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An on-line Davos?

By You Nuo (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-02-02 14:28

You Nuo

The 2010 Davos closed. Professor Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, earned a worldwide salute for his tireless effort to organize joined-up answers to complex international issues in the last 40 years. As one article on Businessweek.com says well: “Professor Schwab is a titan.”

In Davos this year, there were 2,500 people from 90 countries, so it generated 100,000 exchanges, assuming each having 20 conversations a day. These exchanges are useful, of course.

But will it be able to accommodate ever more people holding ever more exchanges? Davos may be pushing for the limit of a one-place forum. The local cost is already high. Some journalists were staying in hotels 30 km away and had to take train to their interviews.

Will there be an on-line Davos of some sort - so that speakers and journalists do not have to travel physically to one place to join each other in forums and exchanges? Some international web sites may be doing or planning similar services. I hope there can be one from China.

The author is senior consultant and business columnist at China Daily. He is currently in Davos for the Davos Forum.