For the past few years, I’ve supported our clients during Davos week from behind my screen in the comfort of my home.
This year I was delighted to get the opportunity – for the first time – to head up the mountain myself, alongside my colleague Joe Myers to help provide the World Economic Forum with live coverage of their Annual Meeting.
The journey there gave me a good idea of the exciting week I had in store as we took a series of stunning train rides from Zürich to Davos, which have spoiled me now — UK train journeys will never compare 🚂
Arriving into a relatively sleepy Davos on Saturday morning, the town was quickly transformed as thousands of participants, attendees, organisers and journalists began pouring into the snowy streets throughout the weekend.
Against an uncertain and complex geopolitical backdrop, this year’s theme was Rebuilding Trust.
Over the next five days, world leaders and industry experts met to discuss how to do just that, by generating new ideas and creating stronger partnerships to come up with solutions to the challenges we all face 🌎
Here’s what I took away from it all as a “first-timer”.
-
Leaders cannot tackle global challenges alone 🙌
I was monitoring much of the content that was flowing out of the World Economic Forum’s live sessions as part of the coverage team on site. I noticed this common thread throughout a lot of the output and commentary.
From peace and security to the threat of disinformation, global challenges require global responses.
That means leaders cannot act in isolation, with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan urging world leaders to “pull together and make the wise and bold decisions” needed.
Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the IMF, made the important point that leaders must embrace the responsibility to act, even if it’s not popular.
In such a divided and fragmented world, Georgieva’s call to action will only get more relevant with each passing year.
-
AI poses opportunities and challenges across industries 🤖
We’ve been writing about AI and its impact for quite a while – but the volume of discussion was huge compared even to last year.
While leaders cited AI’s transformative potential in anything from healthcare to agriculture, a consistent narrative also emerged around governance and regulation of the technology.
I particularly liked Accenture CEO Julie Sweet’s argument that this technology will only reach its full potential if companies and governments give reskilling enough time and focus.
This will be a crucial year for implementing the necessary guardrails to ensure the development of AI is managed in a way that helps, rather than harms, society.
-
‘A sense of urgency is our only saviour’ ⌛
The need to act quickly was a common thread running through the sessions we covered this year, and was framed succinctly by Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank when he said “a sense of urgency is our only saviour”.
He was commenting on the climate crisis, but this message applies to the full range of global challenges we face today. From the cost of living crisis to escalating geopolitical tensions, the speed at which we’re tackling these problems must accelerate.
As these various crises are interconnected, failure to act on one issue will have dire consequences for another. Vanessa Kerry, founder of the non-profit organisation Seed Global Health highlighted, for example, that “the climate crisis is a health crisis”.
Hopefully, greater collaboration and cooperation will be fostered between countries, sectors and organisations in 2024.
Ultimately, it was great to be right in the thick of it for Davos this year.
After all, there are few other places in the world where you’d get to walk just a few feet away from will.i.am!
I’m looking forward to the next chance I get to represent Formative at more live events, it’s great to see for myself they really are back – and better than ever 💥
If you would like to know more about live coverage or bespoke corporate content, please email gayflashman@formativecontent.com.
