Key topics
- Klaus Schwab’s misunderstood vision and the WEF’s Young Global Leaders program.
- Davos’ allure: Networking, innovation, and extreme costs of participation.
- Personal encounters: Scams, spiritual moments, and chance connections in Davos.
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By Alec Hogg
Alec Hogg reports on the week where power meets in Europe’s highest town.
I’ve been pondering why the World Economic Forum gets a bad rap among so many people. For me, this annual meeting in Davos is a supercharged growth opportunity; and because of that also early insights for those I serve.
It is where I have been exposed to so much of what was embryonic long before it became main stream. From the Smart Phones to YouTube; Social Media and, most profitable for the BizNews portfolios, the Artificial Intelligence wave (thanks Nvidia, Palatir and IBM).
But despite this, it’s impossible to miss the undertone of antagonism – even in the BizNews tribe. Hence my pondering. And conclusion that it’s generated by a mixture of willful disinformation (reworked video “evidence”); resentment; envy; and sometimes own goals not always of the WEF’s making.
At the centre of the controversy is WEF founder Klaus Schwab.
Social media trolls paint the polymath professor as a real life caricature of Austin Powers’ Dr Evil. Someone for whom nothing less than world domination will do. As the more famous deepfake videos claim, Schwab’s apparent ambition is to pack governments with his drones so they can enforce a world where “You will own nothing and be happy with it.”
The drones?
The WEF has a long-entrenched programme for what it calls Young Global Leaders. The intention is to identify the next generation of achievers, get them to interact and learn from each other, and share information among themselves.
What the critics fail to understand is the YGLs are drawn precisely for their independent thought. Also, while there are politicians among them (notoriously one Saif Ghadaffi was an alumnus) they are drawn primarily from NGOs and business. For a local flavour, their number includes disrupters like Alan Knott-Craig Jnr; Taddy Blecher and the fiery Lindiwe Mazibuko.
So who is the real Klaus Schwab?
I was reminded last night. His creation, like the man, is big on tradition and hierarchy. Ahead of every annual meeting, he has a short welcome function for participants who have attended more than 10 WEFs. I make a point of going, primarily to catch up with acquaintances made over the years.
Last night Klaus and his formidable wife, Schwab Foundation’s creator Hilde (they’re very much a team, increasingly evident as they age) were in great form. His message: let’s all keep doing what we can to make the world a better place. And credo for this year’s meeting, despite the turbulent environment – “Rational optimism.”
I can relate to that.
Through a chance meeting with the WEF’s long-time former director Adrian Monck, last night I attended a dinner hosted by promoters of sustainable wine growing. An unlikely occasion for one who doesn’t imbibe. But it was at FT House, and as we’re the FT’s only Africa partner, it made sense to show my face.
As luck had it, I sat opposite the young Aussie, Barney Swan. Like thousands of others here this week, he is not an official WEF delegate. He is here at the invitation of one of many organisations (and individuals) drawn to the Davos magnet because of an opportunity to tap into the greatest concentration of financial resources assembled anywhere in one place at one time.
Again like so many of the people one meets in Davos, Barney is a walking talking learning opportunity.
He’s a climate change and sustainability social entrepreneur/activist. Well known among that group for spending two months skiing through Antarctica to the South Pole and backtracking his famous explorer father Robert, now 68, who was the first person who walked to both Poles.
Barney told me he’d picked up flack from friends and fans when they heard he was coming to Davos. He, and they, are sceptical of the motives of those who attend. His initial impressions wouldn’t have helped.
Profit gouging is everywhere, as you’d expect considering St Galen University’s estimate that the event injects over SFR100m into the local economy. He told me the accommodation he was offered in Davos itself was a spot on a floor (“I was told to bring my own mattress and sleeping bag”) at a cost of three thousand Swiss Francs for the week. That’s R61 500 for a space he’d have to share with five others.
It gets worse. There was no key, so the six of them (in the one-bedroom flat) would have to co-ordinate their comings and goings. Presumably also when using the bathroom. Barney never shared where he is bunking now, but another friend here accompanying a delegation from a small African state says the only (barely) affordable accommodation is in a village more than an hour away.
*****
A final Davos Moment to share today.
Got a WhatsApp yesterday from Zeblon Vilakazi telling me he’d changed his WhatsApp number and asked me to adjust it. Nothing unusual in that. Zeblon, a nuclear physicist, is married to Mary, CEO of FirstRand. Am expecting to see them in Davos.
He’d tried to call me four times but when I answered, couldn’t connect. Same thing when I phoned back. So, as you do, we reverted to WhatsApp messages. He said he needed my vote and motivation in something he had been nominated for, and would SMS me the link. Sure, go for it. I got distracted, never saw the link – but made a note to call him this morning.
Here comes the supernatural bit.
Inside the Congress Centre, this morning I bumped into ‘Mrs Zeblon”, FirstRand CEO Mary Vilakazi. That in itself is unusual. FirstRand rotate the invitation between its chair and CEO. More to the point, there are thousands of people milling around the Congress Centre and you can easily go through a whole annual meeting only seeing a few from home.
Even less likely is being able to grab more than a hug and a hello. Given what’s on offer, diary pressure is high.
But as it happens, Mary and I got chatting and after a few minutes I shared how Zeblon had SMSed me but we couldn’t connect. As you may expect from the CEO of Africa’s biggest bank, it took her precisely two seconds to work out it was a scam.
She took my phone, reported the conversation as fraud to WhatsApp and explained how I was well on my way to being scammed.
What are the chances?
It added credibility to the story told to me by a widow I met here who is writing a book about the 100 spiritual interventions in her life she has documented. She ascribes them to her ‘Chief Angel Officer’ – her late husband. How did we get thrown into the same place? Why did Mary Vilakazi bump into me hours after I was attacked by a scammer claiming to be her husband?
There are some things that even the most rational of minds cannot explain. I call them God-Incidences. I wonder how my atheist friends explain it.
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