Taking to the world stage at Davos

Taking to the World Stage at Davos

When I announced that I had been invited to speak at World Innovation Economics, an official part of World Economic Forum at Davos 2022, mixed in with the congratulations was some pushback.

“I have my own opinion about WEF and what and how things are being discussed there,” one person told me, to which I replied, “Great. Me too. That’s why I am going there.”

Because if you want to change something you have to step into it, not away from it. We can all complain about the things we think aren’t working, but if we don’t step up and do something, nothing changes.

And this year was the perfect time for dissenting voices to be heard at Davos, with the theme being Turning Points in History, and conversations going on about Global Collaboration, the need to deal with Climate, Food and Energy crises as a single issue and come up with solutions that don’t solve one problem while exacerbating another. There were talks about ending the COVID pandemic and preparing for the next, and managing the economic aftermath, which resulted in Pfizer announcing it would supply all its drugs to 45 lower-income countries. There were talks about gender equality, diversity and inclusion, and the jobs of tomorrow, including digital advances and how they can be used to rebalance the top-heavy world economy.

Personally, I was impressed by Spandana Ayachitam who organized WIE and made this happen together with Phillip j. Weights. This was the third WIE event at Davos, focused on bringing Start-ups of all stages, from pre-funding and ideation to scaling up, to the world stage and connecting them with potential investors. There were so many amazing people and conversations with people like us who are working to change the way we do business and in turn the way the world works. 

Innovation Empowered by Female Founders, Leaders and Influencers

I joined Ilona Weiss - Chairman and CEO at B8 International, Karen Shidlo -Marketing Manager at Fiat24, Susanne Hannestad - CEO at Fintech Mundi, and Delphine Trabaldo Togna - Co-founder at Board Owl & Dr Martha Boeckenfeld, who chaired the panel on the Innovation Empowered by Female Founders, Leaders and Influencers panel, and was impressed by the quality, drive and leadership presented there. 

Ilona is a metaverse strategist, visionary investor, innovator, and shaper of blockchain, Web3.0, and AI technologies who brought the Chinese mobile market player Xiaomi and wholesale market player Alibaba to Europe through distribution contracts, and has ten years experience leading public listed companies.

Karen is a social media manager with a passion for telling brand stories and creating communities, who settled in Switzerland six years ago after living in the US, France and UK. She is working with Fiat24, a FINMA-licenced Web-3 native banking ecosystem to bring revolutionary technology to banking by bridging the gap between cetralised and decentralised financial systems. Fiat24 has its own metaverse designed for retail use and merchant banking, where businesses and consumers can experience Web-3 payments, access blockchain security hassle-free, and gain full control of their assets using a multi-currency account and crypto wallet.  Fiat24 was also one of the winners in the Pitching contest.

Susanne has a strong fintech background in the Nordic region, which she says is, “a testbed for the future of financial services, and in the process a live experiment of how collaboration between policymakers, finance and entrepreneurs could shape how we manage the economy of the future. “Behind the big names and celebrated unicorns lies a diverse and innovative marketplace." 

Delphine co-founded Board Owl after leaving the corporate financial services industry where she worked for 10 years, to follow her real passion. She focuses on matching qualified professionals with innovative companies for board positions and board-related education. With this, they are boosting the innovation in two ways. Firstly, by disrupting the traditional board search and bringing efficiency, transparency and diversity in the board market. Secondly, by providing companies access to a pool of innovators, which will support them in making a stronger impact through board positions.

All are strong, powerful, impressive women it was an honour to share the stage with. None more so than Dr Martha Boeckenfeld, who chaired the panel. Martha is a digital platforms and ecosystems, metaverse, blockchain, and tech enthusiast, with a focus on cooperation, interactivity, inclusivity and impact. She is a walking example of a supportive leader and open-minded strong personality. 

Martha also participated in an outstanding conversation with NFT expert Kelly Vero, who helped create Candy Crush and blockchain investor ‘Crypto’ Robby Schwertner, at the ‘Future of Finance Panel’ regarding the next big thing, the gaming industry growing, Web 3, NFTs and Metaverse and its huge potential. 

