Davos 2023: What Corporates, World leaders and Others Had to Say

The World Economic Forum is a prestigious forum where global concerns can be discussed, it was originally formed for resolving international conflicts. It is a prestigious forum which is attended by Chief Executives of Fortune 500 companies and occasionally heads of state. This is an annual event which takes place at the end of January and is invite only.

The World Economic Forum was the brainchild of Klaus Schwab, a German engineer and economist. This lobbying organization is mostly funded by its 1000-member corporations. This year the forum is already turning out to be fruitful for the discussions of the threat of inflation and climate change. It is also the platform for various nations to have business negotiations, exchange ideas and many more. This year at Davos the meetings are already in full swing with major decisions being taken and targets being set.

Let us have a look at the highlights of this meet

Economy: Inflation being at an all-time high in 2022 was certainly a disaster for the global economy, this issue was also addressed by the deputy MD of the IMF who said “even if inflation comes down, prices are high because we don't have deflation, we have lower levels of inflation. The prices have gone up. How much of an impact that has had on households and on consumption varies across countries.” This was a delicate matter as it was risky to tackle this without the threat of recession hanging over us.

Healthcare: The pandemic proved the fragility of various aspects of our society, particularly the healthcare sector, it showed the cracks of how ill equipped we are to handle outbreaks, and how understaffed various medical institutions are, Roy Jakobs, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Philips addressed the audience with his dialogue on how we can prepare the healthcare institutions to ensure the population’s wellbeing.

Climate Change: The degradation of nature with rapid industrialization has been a growing concern for ecologists. It is estimated that there will be a loss of $44 trillion to a lot of nature-dependent industries such as the agricultural sector, Manulife is launching a project called "Accelerating Forest Economy Innovation" on the Forum's open innovation platform, UpLink, in collaboration with 1t.org. The project will include two innovation challenges: the Sustainable Forest Economy Challenge, which begins today, and another focused on forests and trees improving human health and wellbeing.

Social Issues: College Enrollment has declined by a huge margin in the US as youngsters are sceptical about spending absurdly huge sums for a degree when they don’t know if they are going to get a return on it, and students are dropping out at an alarmingly high rate with debt still hanging over them. Recent reports by the lumina foundation showed that 37% of the learners are older than 25 and 24% are parents and 64% work full or part-time. The college system is not welcoming to older adults as it frowns upon them seeking learning in peak earning years, the solutions to all this were discussed such as equipping people with skills which will aid them greatly in the workforce, making education more accessible to the workers and the nature of online and non-profit hybrid model was discussed to tackle the monetary constraints of the masses.

Major Business Discussions: This event was mainly centred on various corporations as it provided them with the opportunity to address the global corporate landscape, various corporate executives took the stage to bring forward their expertise.

The CEO and MD of Tech Mahindra said “Hiring cannot always be linear. The reality is that AI, data, and automation are part of our lives. If it is not linear, revenue goes up. If you don't hire, please do take into account that we are becoming more efficient with automation,” owing to the layoff spree which is witnessed.

Shikhar Aggarwal, MD, BLS International said that BLS international has already crossed the last year's number in only two quarters this year, which is very bright and encouraging. He said that the company will see a lot of profit compared to 2022. He further revealed that a lot of new contracts have been included for example BLS international has started working with the German government, and for the Philippines government which has already started generating revenue.

Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani has expressed her concern over low female participation in the formal workforce of the country and urged Corporate India to address it. Asking India Inc. to increase women's participation in the workforce, the Union Minister also underlined that India Inc. needs to step up in the wake of various women-friendly laws announced by the government. "More and more corporates need to understand that while the government is responsible for framing the legislation, it is the corporate sector that needs to measure up," Irani said.

Byju’s Co-Founder and his wife also took to address the directions of their ed-tech firm and said” 2022 has been a tough year for us. So 2023 can only be better for us. We are fast moving towards sustainable long-term growth, with strong fundamentals. So 2023 is going to be a much, much better year for us in terms of both India as well as some of the core segments which we have started scaling up in other markets.”

The CEO of Uber also took to the platform to assure their firm will not engage in layoffs. The rideshare and delivery company has worked to cut costs for months, early enough relative to others that a memo the CEO wrote on this tougher stance "landed a bit like a lead balloon initially," Khosrowshahi said at an event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.

As part of India's commitment at COP21 in Paris to create additional carbon sinks of 2.5-3.0 billion tonnes of CO2, the Adani Group will plant 100 million trees by 2030. The pledge was made at the Davos World Economic Forum."Restoring ecosystems, reversing biodiversity loss, and reducing soil erosion are all critical for creating a greener world," said Group Chairman Gautam Adani. The group's pledge at the WEF is the largest in India to date; the 100 million would include both mangroves and terrestrial trees. The pledge was made on the World Economic Forum's "Trillion Trees Platform," 1t.org.

Science: In a capitalistic society, we are driven by the nature of profit to research and innovate, but sometimes, a lot of quality research is often overlooked as it possesses no return on investment, we cannot deny the fact that major technology which is of tremendous use today at the time of their invention wasn’t valued much, this forum stressed the need of academic research on how we should pursue scientific endeavour for the sake of sheer curiosity and focus on fundamental academic research as the modern economy will be flawed if it only keeps investing in applied sciences. Fundamental science is what drives innovation. Einstein’s theory of general relativity during his time had no practical applications, but today it was fundamental to the development of the GPS.

This is a nutshell coverage of a few major events which were discussed at the world economic forum, there was also a major address from numerous heads of state which focused on the democratic fundamentals and various entrepreneurs also voiced their thoughts at the world economic forum. These are turbulent times and the world economic forum has proved itself as a centre for discussion in every possible field where people can work for the betterment of society and come together to sort out their differences.