Humans of Davos — Episode 2
This is the second episode of the Humans of Davos diary. Check out https://medium.com/humans-of-davos for more.
We were in Davos like flamingos on the moon. The carefully designed self-assurance of people who have been designated ambassadors of 1 billion people, was pierced by a touching candor: many were seeing snow for the first time. There would be a time for putting in motion some grand plan to ‘improve the state of the world’, but first, we had to make snowballs.
Mohammed was standing on ice, staring at his feet. He lived in Tanzania and invested large sums of money in Sub-Saharan tech startups — but for now, his face seemed to say “this is slippery”. Without moving his legs, he put a pile of powder snow in his palm — too light to make a ball. The ice fell between his fingers. He seemed disappointed. Misraim, a Global Shaper from Leon, Mexico, who designs and funds initiatives for the youth of his city, was more successful. He was wearing thick ski gloves and had managed to build an enormous snowball he was holding with two hands. He looked at Mohammed, at me, then back at Mohammed. It wasn’t fair to shoot at unarmed targets. He stared at the snowball not sure what to do with it. “I still hope we’ll do a snow fight some day,” he said with a smile, dropping the ball on the floor.
The group gathered around Mustafa who had gotten closer to a giant pile of snow, ready to do something still mysterious, but surely heroic. He removed his hood, took a deep breath, and threw his face into the snow. He had written a song after the Egyptian revolution which made him a singer, wrote and recorded two albums, started five startups. He pitched at Y Combinator and built the largest independent news site in English in the country, but there he was, like his kid would, burying his face like a five-year-old. He pulled his head out of the Swiss snow and stared at us with a large white frozen smile. While everyone was cheering and taking pictures of his frozen face and long curly hair, I realised he gave me hope. The smiling candor of a revolutionary musician and entrepreneur survived repression and censorship. Maybe, one day, the Arab Spring will not have been for nothing.
“Take a Post-it, and write down your objectives for the week,” Ana asked. She was everyone’s older sister, mandated by the WEF, and had designed every minute of the next three preparation sessions we had. Her mission was simple, but impossible: prepare a group of 49 young professionals from as many countries to represent an entire generation. The task was daunting, and it was starting to hit us. Everyone was noticeably more nervous. Except Fedir, and Alessandro.
Fedir walked to me on his way out to smoke a cigarette. “Nothing is going to be easy today,” he said. “A tough agenda, with great responsibilities.” He joked.
Alessandro, the Italian of the group, was standing near the coffee machine with the infinite class Italians have when they watch their coffee drip into their cup. Wearing a tailored-made three piece suit, he boasted the confidence of a senior consultant who had drafted the COP20 charter. He had a different approach to the whole thing. “I’m organising a cocktail for the Italian delegation tomorrow night,” he said.
The rest of us self-organised in a militia of ambassadors. There were fifty of us now, including Sticky, fundraising for ShelterTech. And I wasn’t just hear for ShelterTech, but also for Rachel’s No More, Natalie’s OWN academy and a dozen other organisations I hadn’t heard of a day earlier. It felt like the game was on.
The session over, I walked on Davos’ promenade towards the convention center, past the corporate booths and restaurants, policemen, soldiers and snipers on the roofs. After an airport-like security check, I found myself inside a narrow maze that eventually led me to the Community Space. “How many walls can you fit inside a building?” I joked to myself, after finally making it out of the labyrinth. The Community Space was reserved for the Global Shapers. It was the place you went to to see familiar faces. That is, if you didn’t get lost on the way.
I asked a staff lady at the entrance why the building was so odd, and what it was used for the rest of the year. “This is a swimming pool,” she replied. “You are now standing over the pool.” I looked at my feet. “But it’s empty now, right?” I asked. “No sir, the water is still there.” That didn’t explain why you would need a maze in a swimming pool but I was now focused on counting the people — 24 — that were unknowingly sitting on top of a five meter deep water tank.
I grabbed a few Shapers and we made it to the last event of the day, before the welcome reception: a philharmonic concert inside the plenary hall. Davos started to feel real.
At first, I didn’t make much of the fact that the orchestra only had female musicians. The conductor, Marin Alsop — the most celebrated female conductor in history — had just won a Crystal award a few moments earlier. I expected the music to be great. But I was floored. Hearing this orchestra play Beethoven’s fifth symphony, a piece I always considered very masculine, broke a stereotype for me. It was an orchestra of women, playing for an audience of men — and I was the only one shouting ‘bravo’ from the back of the room.
I looked for the musicians to congratulate them, making my way through a polonaise of blind men and women going to the bathroom. Aliayta, Kathrin and Clara were in their early twenties, studying at the World Academy of Music in London. “We’re super excited to be here,” Clara said. “It’s a tough crowd though!” Kathrin added sending everyone laughing. “We came because women are very under-represented at this event. Only 21% of attendees are women!”
