As leading figures from government, business, academia and civil society head to Davos for the Annual Meeting 2024, what are the big global challenges they will be discussing? The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report sets out the biggest issues over the short and medium terms, based on a survey of more than 1,400 global risks experts, policy-makers and industry leaders. This year, the impact of artificial intelligence is felt throughout the report, with rising concern about...

Radio Davos is a podcast that is as wide-ranging and thought-provoking as the work of the World Economic Forum itself. Rather than being restricted to any one topic, each week it focuses on a particular issue of global importance, such as macro-economics, the environment, technology, health, social inequalities and much more - always seeking solutions to the big problems On this episode we listen back to a selection of episodes from 2023. Episodes featured: Davos 2023 Day 5: Inflation, AI,...

As 2023 draws to a close and the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting approaches, we look at an issue that will be on everyone’s lips in Davos: artificial intelligence. Cathy Li, head of AI at the Forum tells us about the work of the AI Governance Alliance, which has brought stakeholders together to seek the best way for humans to oversee the rapid rise of the technology. And we hear from a handful of the stakeholders who attended the AI Governance Summit in November: Sara...

If you’re a ‘digital native’ - someone who can’t remember a world before the internet - you might feel you have a good idea of the role technology will play in your life and perhaps in that of future generations. But journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, author of a history of another transformative technology from more than five centuries ago - the printing press - says we can have no way yet of knowing where the internet, and AI, will take us. The book is called The Gutenberg Parenthesis....

Plastics pollution is a very visible, global environmental and health challenge, and last year the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) launched a process to draft a global treaty aimed at solving the problem. Earlier this week, delegations from all over the world met in Nairobi to work on the first full draft of a treaty that could set binding rules that would affect the production, use and disposal of plastics. To get a readout of what happened there, and what might happen next, we...

When Professor Tom Crowther published research into the massive potential of trees to absorb more carbon than previously thought, he helped spur the Trillion Trees movement to plant, restore and conserve forests. But it also caused massive debate. As he publishes updated research, Crowther tells Radio Davos that growing trees must increase biodiversity, and not lead to monoculture plantations, and that it must never be an excuse to slow the drive to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. ...

The concept of 'value based health care' - where patient outcomes are monitored and health care services are funded on the basis of the quality of care, rather than the quantity of procedures - has been around for a couple of decades, but has yet to become the norm. This podcast explores the potential benefits of a shift from 'volume' to 'value', to patients and to health care providers. Guests: Catherine MacLean, Chief Value Medical Officer at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. ...

This week we’re celebrating 100 episodes of our sister podcast Meet the Leader. Every week, Linda Lacina interviews leaders - of major companies, organisations, or what we might call ‘thought leaders' in the fields of academia or campaign groups. If you want to know what makes these individuals tick, and what lessons we might learn from their experiences, subscribe to Meet the Leader - you can find it on our podcast website, wef.ch/podcasts and on any podcast app. In this episode: Jane...

In 2003 - the a year before a 19-year-old Harvard student called Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook - Philip Rosedale launched Second Life - an online virtual world that looked set to transform the internet. Two decades later, with the Facebook company, now called Meta, and its competitors seeking to develop the metaverse, what does Rosedale see as the future of the still emerging technology? Interview by Linda Lacina, host of the weekly Meet the Leader podcast. Related episodes: So just...

What is the single most important thing that any individual can do to help alleviate the climate crisis? Katharine Hayhoe is the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, a distinguished professor at Texas Tech University and the author of Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. She believes that only if we all talk about climate change will humanity take the right paths to tackle climate change. But what if the person you are talking to doesn’t...

At the start of this year, the World Economic Forum published its annual Global Risks Report - a major survey of sentiment about what are the big things that could go wrong - in the economy, the environment, in health, cybersecurity, geopolitics - and more. In this podcast, we invite back the two guests who appeared on Radio Davos in January to talk about the report and its conclusion that the world faced a 'polycrisis' - a combination of risks from many sources. Carolina Klint, Managing...

Sourcing and scaling viable innovations to decarbonize ‘hard-to-abate’ sectors like mining and aviation will be critical to the success of the Sustainable Development Goals. How can we leverage cutting-edge technologies and adopt novel strategies to accelerate the race to net-zero in these sectors? This is the full audio from a panel discussion at the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings 2023 held September 20. Speakers: Vivek Salgaocar, Director and Co-Founder, Vimson Group;...

Gender parity has recovered to pre-pandemic levels globally, but the pace of change is stagnating. It will take an estimated 131 years to reach full parity at the current trajectory. How can we boost women’s economic participation and political empowerment and achieve gender parity at all levels of society? This is the full audio from a panel discussion at the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings 2023 held September 20. Speakers: Keir Simmons, Chief International Correspondent,...

