Picarro pushes the envelope in developing the world’s highest performance gas analysers

In a world increasingly conscious of the impact of greenhouse gases on climate change, the precision measurement of gas emissions is taking on critical importance.

Picarro’s wide range of high performance gas analysing equipment serves a wide spectrum ranging from atmospheric scientists to local public utilities. The latter is particularly relevant since hydraulic oil shale fracturing, known as fracking, has suddenly made natural gas abundantly available. Burning natural gas creates one-half the carbon emissions of coal. Unfortunately, natural gas is mostly methane, which is 20 times, as a greenhouse gas, as potent as carbon dioxide.

Spotting gas leaks is now a priority, and Picarro, which employs a laser-based cavity ring-down spectrometer, which can be put in the back of a car and can detect leaks on any street in a matter of minutes. A city’s gas leaks can be mapped in one or two weeks. A recent assessment by Picarro showed that Boston and San Francisco both have invisible methane plumes hovering overhead that are 15 times the normal global level. As more countries opt for natural gas over nuclear power, this type of measurement becomes increasingly critical. Picarro has been tapped to develop sophisticated sensors that will help assess gas leaks at the national and regional level in the US. Picarro’s work on precision laser measurements has made it a pioneer in the effort to provide the hard data needed to move beyond polemics in the climate change debate and develop fact-based solutions.

Picarro Inc.
Michael Woelk, Chief Executive Officer
Location: CA, USA
Number of Employees: 90
Year Founded: 1998

Picarro, Inc.
3105 Patrick Henry Dr.
Santa Clara, CA 95054
USA
Telephone: +1 408 962 3900
info@picarro.com
www.picarro.com

In plain terms, it has been a huge privilege to meet seven other phenomenal Africans. Although the World Economic Forum brought us together, I believe there is a higher calling to our meeting that can possibly have a huge impact on our beloved motherland and change the dynamics of our future and future generations. We can be the catalyst that fosters the socio-economic integration that we so long to see on the continent. I want my children to one day get on the Afri-train from one end of the Sahara to another uninhibited and unencumbered viewing the beauty and wonder of each destination on the southern line. The brand of Africa that we project will pave way for the next set of African children to walk around with their heads high, playing on the global stage not as a handicap participant but on equal terms with their Western counterparts. The complex of coming from a degenerating state of affairs will not hound them the way it clung to our spirits and overshadowed our every being.

The cloak of inefficiencies, corruption, short or zero term vision will no longer be worn by our generation I hope, for the grave consequences of such have stamped it seal on our foreheads, making life much harder than it ought to be. Where the rest of the world is imagining the next innovation to make great feats such as the flying car possible, the African child is imagining a world free of famine, strife, bad governance, lack of infrastructure, education, healthcare and water.

As we heard over and over again throughout our time in Davos, it really is up to us to change the worn and torn brand of a pathetic Africa to the bold and colourful Africa embodied in the designs of Eskado Bird, the discipline and unrelenting drive of Brand Effect, the vibrant energy and vitality in WanaWana, the collaborative and focused spirit in Mekdes and the strong hunger to push boundaries and redefine impossibility to nothing by Rapelang, Gregory, Birama and other young Africans shows a glimpse of the immense potential of the continent. Imagine putting all these powers together to form a body of problem solvers such as the animation X-Men portrayed. Imagine that Africa.

Beyond imagining, let us actively create it because it is within our reach. We have complained enough to last the next five generations. Lets take up the mantle of furthering the message ‘When History was Made’ and may posterity judge us on the right end as those that redefined what it meant to be African.

Here’s to the launch of a new brand and platform of engagement. Here is to my new found sisters, brothers and friends. Here is to the Africa project version 3.0.

Capitalism is only an economic system composed of human beings that has its roots in freedom, property rights and welfare via economic growth. Capitalism is supposed to provide economic opportunity and a better future for all. Yes, capitalism is based on capital accumulation, but under capitalism, human capital can also be seen as an asset. In that line of thinking, investment in one’s personal abilities, such as through education, is also a way to create wealth.

Maybe if we look at the world as a family it will be useful to reflect on the concept of family wealth as described by James Hughes Jr in his book “Family”, where he states that the wealth of a family consists of the human and intellectual capital of its members, and that a family’s financial capital is a tool to support the growth of the family’s human and intellectual capital. There are many studies that demonstrate that capitalism and globalization have been effective in reducing poverty. The poverty rate has decreased tremendously in the last 30 years. Also in the last 30 years, life expectancy, the mortality rate, education, democracy, access to clean water – all indicators without exception – have improved.

