By Alec Hogg
Last night in Davos was special, being reacquianted with one of the most extraordinary people you’ll ever meet. Six years ago I facilitated a WEF dinner here featuring Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard. He’d just beaten Virgin’s Richard Branson in the race to circumnavigate the earth in a hot air balloon. He inspired me then. And did the same again last night.
Bertrand is on the cusp of another pioneering adventure. He will lift off early next month on a round the world flight in the world’s first perpetual motion aeroplane. It’s a propellor driven, glider like craft powered exclusively by solar. In a cocktail presentation to ABB clients last night, Piccard explained that the plane, boasting the wingspan of a Boeing 747 but weighing less than a Range Rover, charges up during the day which provides enough power to keep going right through the night. On the stretch over the Pacific, it will be aloft for five consecutive days and nights.
His project plans to draw attention to and stimulate innovation. Because, as Piccard puts it, very often innovation does not come from inside a system: “150 years ago, it was not the people selling candles who invented the lightbulb. Ten years ago, it was not a car manufacturer, who made the best electrical car. No, it’s a guy who made a fortune on the Internet who had no idea how to make a car, who created the Tesla.” Wow, that Pretoria boy Elon Musk gets a mention everywhere nowadays.
Yesterday’s top stories
The Financial Times talks turkey with Nando’s boss Robbie Brozin
E-cigarettes: cancer risk ’15 times greater than smoking cigarettes’
Zuma tells Davos Eskom’s infrastructure can’t handle 11m households
Swiss franc surprise: Start of currency war?
Davos Stars: Aliko Dangote – the richest man in Africa
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