The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with YouTube, launched the Davos Debates 2010, which allows one lucky YouTube user to actively participate in the upcoming World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010.

The video contest, entitled “Your Pitch to the World”, is looking for a person with a cause or concern that should be highlighted at the Annual Meeting 2010, held from 27 to 31 January in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.

The independent jury – composed, among others, of writer Paulo Coelho, Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus – will shortlist five finalists. The YouTube community will then make the final decision on who should represent the community in Davos. The jury will choose persons who demonstrate knowledge and commitment to a recognized cause or concern and who have the ability to engage and debate with the participants in the Annual Meeting 2010. The deadline for submissions is Monday 4 January 2010.

The winner will have the unique chance to pitch his/her cause in a special session at 15.30 CET on Saturday 30 January 2010.

This is the third year that the Forum is opening our meeting to video submissions from YouTube. In 2008, the Davos Question asked, “What is one thing a government, an individual or a business can do to improve the state of the world?” In early 2009, Pablo Camacho from Bogota, Colombia, submitted the best video to the Davos Debates and won an all-expenses-paid trip to attend the Annual Meeting as a citizen reporter.

In the Congress Centre in Davos, a special video corner allows participants to reply directly to the videos submitted by the YouTube community. World leaders such as Henry Kissinger, H.M. Queen Rania, Shimon Peres and Jacob Zuma, and personalities such as Bono, Jet Li and Amitabh Bachchan, among many others, have taken to opportunity to join the Davos Debates.