The Davos Congress Centre seen from the air. Photo by World Economic Forum, Wikipedia Commons.

The Davos Congress Centre seen from the air. Photo by World Economic Forum, Wikipedia Commons.
1 Business Europe 

Open Forum Returns To Davos

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As part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022, this year’s Open Forum Davos will focus on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the role of multilateralism for peace in Europe as well as other global challenges.

Taking place for the first time since January 2020, the Open Forum offers a platform for debate and interaction on controversial issues between the public and scholars, business leaders and policy-makers around improving the state of the world.

Young and diverse voices will also play a prominent role in the discussions, with one session on youth mental health co-designed and moderated by students from Geneva, Switzerland. Each session will include at least one member of the Forum’s Global Shapers Community, a wide-ranging network of people under 30 from all walks of life and different parts of the world.

Ignazio Cassis, President of the Swiss Confederation, among other high-level panellists, will be joined by Ievgeniia Bodnya, 27, who mobilized the Global Shaper Hub she leads in Kyiv to build the Support Ukraine Now, a crowdsourcing and sharing information platform for people to support Ukrainians affected by the war. In another session, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko and his brother Wladimir, Chairman of the Klitschko Foundation, will talk about how the Russian invasion has affected them and their country.

Also present at the Open Forum will be a group of climate activists, including 26-year-old Vanessa Nakate, author and climate advocate who addressed world leaders at the World Economic Forum 2020. The activists will articulate how to turn words into action to fight the climate crisis. Gender equality will also feature prominently in the conversations.

On the digital front, the last two years have seen the blending of in-person and virtual interactions. Peggy Johnson, Chief Executive Office of augmented reality company Magic Leap, will introduce the possibilities of the Metaverse and then join a panel of experts, including Pascal Kaufmann, President and Founder of the Mindfire Foundation, the brain behind Lab42, which is setting up shop in Davos in July and aims to become the largest AI lab in the world.

Additional panellists who will participate in this year’s Open Forum Davos include:

  • Ignazio Cassis, President of the Swiss Confederation and Federal Councillor for Foreign Affairs of Switzerland
  • Stephane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer, Moderna
  • Isabella Eckerle, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Geneva
  • Vivianne Heijnen, Minister for the Environment, Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management of the Netherlands
  • Mikaela Jade, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Indigital
  • Peggy Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, Magic Leap Inc.
  • Marco Lambertini, Director-General, WWF International
  • Edward Lewin, Vice-President and Head of Government and Public Affairs, LEGO Group
  • Klaus Moosmayer, Chief Ethics, Risk and Compliance Officer, Novartis AG
  • Seth Moulton, Congressman from Massachusetts
  • Nadia Murad, Nobel Peace Laureate, Nadia’s Initiative; Co-Founder, Global Survivors Fund (GSF), Global Survivors Fund
  • Anna Riedl, Cognitive Scientist and Global Shaper, Vienna Hub
  • Philipp Wilhelm, Mayor of Davos
  • Sakena Yacoobi, Executive Director, Afghan Institute of Learning

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