Earlier this year I was elected a 'Young Global Leader' by the Davos World Economic Forum. I have also had a baby and am rather averse to travelling but in the end I decide on a compromise - to go for just half the week and so, on a diamond bright afternoon I find myself at the Schatzalp - a romantic location above the Swiss village of Davos, the inspiration for Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain

Tuesday

Our first session is titled the Art of Leadership. Art as opposed to science sounds promising. A few fellow YGLs are invited to stand up and tell their personal stories of leadership. Two tell of personal danger in pioneering freedom of the press against opposing regimes, another has overcome personal disability, a fourth has abandoned a lucrative position at the head of a global company to start an education venture. They are powerful stories - the theme and so the art is one of moral courage.

I arrived curious but a little cynical about this mysteriously chosen group, with its smatterings of royalty, ministerial power and new web oligarchy - we are from all parts of the globe, but in the main, clearly privileged. This begins to ebb away and fades still more when task forces formed last year explain what they have delivered - we are PhDos, not PhDs - quips one financial wizard. The mood is infectious and the team spirit moving.

Over drinks I meet potential kindred spirits, make connections and hatch a few plots. At dinner Professor Schwab, founder of Davos, appears. Like the perfect host he says only a few words, before slipping into the background. He tells us to bring our brains, hearts and souls and to use this experience to make change in our lives and the lives of our organisations. At our table we talk about design, women's rights in Cambodia, the role of the public and the private in delivering public services and India's managerial challenges. It is fun and fascinating. Late at night I take the cable car back down the mountain and I crunch back to my hotel through the snow, ears frozen but mind buzzing.

Wednesday

I grapple with the electronic diary system for the day ahead - the session on happiness is sold out, the one on workaholism at 10.30 pm seems a touch too ironic. I am now late. At Davos you don't need a helicopter but a driver is useful - I borrow someone else's, collide with Bono in the lobby and sneak into our YGL morning session. A range of international luminaries give us their perspective on global challenges and ask us how we might tackle things differently. My work and that of the RED team at the Design Council leads me to argue that the answer is not to look through the institutional lens, but rather to start at the level of the individual where all these issues connect, and to create solutions from this perspective.

Later, in the conference hall the main plenary begins. This year's theme is the creative imperative and I am seated at a table tasked to talk about creating future jobs. One of our number from Nigeria shares his slogan: 'shit business is good business'. Previously a member of a minister's security detail he saw the need for portable loos at an official function - left his day job and started a business which now employs 700. We talk about the potential to foster more social entrepreneurship.

The plenary is disappointing - business leaders are happy to take the microphone but they talk largely in profile raising sound bites. The tone is liberal but the focus as predicted is on mainstream business issues. Why is the environment not still on the agenda as a priority someone asks. That was last year's agenda we are told and the same subjects cannot always be discussed.

Angela Merkel gives the opening address. She looks tired and also somewhat homely so I warm towards her. Her message is pedestrian - designed to assure business leaders that Germany will indeed restructure, reshape and reduce. It goes down well with the business audience it seems - the CEOs of Nestle and Pfizer sound like Victorian parents as they respectively check on her progress and tell her the tone is long overdue - but I feel it is a wasted opportunity to think bigger about the global agenda, to inspire. She is a little stumped when asked for three personal values.

The second speaker is Zeng, China's vice premier and chief architect of China's change. The hall almost empties whilst Schwab looks on a little open mouthed - so much for China being the focus of this year's forum. Zeng's speech is mesmerising in its formulaic delivery. We will 'transform China's rural areas with a new socialist outlook' he rolls on 'facilitate an orderly migration to the cities'. It is clear why those in the know left early.

I go back to my hotel where my small, rather bare room is now stuffed with party invitations from Peter Gabriel (mis-delivered) and others, gifts from the global enterprises and a fax - I had forgotten it's my birthday.

I go on to dinner. I am seated next to the internationally revered economist Joseph Stiglitz who turns out to be a warm, charming and inclusive person. The subject is good parenting and he tells us that, in developed countries, children are not a good investment and opportunity costs are high.

The discussion includes a bishop, a leading academic and a child psychoanalyst. There is consensus that good parenting means parents spending time with and caring for their children. Counter to prevailing wisdom most believe that less child care and more direct parenting is good for children and the state reducing health budgets, crime budgets and the costs associated with low level disorder. What is clear is that in most countries, rich and poor, small firms bear the cost of parenting and are reluctant to adopt new practices.

Thursday

There are more helicopters now. I wonder where most of the Davos residents have gone as I walk behind two small children. Someone later tells me that most leave since the invading powers spend no money locally.

I have chosen a dawn session on rural China. It takes place in two languages with simultaneous translation although I am suspicious that the languorous translator can really be capturing the rapid piccicato of the Chinese.

China is increasingly experiencing violent rural protests usually explained as a result of increasing income disparity. Prof Bai of Tsinghua University questions this explanation and links the unrest to rights which are increasingly being violated. Property rights are not well defined so there is corruption in the conversion of land to non agricultural uses.

There are claims that China has done a lot to alleviate poverty. But Huang Yasheng from MIT argues that 80 percent of this poverty reduction took place in the 1980s when there was financial liberalisation in rural areas and banks were willing to lend to the private sector. The result was that rural residents moved into value added activities. In the 90s the financial sector has changed with foreign direct investment and finance generally is restricted to cities where it is being directed to state owned enterprises. The only option for the rural poor since the 90s is to become an urban labourer.

Zoellick US Deputy Secretary of State is also on the platform, candid that his discussions with China focus more on issues such as Iran, North Korea and counterfeiting. Can you have real open discussions? 'Sort of' he responds.

From here I move on to a session on the gaming industry. A panel of designers and academics dismiss the question that games might be nefarious. As one speaker said; 'this question only exists for non gamers - you don't watch games you play them - it would be like a car review by someone without a driving licence that hasn't driven it. It's not the narrative the panel argues but the problem solving skills, the ability to do complex systems thinking.

It's all slightly surreal. The session is packed, but not by gamers - the world's global leaders it turns out are first and foremost worried at the amount of time their children spend gaming: the violence, the lack of physical exercise, the alternative skills which atrophy and the real possibility of applying the problem solving skills developed to a very different 'real' universe.

I want to know what the speakers think about the potential social applications of their work - I am thinking how RED might build on their success in harnessing the creativity of millions of gamers - but I find it impossible to break in. Someone from Serious Games does manage to ask about the new business models gaming has spawned.

That's it - like Cinderella my time is up. I make a quick exit through the VIP entrance colliding again with the ubiquitous Bono. I am delighted with his morning's quote about RED ' RED is a 21st century idea. 'Doing the RED thing, doing good, will turn out to be good business'. All publicity is good publicity I decide, even if it is misappropriated. I have to return to being a good parent. As the train starts to make its way down the mountain, through the white, thick stillness I can only hope I can come back next year.

Hilary Cottam

CATEGORY: MISCELLANEOUS