From morning walk between meetings in Davos
I am here in Davos, Switzerland for the sixth time for the World Economic Forum. It is a strange, beautiful and fascinating place – so many powerful people in three and four star family hotels, so many rules, so many views! But amid all fuss there are extraordinary discussions. It really is a place to bring your case for change.
In my case, the arguments for digital change: skills, jobs, freedom, security, better networks. I gave an interview in today’s Wall Street Journal about my goals for the week, and for the year in fact. And I have been getting a great amount of support from CEOs and other “C” executives for the need to build a “Grand Coalition” to tackle Europe’s digital skills gap, and I also pushed these issues on Reuters TV this morning. Let’s get on with action on this tomorrow. We’ll need it or else it’s a lost generation and companies leaving Europe.
As “co-Governor” of the ICT and telco group here at the Forum, I’ll host another dinner tonight talking to leaders about issues like cybersecurity and net neutrality.
It was interesting to listen to David Cameron’s second-most famous speech of the week. I am glad he mentioned the need to go digital, to invest in digital in both of his speeches this week. I’ll leave my commentary at that.
I was impressed also by the speech of Christine Lagarde about why we have to value the new generation and what they bring to improve our world: openness, inclusion and accountability. This is the transparent generation and that is what the world needs right now. Read it here . People like Christine go to show that being outnumbered doesn’t stop women from having an impact here.
Quote of the day goes to Ian Livingston of BT: ”There are two types of CEOs – those that know they are being hacked and those that don’t”, this was during a panel on joined on making our internet resilient.
Will remember to take more photos and post again soon.