‘Coming Out’ on the world stage

And believe it or not, we are building something like this. We have been developing a real-life business game where everyone can create and build their own business without capital for over a year now. We already have over a hundred clients on the platform, some of whom have their own clients on there as well. 

And for the first time ever, I pitched our real-life gaming business platform in public. As a sneak peek of what’s to come, here’s some of what I covered in the pitch:

• We transform passive content consumers into active business creators
• We take a person and create a lifetime learner and economy creator
• We help to build businesses without capital and monetize them 
• We transform users to owners, followers to leaders, and empower the ownership economy by turning learning and business into a fun and profitable experience
• We build and scale digital economies by removing barriers to entry and creating social impact
• Best of all, it is fun and positively addictive, so everyone wants to be on this platform and grow with it
• In just one year we have built an MVP, run multiple real projects on the platform, and have worked with hundreds of clients to start engaging their clients.
• We are ready to scale up in Q4 and launch to the public.
• We are a diverse and high performing team with backgrounds in psychology, design thinking, IT, platform design and business development 

My pitch was brilliant but still needs work. I know that if my pitch was clearer, everyone would jump on it without thinking because they would be able to see already in making what they all are excited about ;)

• We also had the pleasure and honour to share the stage with some other amazing start-ups who shared their pitches alongside us, and some investors.

Christian K?ser, Co-Founder of BottlePlus and winners of the Young Innovator award, said that as a hardware start-up, many of the subjects discussed were ‘quite foreign topics’ but that this exposure to experienced entrepreneurs widened their horizons. “In the end,“ he said, “the entrepreneurial spirit is what really fascinates us and it very present during the whole event."

Mateo de Bardeci founded DeepPsy to bring psychiatric scientific technology into a clinical setting to help reduce the trial-and-error process en-route to effective treatment. “We give psychiatrists access to new technologies of brain analysis,“ he says “Our flagship technologies are algorithms to analyse brain waves (EEG) and heart activity (ECG), which are made available to clinics/hospitals through a user-friendly web interface.“ Mateo described the WIE Experience as inspiring, saying, “I was honoured to present in front of such an excellent crowd. Furthermore, the talks that followed helped me to gain perspective. Overall, a very positive and enriching experience."

Dr. Daniel Dietrich & Sophie Boyle, winners of the Young Innovator award, founded Swiss tech start-up Vamoz to provide companies with smart solutions to let their employees work from anywhere on a short-term basis. Their platform guides the process from beginning to end, addressing the legal and business risks, and helping navigate the “legal grey zones in areas such as taxation, immigration, social security, data protection and employment rights“ that typically prevent companies complying with top talent’s demands for flexible working arrangements. The result, they say is that “companies can finally benefit from increased productivity and happy employees, whilst keeping control of their workforce & awareness of the risks."

Alma Moya Losada is the Founder and CEO of Aequaland, an Edtech Start-up building a fully gamified learning platform for 6-8 year-olds focusing on emotional intelligence and self-discovery. Aequaland's purpose is to “make learning inclusive and fun” by focusing on data and using adaptive AI with gamification for empowerment and education rather than entertainment. 

Impact Tech-preneur and Angel Investor Thanos Paraschos spoke at the “Investments Insights by investors“ panel about how Innovation Ecosystems 2.0 offer opportunities for all stakeholders. “Founder hood is a catalyst on that cause,“ he says, “as it offers the infrastructure and the network which can evolve local ecosystems to global, online and inclusive ecosystems.“ As a judge, Thanos was impressed by the potential of the Swiss Start-up Ecosystem and says he looks forward to connecting more start-ups with angel investors."

So …. 

Yes lots to come in the near future 

Watch this space for more details coming soon, and read the full report of our WEF experience in the next issue of the FiguredOut digital magazine. Every winner has got a full story in the Magazine so you can support them personally on their amazing journey.

Connect with us on our Invention Design Sprint event, register in the Link below.