Despite the improvements, we cannot ignore what Paul Polman, chief executive officer of Unilever, stated in Davos: “Today, 1 billion people are still going to bed hungry while 1 billion people are obese”. The question we need to ask ourselves is how efficient have we been managing our resources? Obviously, we are not putting in practice one of the key virtues of capitalism, which is allocating resources well and incentivizing their proper use.

From my standpoint, the global financial, economic and social crisis we are currently living through, and all its consequences, are not problems due to capitalism’s fundamentals as a system, but an output of the use – or misuse in this case – we are having on it. As financial analyst Mike Mayo said, “The problem with our economic system today is not a problem of capitalism. It is due to a lack of capitalism”.

Some experts attribute the crisis to the many improper interventions that governments have applied to the financial system, which is contrary to what a free system proposes. According to Raghuram Rajan in his article Too Big to Save?, the ideal free-enterprise system rewards entrepreneurs with the full value of what their products contribute to society if they succeed and punishes them to the full extent of the resources they have wasted if they fail. If no entity is imperishable, the free-enterprise system will work better and with more democracy legitimacy.

Perhaps, as John B. Taylor writes in his article Economics for the Long Run: “Government policies must adhere more closely to the principles of economic freedom… At their most basic level, these principles are that families, individuals and entrepreneurs must be free to decide what to produce, what to consume, what to buy and sell, and how to help others. Their decisions are to be made within a predictable government policy framework based on the rule of law, with strong incentives derived from the market system, and with a clearly limited role for government”.

Within this principle of freedom, I think we urgently need to show that capitalism can be operated with a new face. Capitalism needs to show that while pursuing economic growth it is also possible to create social and environmental value. That is the proposition of Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter with the creation of shared value. Capitalism also needs to demonstrate that there are also people who are willing to create social businesses, non-dividend businesses created to solve social problems, which is the proposition of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Between these two models, there is a large array of possibilities where social entrepreneurs, individuals, corporations, institutions, NGOs and governments play a role.

I am sure that the majority of us will be able to find a way to contribute to society and help others. In my view, this is only possible in a system that operates under capitalism. In the long run, capitalism, as a system, will pay back to society. We need to have trust and be optimistic about the future, look around and be creative in finding solutions for a better world. I am sure that there are plenty of unsolved problems surrounding us. I invite you to pick one and solve it using the social innovation model of your choice and maybe, as French film maker Luc Besson said while receiving an award in Davos: “Together all the grains of sand can create the most beautiful beach in the world”.

Editors Note
Claudia Valladares, Executive Director, Banca Comunitaria Banesco, Venezuela; Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Venezuela, 2010.

Banca Comunitaria Banesco provides access to banking services, including savings accounts and micro-credit, to low-income individuals in Venezuela.

    “I believe that all human beings have intrinsic value. Regardless of their ethnicity, religion, etc. For those of us who have faith we were all created by the same Creator and therefore should respect ALL of his creations (yes, even Donald Trump!).”

    “I believe in the resilience and endurance of the human spirit. If given the opportunity, the capacity and the tools, the marginalized can and will extricate themselves from poverty. It’s our job to provide them with an enabling ecosystem or get out of their way.”

    “I believe in socioeconomic justice. This belief drives my relentless desire to dismantle the de facto socioeconomic apartheid that is prevalent in many parts of the developing and developed world. Much of this ‘apartheid’ is the legacy of a post-colonial oligarchy that has tried desperately to hold onto power by exploiting and subjugating large numbers of the disempowered. I remember vividly how, as a child, I would be shell-shocked by the sight of kids my age begging on the streets of Mumbai or Karachi or working in Lahori or Delhi ‘havelis’ (mansions) as informally bonded child labor. The sheer disparity in my access to education, health and economic opportunity compared to these ‘Children of a lesser God’ made me intensely uncomfortable and more determined to tackle this issue head-on. To this day, I remain amazed at the general apathy of the elite and affluent in the developing world. Have they simply become desensitized by the teeming poverty that surrounds them or are they actually incapable of compassion? This is a question I am confronted with on a daily basis when I see a ‘squeegee kid’ peering through my windshield with ‘help save me’ written all over his face.”

