my first trip to davos during the world economic forum
The World Economic Forum, known for its famous guests from politics, corporates, and states, takes place every January in the highest city of Europe: Davos, Switzerland. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the Annual Meeting, which was founded by Professor Klaus Schwab. If you’re interested in the history of WEF then you can watch my explainer here:
I have been assigned last minute to join the crew to cover Davos for CNNMoney Switzerland’s digital platforms. On January 19, 2020 my colleague Olivia Chang and I took the train to Davos.
day 1: a surprise interview
On Monday, one day before WEF officially opened, we went for a walk along the main street of Davos, called the Promenade. It’s the street where all the side-events take place. As the WEF attracts business leaders and politicians from all over the world, many companies organize their own events during that time in Davos. From Facebook, Google, Tradeshift, Microsoft, Salesforce, PWC to countries such as Russia or India brag with their booths, cafés, clubs and other spaces, which they rent for the week. The craziest one being a chappel.
Tradeshift CNBC Sanctuary space in Davos.
David Marcus of Facebook Libra at the Promenade.
But there’s one store that stands out for the opposite reason: A souvenir shop at the Promenade. The two owners refuse to rent their space out, even if they have been offered up to an yearly rent for one week.
After our stroll through town, I wanted to produce a video on how to best network during #WEF20. The press team of the WEF gave me a 30 minutes slot to film inside the cogress center. But because WEF hadn’t started yet, there weren’t many people around. It was impossible to get enough voices for a proper video. Also, the press lady didn’t let me walk around with my cameraman. She gave us one spot, where we could set-up and do interviews. I looked around and there wasn’t anyone I could possibly interview…
But then… I spotted CNN’s Richard Quest walking around the congress center.
I asked him if he had 2 minutes to talk to me. And I ended up with this fun video for CNNMoney Switzerland’s digital platforms:
day 2: Davos manifesto
The WEF published a new manifesto called “The Universal Purpose of a Company in the Fourth Industrial Revolution” this year. I printed it and asked participants if they had read it. Some did. Some didn’t. Sometimes they told me, they did, but I could tell that it wasn’t true. Christoph Franz, Chairman of pharma-multi Roche, admitted that he had not read it. After recording that vox pop I realized that many participants probably don’t really care about the content of the forum. They attend because it’s the one opportunity in the year they can meet so many business contacts at the same time. This saves a lot of single trips to meet these contacts. For most attendees it’s about business and not necessarily to make the world a better place. But watch for yourself:
In the evening we attended the announcement of the first Swiss Digital Initiative at the House of Switzerland, where my colleague Ana Maria Montero, Sebastien and I worked on this story.
At the House of Switzerland after the announcement of the Swiss Digital Initiative with former Swiss President Doris Leuthard (in orange) and Editor-in-Chief of CNNMoney Switzerland Andreas Schaffner.
day 3: back to zurich for a moderation
On Wednesday I did some editing work in the morning and in the afternoon I travelled back to Zurich, as I had accepted to moderate an event by the Swiss Risk Association on Governance in Financial Institutions at the University of Zurich.
day 4: youtube creators molly burke & physics girl
From foggy Zurich back to sunny Davos, my colleague Olivia and I went for a stroll and I recorded a short re-cap for my personal Social Media platforms:
After filming this video, we took the golf buggy back to the Media Village (there are buggies driving people from the congress center to the media center). That’s where I met my next surprise interview guest. I had read that there were five Youtube creators attending the World Economic Forum this year. When I saw this young women with violet-coloured hair I figured, she must be one of them. I asked her and it turned out that I was right. Her name was Molly Burke. And she agreed to meet me after her speech for a short interview.
I didn’t know her and so I went back to our small booth and looked her up online. It turned out that Molly was blind since the age of 14.
Now I was even more curious and decided to ask her about her life as a blind young women. Here’s what she told me:
20 Likes, 0 Comments - Tanya König (@tanyakoenigcnn) on Instagram: "@mollyburkeofficial is a Canadian Youtube creator and happens to be blind. We spoke about living..."
Another Youtube creator I spoke to was Dianna Cowern aka Physics Girl. She studied at MIT and creates videos where she explains physical phenomenas. Here’s our chat on Youtube:
With Dianna Cowern aka Physics Girl.
day 5: first startup guide switzerland & juanpa zurita
The side-event I went to on the last day was the pre-launch of the Startup Guide Switzerland. It’s called “the Lonely Planet for the start-ups” by its founder. After I had everything I needed for my story (soundbites and moving images), I rushed back to the Media Village to edit my package, which you can watch here:
But one story a day is not enough, so after editing the video above I interviewed my last guest at the WEF: Mexican Social Media Influencer Juanpa Zurita. He has over 20 million subscribers on Youtube and about the same amount of followers on Youtube. He told me that the people at WEF are more about talk than action when it comes to improving the state of the world:
Besides all these stories mentioned in this blog post, I also helped my colleagues editing their own stories, uploaded content onto CNNMoney Switzerland’s digital platforms and posted regularly on Instagram Stories. It was a packed week full of great memories.
Here’s the CNNMoney Switzerland crew on one picture: Olivia Chang, Ana Maria Montero, me, Editor-in-Chief Andreas Schaffner and our two cameramen Costas and Seb.
54 Likes, 2 Comments - Tanya König (@missvoyage) on Instagram: "Such an amazing week working with these people to cover #wef20 for @cnnmoneyswitzerland! 🤩📽💪🏽"
The coverage by the whole team can be found here: https://www.cnnmoney.ch/shows/wef-2020
Photo by Valeriano di Domenico / WEF.
During the WEF Thank You Fondue Dinner with the crew left
Ana Maria Montero, Costas, Urs Gredig, Sebastien Chastellain.