President Sarkozy
On 26th, I left Narita to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, which has now become an annual event for me. This time the flight was to Zurich via Frankfurt. Drs. Jun Murai (Internet) of Keio University, Takeshi Natsuno (iMode) Heizo Takenaka (Economy) were on the same plane. I arrived at the hotel in Davos at about 10:30pm, a bit tired.
Leaders of a number of Asian nations were scheduled to come this year, but I was somewhat concerned about political leaders from Japan since the timing always overlaps with the Diet session, and moreover the ‘politics and economy’ are catching people’s attention especially as a hot topic this year. But in the end, I was relieved to learn that 3 Ministers may come.
The programs and details of the meeting are available at the web site of WEF.
On 27th, I attended the morning, session ‘Germs and Globalization’ and afternoon, session ‘Arts, Culture and the Digital Age’. In ‘Arts…..’, I was particularly impressed by the presentation Dr. John Maeda (Ref.1) (Photos below), a Nisei, former Professor of the Media Lab of MIT, currently the President of Rhodes Island School of Design. He is highly accomplished and loved by everybody, and appears in many sessions this year’s WEF.
Dr. John Maeda
In the afternoon there was ‘World Economic Forum Brainstorming; Redefining the Global Commons’. It was quite an interesting theme, but too many participants caused the session to become somewhat not well focused, at least that was the impression I had. The Ideas Lab of MIT was too packed and I regretfully had to miss the event.
President Nicolas Sarkozy (Top Photo) gave plenary speech in the evening delivered with a lot of enthusiasm. After the speech we listened to the piano by Lang Lang , a beautiful performance.
In the evening, I participated in the panel ‘The Rise of Asia’ with Mr. Kuroda, President of Asian Development Bank (ADB) and a few others. The challenge in these panels (and of course elsewhere and anywhere) is how you connect with people; send out messages with wit, in a short and clear manner.
The meeting of this year was again filled with many new encounters.