An unbiased, non-corporate perspective on what it was really like to attend the World Economic Forum
Upon arriving in Davos, I involuntarily felt intimidated; I had yet not even gotten out of the car that had brought me into this small Swiss village 2.5 hours from Zurich. I don’t know if this apprehension was a foreshadowing of the overwhelm and awe that I would feel in the next three days or just sleep deprivation from jetlag, but retrospectively, I suspect the prior.
This year, the World Economic Forum celebrated the 50th anniversary of their “commit(ment) to improving the state of the world.” This mission, in theory, sounds riveting and this year’s theme, “stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world”, particularly tickled the liberal bone in my body. It might be relevant to note here that I have fairly progressive views on most socio-political issues; at the same time, though, I do not endorse extremism in any policy decision. I prioritize solutions that aren’t simply overarching or conceptual but instead anticipate and resolve for the economic and societal implications trickling all the way down to an individual level.
Much to my dismay, unfortunately, the propositions by global leaders at WEF, while forward-thinking, were notional and by activists were factual but impractical. At a panel, for instance, an activist demanded Amin Nasser, the President & CEO of Saudi Aramco, the company with the world’s second-largest crude oil reserves and second-largest daily oil production, to close all coal mines in order to reduce their carbon footprint. In response, Nasser acknowledged the problem but argued that it is a transitional process.
Yes, closing all coal mines is ideal but unrealistic and yes, the claim that reduction in coal-reliance is transitional is true but intangible.
I could give you a hundred other examples from WEF20 wherein, on the one hand, campaigners called for extreme, non-viable measures to combat an issue and on the other hand, business leaders made almost scripted abstract comments, dodging their responsibilities and protecting their interests. There was no middle ground: no actionable next steps were discussed, let alone agreed on. As an objective spectator hoping for concrete actions for advancement, the entire exercise seemed futile. Everyone had come to push their own agendas instead of pushing for actual, practical solutions.
Although disappointed in the undertakings (or lack thereof) at the forum, the silver lining is that I learned a lot about leadership, patience, organization, and a significant number of new, current buzz words.
I would divide the event into three main types of encounters: auditing sessions, participating in bilateral business meetings and experiencing products. There were two main locations where sessions like panels, addresses, and discussions would take place, namely the Congress Center and the Ice Village. The timetable of the sessions was available on the WEF app (only available to the participants) and to attend, you either had to sign up on the app or line up outside the area really early. Most business leaders tended to participate in a panel or two but largely spent their days in conference rooms or lounges where they conducted business meetings (where else would they get to hold meetings with all their global partners within 3 days?). Additionally, a significant number of organizations had rented out storefronts along Promenade, the central street in Davos, wherein attendees could go grab a coffee and learn more about the institution and its offerings.
Unlike most others at the forum, I was not a public figure, a billionaire or a global thought-leader (not yet, at least). But truthfully, it was not very apparent. I am the founder of Wellnest, a 1.5-year old MedTech startup out of India. But much like myself, I saw Apple CEO Tim Cook and Pakistan PM Imran Khan wearing lanyards with their IDs and going through extensive security checks as well as staying in a ridiculously expensive ($1200/night) 4-star hotel. Every person I saw was more important than the one before and it was almost surreal to observe them next to me sipping on coffee while chatting with a colleague or a contemporary.
Truthfully, I was not naive enough to believe that the forum would be propaganda-free but I surely was optimistic. I was aware of the paradox inherent to the structure of the forum: like Edelman points out, the forum extols gender diversity, protecting the environment, and confronting inequality, but women are woefully underrepresented as delegates, its attendees tend toward travel on carbon-spewing private planes, and billionaires abound. Despite this awareness, I arrived at Davos with the belief that if there were one group with the resources — financial, political and experiential — to solve global crises (many created by them), it would be the one made of the 1% of the world whose presence I was to be in. Obviously, I was “too idealistic”, as one co-attendee nonchalantly pointed out to me. But hey, as one of my favorite writers once said, you cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
