world are pretty self explanatory.  Poorer people represent a higher risk and lower return on investment for banks and financial institutions and as a result they’re reluctant to get involved in these regions.  Different regions are responding in different ways however many are reliant on non-government organisations to help with funding.

What amazed me, however, was to hear that some fifty million people in the United States are also unbanked.  This is a startling fact for a country with such a developed economy however it boils down to the same reason – some individuals just represent too high a credit risk.

A number of financial executives I spoke to agreed that technology could be a great enabler in giving banks a return on their investment and making it a risk worth taking.  An effective use of technology can reduce the cost of transactions and there is a great opportunity for large financial institutions to participate in the development of these financial economies creating a tailored range of products and services.  Time will tell as to what degree this opportunity is embraced.

Today’s discussions, however, have turned to the main concerns of business leaders in Asia.  Contrary to expectation, the top two worries among Asian business executives were water availability and energy availability…and the impact of these factors on individual’s quality of life.

This is clearly a reflection of how rapidly these economies are developing, perhaps too rapidly.  Indian and Chinese businesses and US companies with operations in these countries are all faced with the fact that the environment cannot keep up with their amazing growth and development creating a situation where climate change is becoming a huge issue.  And it’s the globe, not just their local environment, which is impacted.

After another frantic day at Davos, it was great to relax at the McKinsey ‘Nite-cap’ party last night.  The music, company and general ambience made it the standout cocktail reception of the World Economic Forum so far.

Sadly, Davos for this year is drawing to a close but there have been a fascinating range of topics covered in the conversations I’ve had with other delegates.  With the Infosys cocktail reception this evening and tomorrows Addressing Global Risks session, I’ve no doubt that there’s plenty more to come.

Ashok Vemuri, SVP and head - Banking and Capital Markets business, Infosys Technologies

Blog 3

Football crosses all borders. It doesn't seem to matter who you are or where you come from, people understand football.

I've been overwhelmed by the number of people who have come up to me at this year's event either to congratulate me on the growth of the Homeless World Cup or ask how things are going.

It seems many people followed the progress of last year's event in Cape Town via the enormous media coverage it received. The idea of homeless people playing the "beautiful game" and changing their lives as a result has really captured people's imagination.

Because of the success of the event in terms of changing the lives of homeless people and the demand from new countries wanting to participate we are going through a process of rapid growth. The demand is massive and we are simply trying to find more partners to turn our global dream into reality.

But it's the football which is the drawing power. Who won, asks one person? A gasp when I say it was Russia. What was there secret? Planning and fitness. What about Italy who won twice before? They were just overwhelmed this year.

And Cape Town - what was that like as a venue particularly with the World Cup going there in 2010? It was welcoming and friendly and we had more African nations particapating than ever before. In fact we had more countries than ever at 48.

So it goes on, people are fascinated and want to know more. Sport and football in particular has enormous power and it can make significant change in people's lives. Those who watch or play football understand this but now other people are being drawn in as well. So much more can be done.

"How do I get to play," half jokes another. Football can be like a magnet and attract people from everywhere.

The ball may be round and beautiful but what's really magic about it is its potential power to create change. Change is very much on this year particularly at this summit where climate change dominates most of the agenda.

It's the marrying together of social, environmental and business issues which will provide results. And that's really exciting.

Despite the apparent ingrained problems in the world there is an air of optimism amongst this year's delegates. Yes, we can create change in all sectors and
improve the world for everyone. It seems football has a role to play too along with other initiatives -time to kick the ball and change the world in the process.

Mel Young - President and CEO, The Homeless World Cup

Newscorp and Myspace Side By Side?

I joined Peter Gabriel last night at a private Media Governors meeting which was off the record so I cant attribute remarks....But it was interesting to see the newly established upstart Chris DeWolfe of MySpace, recently acquired by the media giant Newscorp, in conversation with mega-mogul Rupert Murdoch about the future of media. 