Read full post on the social entrepreneurship section of the Huffington Post 

One of the key trends of the last few decades has been the total reshaping of the global landscape with the emergence of a multitude of actors with diverging interests and agendas. In the last 60 years, the number of countries has increased from 105 to 195 and international NGOs from about 1,000 to 20,000-30,000. And, in the past 20 years multinational companies have jumped from 3,000 to 80,000.

Among all these new actors, corporations are enjoying unprecedented power. According to research by the Institute of Policy Studies, of the 100 largest economies in 2000, 51 were corporations and only 49 were countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs). The number, size and geographical spread of corporations continue to grow. In the current economic crisis, many companies have shown higher resilience than their home governments.

Most importantly, the current institutions have been losing the trust of the population. The annual “Trust Barometer” survey, released by Edelman in January 2012, showed that overall trust in key institutions, government, business, NGOs and the media, has declined except for the media. For the first time, trust in government fell into the last place. Dwindling trust in government is evident even in countries like China where the saving rate remains high because the population doubts the prospects of future state social protection.

“We need to start working together” was the phrase I heard often in Davos this year. Hope is bestowed on NGOs, the private sector and private-public collaboration in addressing the failures of the states to provide for the basic societal needs. Charitable foundations, philanthropic organizations and social impact investors have donated an unprecedented amount of resources to social causes last year, estimated at several trillion US dollars.

The scale and impact of these interventions are however far from sufficient to meet the existing needs of the poorest in food, water, security, health and education, as well as to address the deterioration of environment and depletion of natural resources.

For me, this is the key question of our times. Given the impotence of global and national institutions, how can small-scale solutions that work and have concrete impact on the ground be dramatically multiplied and scaled up? 

This requires a citizen revolution. Conditions need be created to make it extremely easy to attract capital and create numerous new types of sustainable enterprises addressing social needs, creating employment, cherishing values-based behaviour and responsible consumption.  

As many other citizens of the world, I have lost trust in the institutions. The capital and young entrepreneurs have to come together to address the staggering needs of our times. Maybe then the institutional dinosaurs will follow and adapt if they do not want to become sidelined by history. We are just at the very beginning of this transformational process.

Oksana Myshlovska, Associate Director, Global Agenda Councils

Picture: A boy stands next to a tree in Barmil in this recently taken handout photo released on July 21, 2011. A wide swathe of east Africa, including Kenya and Ethiopia, has been hit by years of severe drought and the United Nations says two regions of southern Somalia are suffering the worst famine for 20 years, with 3.7 million people facing starvation. In the village of Barmil, people wait for water because their wells are dry. They are dependent on donations and a water truck which comes and fills the town water tank up. Many walk 6 hours each way to fetch water. REUTERS/Jakob Dall/Danish Red Cross/Handout

Are we working as individuals and nations to cultivate greater happiness ­– most simply described as thriving people living in a thriving environment? After all, what is the point of faster growth if it deepens the environmental degradation, inequality and social unrest we are already experiencing? Sessions with intriguing titles such as “The Art and Science of Happiness,” “Beyond GDP: Metrics that Matter,” and “Designing Better Lives” filled the Davos agenda.

In the “Beyond GDP” session, Lord Richard Layard, founder of the Center for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, celebrated the world waking up to the fact that GDP is an insufficient – and sometimes misleading – measure of well-being, failing to reflect the quality of the natural environment, social connections, personal health and individual opportunity.

The number of countries and coalitions – from China, Japan and Korea to the UK, US and Germany – that have taken steps to reframe our vision of progress is cause for celebration. As early as 1972, the King of Bhutan launched the Gross National Happiness Index as an alternative to GDP. More recently, French President Nikolas Sarkozy created a Commission led by Nobel Laureate economists Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, which resulted in the 2009 “Report on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.” And just last October, the OECD launched its “How’s Life?” report, ranking countries across a dozen indicators of well–being that include material living conditions and quality of life.

The European Commission (EC) has defined key actions to improve countries’ standings on these indicators, which have influenced the five targets set by the EC to guide its policies in the EU 2020 Strategy. “If we can know better what people wish for, what they want, what makes them happy, then we [as policymakers] can have better answers. It is one of most promising bits of work we are doing at the OECD,” said Angel Gurria, Head of the OECD, in the Davos “Beyond GDP” panel.