Small and medium agricultural enterprises (agri-SMEs) are Africa’s largest employer and economic engine—and the key to transforming food systems and improving food security for the continent. Yet three out of four agri-SMEs can’t access formal bank financing, and are too large for microfinance, creating an estimated $100 billion gap in unmet demand for financing. How can donor governments, development finance institutions, African governments, and the private sector catalyze action to...

The World Economic Forum has just published its latest Chief Economists Outlook, a regular report based on the views of senior economists around the world.  This edition shows a glass half full and half empty, with concerns of widespread economic recession easing since the last report in May, but slowing global growth and continued economic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions. In this episode, Jérôme Haegeli, chief economist at Swiss Re, gives his views on the state of the global economy,...

Semiconductors make the world go round, and the most cutting-edge versions are necessary to propel the artificial intelligence revolution. Historian Chris Miller, author ‘Chip War’, explains what chips do, how they are made, and why they are so vital to global supply chains and international relations. Transcript available here: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/radio-davos/episodes/silicon-chips-semiconductors-chris-miller Read...

Professor Stuart Russell shares his concerns about the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence. Listen back to our 5-part series on generative AI: Episode 1: AI: Why everyone's talking about the promise and risks of this 'powerful wild beast' Episode 2: A common good? The companies making the AI products we'll soon all be using Episode 3: Responsible AI: how can philosophy help us make better tech? Episode 4: 'AI will either compete with us or augment us' - so how do we pick...

Designer phages, spatial optics, plant sensors and bendable batteries - just some of the items on this year's World Economic Forum Top 10 Emerging Technologies that will change our lives in the next 3-5 years. To talk us through all 10, we hear from the two people who led the work compiling the list: Mariette DiChristina, Dean and Professor of the Practice in Journalism, Boston University College of Communication; and Bernie Meyerson, Chief Innovation Officer Emeritus, IBM. LINKS: The...

Is the metaverse still a thing or has the world’s attention moved on to generative AI?  On this episode of Radio Davos, we speak to a vice president of the consumer electronics company HTC. Pearly Chen heads Business Development & Content Partnerships for VIVEPORT a subscription plan for virtual reality gaming - immersive video games played using VR headsets. Pearly is convinced of the potential for metaverse applications for healthcare, social care and education, and believes the...

Claude Marshall fled Nazi Germany as a small boy in the 1930s and now helps today’s refugees by fundraising for sports facilities in refugee camps. He tells Radio Davos why sport is so important for traumatised young people, and compares the plight of people today forced from their home with his own childhood experience. Related links: The World Economic Forum’s Refugee Employment Alliance, co-chaired by the UNHCR and the Ingka Group, Transcript available on the podcast episode page: ...

Can we prevent a repeat of COVID-19? In a new book, Disease X, author Kate Kelland looks at what we learned from the pandemic and how scientists, governments and societies can be better prepared for the next one. Links World Economic Forum’s Website page for the “Centre for Health and Healthcare”. https://centres.weforum.org/centre-for-health-and-healthcare/home Regional Vaccine Manufacturing...

The final episode of our AI series comes from the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC), the World Economic Forum’s ‘summer Davos’, in Tianjin, China. Cathy Li, head of AI at the World Economic Forum, says what needs to happen next as the world gets to grips with generative AI, and introduces the AI Governance Alliance. And we listen in to discussions at AMNC about AI - the opportunities for business and implications for things such as medicine and education. Follow AMNC...

Amid pressures on the global economy from recent major crises and renewed turbulence in financial markets, stakeholders will need to convert the bright spots of accelerated trade and investment in green and innovative industries into a new paradigm for sustained growth. How can both government and the private sector draw on the opportunities stemming from this time of change and transition to rewire the models underpinning global growth? Speakers: Zhang Yuzhuo, Chairman, State-owned...

In most parts of the world, the gender gap - the difference in opportunities and outcomes for women compared to men - is closing. But closing so slowly that it would take, at the current rate of progress, until 2154 for men and women to be truly equal. That statistic comes from the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report, an extensive, annual survey whose latest edition has just been published. In this episode, World Economic Forum Managing Director Saadia Zahidi picks some...

"AI will have some form of intelligence that will either compete with us or augment us. This is a question for us as a species. For the past thousands of years, we didn’t have a cousin or a brother and now we may have one. So it is how we understand that and how we deal with it." On Episode 4 of our special series on generative AI, we consider the options for how we can govern the rapidly growing technology. Guests: Amir Banifatemi, Director, AI Commons; Cyrus Hodes Co-Founder of AIGC Chain...