Legacy media (ie newspapers, television, radio etc) is in the midst of a revolution (of sorts), racing to adapt to the new media Web 2.0 landscape characterized by citizen journalism, the blogosphere, and the likes of MySpace, Face Book, YouTube, etc. The challenge from the legacy media perspective is how to "monetize" online content while sustaining the traditional cost-heavy infrastructure, ie if you are in the business of delivering and distributing newsprint.  In the US, media giant and newspaper chain Knight Ridder was recently acquired by the highest bidder....a smaller chain.

While legacy media troubles over the challenge, we see the opportunity for a more democratizing, bottom-up influence in how issues are framed and responded to -- hence, the forthcoming Hub!

An Outsider looking In

Surrounded by people, tapping away at laptops, it's hard to fathom that these people are the CEOs, media moguls and key leaders of our world.  As an outsider at the World Economic Forum - a 23 year old, just out of college, who works in the non-profit sector, it's an amazing yet stimulating environment.

Wandering around the halls and passages, you pass people you've only read about or seen on the news, politely sipping coffee and having a chat to a friend or colleague. I was almost run down before by Bill Gates wandering away from his conference - or to be more precise - I was almost run down by the media posse wandering after him, keen to get a comment from the head of Microsoft, and more importantly today, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with his wife Melinda.'

For us, the group of young people here at Davos, it's an amazing insight into how our leaders operate. And, to be honest, they're just like normal people. Smiling, laughing and chatting away. But, the difference here is that what they say, think and do has a massive impact on the lives of millions around the world.

The Vice-Chair of Royal Dutch Shell chatting to a CNN journalist about climate change might appear just to be two people chatting about the state of the world, yet in their hands is ability to shape the world's reaction to the most pressing issue of our time.

It's something that even we are swept up in - as i finish typing this post, i'm off to our session, Wisdom of Youth, where we're sharing the stage with Gordon Brown and Queen Rania of Jordan.

We'll be pitching the idea of a Global Fund for Education, aiming to get funding and action on quality education for all onto the agenda of the world's powerbrokers.

Then it's off to the BBC debate on Climate Change, broadcast live on BBC World, and a key chance for us to put forward our views as normal citizens about how climate change is affecting us, and what we see as needing to be done.

simon moss

The Challenge - Soft Landing, Hard Landing and No Landing

This morning before I download and listen to yesterday’s Podcast files from Davos Forum website, I listened to the podcast of the panel titled Update 2007: The Global Economy again, I was impressed by those panelists’ insights. While most of those panelists are favoring the prospect of a soft landing, there is at least one panelist insists a hard landing might be inevitable. Whether soft landing, hard landing, or even no landing, the toughest challenge is the unbalancing, and the gap is becoming wider and wider, I shall address the solution on how to close the gap in my next post. For now, let me elaborate to you why we should be extremely cautious on the challenge ahead

When we consider economical issues that may impact our growth, such as growing trade deficits of those developed countries, energy conservation problems in those emerging countries and developing countries, please do not forget there are quite a few hot spots in the world, such as Middle East, East Asia and Part of Africa, which instability might trigger bigger regional wars or even the next war. If that kind of incidents happens, forget about soft landing and hard landing at all, since there will be no landing at all, no matter how skilled your pilots are, and no matter which advanced space shuttle you are riding with. No doubt politics is one of the most important drivers of economics in any country under any system, without political stability, talking about economic growth is like joking around at a cocktail party during weekends. Let me give you an example on how weak the New Economy we are working with is, several weeks ago, several earthquake occurred at Taiwan Straight, and that broke quite a few backbones made in fibers that connecting the US and China. Our outsourcing business relies on the Internet very much, since most of our clients are headquartered in the US, so you may imagine the significant reduction of our staffs’ productivity during past several weeks. Just only because the Internet connection becomes much slower, since the same amount of Internet traffic has to go through from less fiber connections due to the damage made by the recent earthquake. As of today, while I am composing this post, our Internet connection is back to normal speed, and I am glad to this recovery. Now for those transnationals, such as FedEx, UPS, eBay, Paypal, avis, American Airliners among others, how much was the impact to their daily business practice? Can you imagine what will happen if wars occur instead of natural disasters anywhere in the world? Your Internet connection will be lost, your car cannot find gas supplies, even worse, and your grocery stores may not supply enough foods to you and your family.