At the same time, Monk Matthieu Ricard – often called “the happiest man on earth” – reminded us in the “Art and Science of Happiness” session that one can enhance happiness through individual practice, not solely through external interventions. Neuroscientists Richard Davidson and Tanya Singer, corroborated his point, noting that after modest training, new synaptic connections are formed in the brain, resulting in more altruistic and compassionate behavior. Even the business community is getting behind happiness. The most recent edition of the Harvard Business Review makes the business case for happiness, arguing that happy employees engaged in service are more creative and likely to be promoted.

We all want happiness. This was viscerally apparent at the start of the “Art and Science of Happiness” session in Davos, when the 250 wait-listed world leaders in government, civil society and business clambered to get in to oversubscribed session.

Let us translate these vibrant discussions from Davos into action, at the local, national and global level.

First, support greater happiness in your community through personal practice and service. The Dalai Lama reminds us that the straightest path to becoming happy is to care for the well being of others. Create a new requirement for M.E. (mental exercise) – in addition to P.E. (Physical Exercise) – in schools.  Convince your local leaders to begin measuring human well-being in cities and provinces. Second, continue to spur national leaders to adopt broader measures of societal progress beyond GDP. Compel them to abolish national policies that run counter to this vision and design positive ones. As Gurria noted in the “Beyond GDP” session, consider the resultant dramatic improvement in well-being from reallocating the $400 billion in global fossil fuel subsidies to the needy.

And finally, prioritize happiness within our global frameworks. Human well-being should take a front seat at the United Nation’s “Rio + 20” Conference on Sustainable Development this April in Brazil, so that the myriad elements that contribute to true societal progress are adopted as the next round of international Development Goals.

Julia Novy-Hildesley, Young Global Leader, 2010

Before arriving at Davos, I was intentional and strategic about how I could make the best and most use of the week. I reached out well in advance to attending CEOs of companies with which KaBOOM! has an existing partnership, or ones we hope to develop partnerships, and requested individual meetings. I am happy to report that I was able to set up several early morning meetings with some important CEOs.

But then I got to Davos, where the larger opportunity took center stage.

Session after session in Davos is focused on the future of our world, the economy and some of our biggest political and social challenges. The Davos themes were about collective impact and shared values. The shared value discussions emphasized that we cannot assume that we all care about the same things. Before being able to have collective impact, we must first be in partnerships with shared values and there is work entailed in moving to that place. The Davos discussions suggested that public private partnerships not be based in philanthropy, but that the most powerful and impactful are the strategic partnerships.

In many of my meetings with CEOs, we were able to carry through this thread of what was being discussed at the Forum. We didn’t get caught up in conversations about how many playgrounds we could build together, but, instead, contemplated how we could leverage a partnership to better reach customers, and how, ultimately we can get those customers to care about what we care about. We talked about taking the shared value between the business and KaBOOM! and creating shared value with the customer, then moving to collective action so that we can ultimately have the desired collective impact. In our case, that collective impact is healthier and happier children who are encouraged to use their creativity and imaginations.

If even a small percentage of what was discussed comes to be, than the outlook for children and play and the well-being of communities looks much brighter. Now the real work begins as my team works with me to follow up and follow through not only on the CEO conversations, but also the 50-plus other conversations from my week at the World Economic Forum.

In a more macro way, coming out of Davos I have thoughts about scaling what works — there is an impressive array of proof of concept of what works. It will be interesting to see what ideas might get the scaling deserved.

Editors Note
Darell Hammond, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, KaBOOM!, USA; Social Entrepreneur of the Year, USA, 2011

At the Summit on the Global Agenda 2011 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies asked some of the world’s leading minds within the entire GAC Network which technology trends would have the greatest impact on the state of the world in the near future.

Below, the Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies presents the technological trends expected to have major social, economic and environmental impacts worldwide in 2012. They are listed in order of greatest potential to provide solutions to global challenges:

1. Informatics for adding value to information

The quantity of information now available to individuals and organizations is unprecedented in human history, and the rate of information generation continues to grow exponentially. Yet, the sheer volume of information is in danger of creating more noise than value, and as a result limiting its effective use. Innovations in how information is organized, mined and processed hold the key to filtering out the noise and using the growing wealth of global information to address emerging challenges.

2. Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering

The natural world is a testament to the vast potential inherent in the genetic code at the core of all living organisms. Rapid advances in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering are allowing biologists and engineers to tap into this potential in unprecedented ways, enabling the development of new biological processes and organisms that are designed to serve specific purposes – whether converting biomass to chemicals, fuels and materials, producing new therapeutic drugs or protecting the body against harm.

3. Green Revolution 2.0 – technologies for increased food and biomass

Artificial fertilizers are one of the main achievements of modern chemistry, enabling unprecedented increases in crop production yield. Yet, the growing global demand for healthy and nutritious food is threatening to outstrip energy, water and land resources. By integrating advances across the biological and physical sciences, the new green revolution holds the promise of further increasing crop production yields, minimizing environmental impact, reducing energy and water dependence, and decreasing the carbon footprint.

4. Nanoscale design of materials

The increasing demand on natural resources requires unprecedented gains in efficiency. Nanostructured materials with tailored properties, designed and engineered at the molecular scale, are already showing novel and unique features that will usher in the next clean energy revolution, reduce our dependence on depleting natural resources, and increase atom-efficiency manufacturing and processing.

5. Systems biology and computational modelling/simulation of chemical and biological systems

For improved healthcare and bio-based manufacturing, it is essential to understand how biology and chemistry work together. Systems biology and computational modelling and simulation are playing increasingly important roles in designing therapeutics, materials and processes that are highly efficient in achieving their design goals, while minimally impacting on human health and the environment.

6. Utilization of carbon dioxide as a resource

Carbon is at the heart of all life on earth. Yet, managing carbon dioxide releases is one of the greatest social, political and economic challenges of our time. An emerging innovative approach to carbon dioxide management involves transforming it from a liability to a resource. Novel catalysts, based on nanostructured materials, can potentially transform carbon dioxide to high value hydrocarbons and other carbon-containing molecules, which could be used as new building blocks for the chemical industry as cleaner and more sustainable alternatives to petrochemicals.

7. Wireless power

Society is deeply reliant on electrically powered devices. Yet, a significant limitation in their continued development and utility is the need to be attached to the electricity grid by wire – either permanently or through frequent battery recharging. Emerging approaches to wireless power transmission will free electrical devices from having to be physically plugged in, and are poised to have as significant an impact on personal electronics as Wi-Fi had on Internet use.

8. High energy density power systems

Better batteries are essential if the next generation of clean energy technologies are to be realized. A number of emerging technologies are coming together to lay the foundation for advanced electrical energy storage and use, including the development of nanostructured electrodes, solid electrolysis and rapid-power delivery from novel supercapacitors based on carbon-based nanomaterials. These technologies will provide the energy density and power needed to supercharge the next generation of clean energy technologies.

9. Personalized medicine, nutrition and disease prevention

As the global population exceeds 7 billion people – all hoping for a long and healthy life – conventional approaches to ensuring good health are becoming less and less tenable, spurred on by growing demands, dwindling resources and increasing costs. Advances in areas such as genomics, proteomics and metabolomics are now opening up the possibility of tailoring medicine, nutrition and disease prevention to the individual. Together with emerging technologies like synthetic biology and nanotechnology, they are laying the foundation for a revolution in healthcare and well-being that will be less resource intensive and more targeted to individual needs.

10. Enhanced education technology

New approaches are needed to meet the challenge of educating a growing young population and providing the skills that are essential to the knowledge economy. This is especially the case in today’s rapidly evolving and hyperconnected globalized society. Personalized IT-based approaches to education are emerging that allow learner-centred education, critical thinking development and creativity. Rapid developments in social media, open courseware and ubiquitous access to the Internet are facilitating outside classroom and continuous education.

Pictured: German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer walks in a ‘Virtual Reality Cave’ to see the Airbus A350 in 3D, during a visit to the Airbus facility in Finkenwerder near Hamburg October 21, 2010. REUTERS/Christian Charisius

Palantir pioneers an engineering-centred approach to radically change the way data is analysed

Data smog is a hazard of today’s increasingly interconnected world. Unexpected opportunities as well as the answers to seemingly intractable problems often lay camouflaged under mountains of irrelevant and distracting detail.

