Bassim Haidar, founder, chairman and CEO of Channel IT Group, said a key part of launching his business was actually going out and exploring new places — something he thinks others could do more of in order to better understand places like Africa.
“Get out of the living room where you have a view of the world from a TV box, and go out there,” Haidar told HuffPost Live at Davos. “It’s very easy for us to judge countries and cultures and people without actually being there, because of what we hear all the time.”
“Living in Nigeria has a very, very different culture to Ethopia, or the other side,” Haidar said. “The approach [when I started] was, let’s go there… speak to the people, speak to the bankers, and try to understand what this market needs.”
Haidar also spoke about how Boko Haram is “affecting certain parts” of his business, noting “there’s a whole region that we can never go to anymore.”
“What’s happening is an outflow of people coming down, more south, causing more and more concentration with more infrastructure, that’s also putting a lot of pressure on living standards… so yes it has an effect,” he said.
“The region where Boko Haram’s operating are extremely brutal areas,” he said.
Watch more from Haidar above, and see more from the 2015 Davos Annual Meeting below:
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“In terms of impact on tourism, yes, perhaps [the planes had an impact], because people are human and they are all touched by such instances,” he said.
“The investors look at the fundamentals of the opportunities,” he added.
InvestKL CEO Zainal Amanshah spoke to HuffPost Live at Davos about the goals for his company, which aims to get other companies to invest in Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley.
While Amansha said traditional markets “are still of prime interest” to InvestKL, he said he hopes to branch out.
“We want to do better in our neighboring countries like China, India, perhaps even Indonesia… and we want to continue attracting companies that have high technology,” he said. “We’ve moved up the value chain now.”
“Substance is very important to us as opposed to numbers of companies,” he added.
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As participants at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos contemplate the “new global context,” the emerging global shifts identified by the Global Strategic Foresight Community (GFSC) can be referenced to provide fresh perspectives on the future of jobs.
In current narratives on the coming era of employment, we often come across fears of a future in which permanent jobs will fade away and machines increasingly perform cognitive jobs in place of people, forcing automation and, as a result, unemployment across the employment spectrum — including high-skilled and white-collar labour. Such scenarios are highlighted by several GSFC members (Francisco Sagasti, Claudia Juech, Jill Wong, Nouriel Roubini).
Read more here.
Ermotti showed off his Fitbit, saying he and others are trying to stimulate kids in Africa to go to school. He said 1,000 Fitbits have been distributed to kids in Africa, many of whom walk six kilometers to school, to encourage them to keep going. Bikes were also distributed, he said.
Ermotti said he’s walked five kilometers so far today at Davos, which is “above average.”
Sergio Ermotti, the group CEO of UBS, spoke about cybersecurity threats in an interview with HuffPost Live at Davos.
“We need also to change the rules of the game in society in respect to privacy,” Ermotti said, noting even our governments infringing in privacy.
Dr. Mo Ibrahim writes:
We know that corruption is bad for business. Corruption adds significant costs, undermines competition, and negatively affects sustainable and human development. Anonymous companies are the “getaway vehicle” for corruption. They appear as a common thread in cases of crime, corruption, and schemes to defraud investors. Ethical and effective businesses do not require anonymous companies to operate and succeed, yet such businesses may suffer the consequences of their use by business partners, or be targeted by patent trolls hiding behind them.
Since The B Team began to advocate for beneficial ownership, and against anonymous companies, people have asked us, “What is the business case for beneficial ownership?”. Beneficial ownership transparency involves knowing the identity of the real, living people who ultimately own and control companies and other legal entities.
Read more here.
George said the focus Google has on mindfulness is helping people realized the energizing benefits of mindfulness practices. He said he personally benefits from mindful practices like meditation.
“I’m more energized after meditation, far more,” George said, calling it the “best antidote to jet lag.”