In my life so far, I personally experienced two wars, one was in 1979, when I was still in my elementary school, a war occurred between China and Vietnam, and that only lasted a couple of weeks, it did not impact our daily life that much. But I still remember all of our neighbors gathered together to watch TV on gathering the latest of the war. The second war I experienced was right on the morning of 9/11/2001, when I got up and open up my home computer screen, I found there were 2 photos at the very first page of AOL website, with 2 jets hitting 2 skyrockets (the World Trade Tower), I was thinking it might be a Fool’s Day type trick. Now when I turned on my TV, I found it was indeed a war triggered by those terrorists. I think most of you might feel the impact of the war against terrorists since 9/11.

As I mentioned in one of my prev. posts, any one who is rational would like to experience any war, would you like to risk your own life, or your fellow citizens’ life to fight in the battlefields. In human society, through long history, conflicts are inevitable, all of us shall sit down calmly, and find viable solutions to resolve conflicts and make our life peaceful and beautiful. How? Please check up my next post titled: The Solution - Closing the Gap. So stay turned

Ed Y. Zhang
Frontier Blog - Making History of High-tech Industry

Davos Notes: We Get to Hear Iraqis Discuss Iraq (For a Change)

Davos Day 2 kicked off officially at 8:45 a.m. -- late enough for the networking breakfasts to be digested -- with a panel entitled "Iraq: United for Stability." Moderated by Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, the panel included Iraq Vice-President Adil Abd al-Mahdi and former Iraqi president Adnan Pachachi.

The top takeaway was al-Mahdi's embrace of the proposal to hold a regional forum of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran. Without reducing tensions and establishing regional partnerships, al-Mahdi argued, stability will be impossible to achieve. He stressed non-interference in each other's affairs as essential to the success of these partnerships.

The proposal makes room for the participation of interested parties -- which of course is code for the United States. The problem is, America has steadfastly refused to talk with Iran. And without the presence of Iran, a neighborhood forum would be utterly meaningless.

Al-Mahdi also disclosed that a new law ensuring the equitable distribution of oil profits to all factions in Iraq was in "an advanced stage." No one mentioned how shocking is the fact that so long after those purple fingers were raised, this foundation for peace still isn't the law of the land.

During the discussion, Pachachi was asked what would happen if American troops are withdrawn. He suggested that the UN should send a multi-national force. Given how Bush's meager coalition has been made even more meager by so many members withdrawing or reducing their troops, it was easy to share Richard Haass' skepticism that this could happen.

While talking to Haass last night at a reception given by Rick Levin, the President of Yale, I asked him what he thought the Democrats in Congress were actually going to do about Iraq. "They are trying to triangulate," Haass said, "and come up with a proposal between the president's escalation and a specific timetable for troop withdrawal."

Isn't it time to acknowledge that when it comes to Iraq, "triangulation" is the equivalent of Solomon's New Way Forward proposal of splitting the baby?

Davos Diary – Day Two

Life seems to move at warp speed in this icy corner of concentrated power. At least it does so for one week in January.

For inquiring minds, there’s no other place in the world where so much distilled wisdom is readily on offer. But not everybody’s a fan.

Among mild malcontents are Davos natives who, perhaps understandably, resent the growing invasion of limos, Polizei and hordes of badge-wearing foreigners they disdainfully refer to as “Weffers”. Some of them are more irritated than others.

A B-grade snooker bar close to the Congress Centre, which revels in the name of Walhalla, displays a board warning Weffers to stay away. There’s little open hostility from other locals. But get them talking and you find they’re counting th