Palantir’s data analysis platforms provide solutions for finance, government and intelligence agencies. The company’s finance object model offers a ready-built architecture to connect the dots and spot trends and developing curves that provide an essential advantage when it comes to critical decisionmaking. Palantir’s software for government analysis enables structured and unstructured data sources to be seamlessly integrated and provides a common platform for heterogeneous users, groups and agencies to work together while protecting the privacy and security of the information. The systems combine powerful back-end databases and server architecture with an intuitive front-end user interface. Palantir’s products are equally comfortable with unstructured message traffic and structured identity data. Palantir’s innovative approach clears the way to ground-breaking solutions in a rapidly evolving technological environment.

Palantir Technologies
Alexander Karp, Co-Founder and CEO
Location: CA, USA
Number of Employees: 400
Year Founded: 2004

Palantir Technologies
100 Hamilton Ave, Suite 300
Palo Alto, CA 94301
USA
Telephone: +1 650 815 0200
www.palantir.com

Africa is in the middle of a renaissance.

The 1960s were a time of change on the African continent. Independence movements were seeing the fruit of their labour. Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who had led the independence drive for the then Gold Coast in 1957, had declared that there was a new African who would take his place in world affairs. In the years that followed, however, that new African lost his way. Year after year, there were reports of coup d’etats – successful and failed – in one African country or the other. Greed and corruption forced these new states into poverty and economic despair. With time, civil war, hunger, and disease became synonymous with Africa. And in 1994, the continent reached its lowest ebb: genocide.

What happened to the new African who would be proof that the black man was ready to be self-sufficient? For close to two generations, stories in the international media from Africa were more negative than positive. Almost no African country was spared.

However, around the turn of the century, something happened. Young Africans seemed to have had enough of the poverty and squalor and went about making a name for themselves in business. Indeed opportunities abound in Africa. It’s for this same reason that foreign investors have for years made Africa their playground. Millions of dollars of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) are poured into African economies each year. As at 2008, China had invested over $100 billion into Africa, constructing roads, stadia and high rise business complexes.

As Africans have striven to develop, so have opportunities increased. Telecommunications is one area which has served African entrepreneurs well, and there, Dr. Mike Adenuga stands tall. In 2003, he established Globacom, a 100% Nigerian owned telecoms giant. In less than a decade, Glo Mobile has registered over 25 million subscribers, and their Glo 1 is the first submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria. Celtel, which was acquired by Zain (and then by Airtel) in 2004 had over 24 million subscribers in 14 African countries. It was founded by Sudanese-born Dr. Mo Ibrahim, sending his net worth in excess of $1.8 billion. (This prompted him to initiate the Mo Ibrahim Prize for African excellence in leadership to promote transparency in government and quality in managing economies.)

Telecommunications is just one area where Africans are providing Africa’s needs in an internationally competitive field. Africa’s challenges are many, yet in each of these, many glowing opportunities can be found. These needs span wide areas, in construction, in mining, in energy production, in education, and in all these fields, sons and daughters of Africa are taking up leadership positions to meet these needs. In fact, Patrick Awuah’s leaving his position at Microsoft Corporation in Seattle to establish Ashesi University in Ghana says a lot about how Africans are garnering belief in Africa as a place to do business and to thrive.

Today, African youth are taking their fates into their own hands. Right here on this soil, entrepreneurial activity is buzzing in the world of fashion, real estate, agriculture and art. They believe that one can make it onto the world stage from right here. Gradually, the dependence on debt is loosening, and Africans are taking up these opportunities to create wealth.

We eagerly look to the day when the rest of Africa will wake up and hold the reins of our economies in our own hands, and lead future generation into a destiny of prosperity. Then will we can rally our sleeping brothers and sisters with the words of Bob Marley, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.”

Another Davos Experience: Occupy Davos
By Eben Bayer
@ebenbayer

So far, 2012 is being marked by the World Economic Forum’s focus of shaping new models, a record breaking snow fall in Davos, and my second chance to experience the ideas, networking, insanity, exhaustion, jockeying and general magic which makes this event one of the best on the planet.

What I’m taking away with conviction this year is what began to impinge on my consciousness last year. While the Forum is brimming, indeed overflowing with ideas, there doesn’t appear to be a conduit to transform these idea’s into concrete actions. Or, as Toby Keith would say, we need “a little less talk and a lot more action”.

But to be perfectly frank, I’m not sure I can stomach another session where the end result is “a report detailing the ideas and concepts” we produced during a session. Invariably, we (the participants) leave the room feeling energized for action, but when we return to our respective regions, as the chief executive of a major strategic partner here told me, we “get caught back up in the day-to-day of running our business’s” (or NGOs or social enterprises).

Thankfully, this year has seen an exciting development in Davos: Occupy movement protestors. Now whatever you may have to say about the movement, good or bad, they have demonstrated one particular core competency, and that is to take concrete action. The individuals in this movement are passionate, motivated, and willing to risk their livelihoods and, in some cases, their personal freedoms.

Protestors are not a new phenomenon at the World Economic Forum, and I would argue that they actually represent a missing ingredient that could take this global gathering to the next level – a commitment to taking action.

By this same token, I have a firm belief that the Occupy movement is missing some of the key ingredients seen in the Forum. Namely a vision for what is possible and strong charismatic leaders that can focus the energy of this movement into positive change. While the actions of the Occupy movement have been admirable in catalysing public engagement, they are primarly a message of “No!”  They have an appropriate response to the inequities they are addressing, but unfortunately not a vision that a larger portion of our world can get beyond.

The Occupy movement is also missing a key portion of transformative change. Yes, of course, we need to reject our standard models – they have failed and are failing us (in categories like economy, ecology, education and health). But rejection is not sufficient. The elements of transformative change are a call to action, and a clear vision of what must be achieved. This is how you go the moon, defend your country, have a successful revolution.

Fortunately, less than 1 km from the Occupy Igloo exists the Forum, overflowing with vision and strategies for tackling the pressing problems facing our planet. And fortunately for the Forum, groups representing the tens of thousands of passionate, dedicated and action-taking occupiers, is waiting for inspiration.

So what I found so exciting in Davos this year is that we had all the components for generating transformative change in one place. I’m hoping with fingers crossed that we may see a fusion between these movements creating a powerful equation for success: Vision + Leadership + Concrete Action = Measurable Transformative Change.

Manufacturing is no longer what it was in the 19th century; it is not dirty or reserved for blue collar workers. Think of the high tech and innovative products now manufactured around the world, like iPhones or Dyson vacuum cleaners. Indeed, modern manufacturing contributes to economic growth and raises both the technological stock and skills of a country. It is the backbone of any industrialized society and still today can be a strategic advantage for countries worldwide.

I am not disputing the fact that manufacturing has become less strategically important for some countries. The facts are there – look at the United States for instance: in the 1950s, 30% of GDP came from manufacturing, compared to 12% in 2008. Nonetheless, I believe that, in the next 10 years, manufacturing will regain importance and be perceived as sector that can bring a competitive edge. It is already happening: the Obama administration took the decision earlier this year to make manufacturing one of the United States’ key priorities.

As countries face high unemployment rates, they are likely to turn to labour-intensive industries such as manufacturing. For example, in 2011, India revealed its strategic framework – the Twelfth Five-Year Plan – of which manufacturing is a key component. The country will work to increase the share of manufacturing to 25% of GDP by 2025 and generate 100 million additional jobs. Similarly, the growing middle class in China, India and Brazil means that there will be a greater need for consumer goods and thus for manufacturing.

In addition, world population will continue to grow, consumer expectations are set to boom and supply chain complexity will only increase. In this context, the manufacturing sector will need to become an innovative, demand-oriented industry. Both corporations and governments should work closely to ensure that quality is up to international standards and jobs are created. Manufacturing cars has safety implications that manufacturing clothes does not.

The world’s complexity and interconnectedness demand a new type of model and solutions for the industrial sector. This is exactly what the Global Agenda Council on Advanced Manufacturing is working on. A new model for manufacturing will not come from one stakeholder, but from a multistakeholder dialogue accounting for all relevant issues affecting the sector, including the rising middle class in emerging economies, innovation, job creation and skills gaps, trade policy, supply value chain evolution, environmental impact and more. Take a look at the Forum’s industry project video on the Future of Manufacturing here.

How do you think manufacturing will evolve in the next decade?

Tiffany Misrahi is Research Analyst, Global Agenda Councils at the World Economic Forum.

Pictured:Wind turbine blades sit in a field outside TPI Composites in Newton, Iowa December 22, 2011. TPI Composites manufactures blades for Mitsubishi and GE. REUTERS/Joshua Lott