In a series of dispatches, I will be sending my thoughts from Davos on the World Economic Forum throughout the week.
Davos Tuesday Afternoon: Cyber takes the stage at WEF
Popping up and down the Schatzalp funicular between session venues on this clear crisp sunny day, where the sun is bright and the air is thin, is making my head spin. Or maybe it’s the cyber discourse
going on all over this mountain top!
Tuesday in Davos started with WEF sessions focused on energy, health, and the economy, but each and every one of these contained a critical cyber security component, with the central thread throughout being the need to both measure and mitigate cyber risk within these critical infrastructure sectors.
Dispatches from Davos — Tuesday Morning: What the cyber futurists are saying today
The next key message came in the form of the WEF strategic outlook on the digital economy, which discussed the necessary social and political shifts required, in addition to the changing technology, to
support the more than doubling of connected devices by 2025. This strategic panel, which included the WEF digital economy lead Derek O’Halloran and Visa CEO Al Kelly, dove deep on the societal
impacts of fourth industrial revolution technologies 5G and artificial intelligence.
Finally, for the opening talks, Klaus Schwab himself, the founder of the WEF, along with this year’s meeting co-chair Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and others discussed shaping globalism 4.0, which is one of the central themes for this year’s annual meeting. While this talk did not focus on cyber security specifically, like the others this opening day, cyber security was in fact an enabling theme in much of the fundamental pillars for our future.
Then the delegates rolled up their collective cyber sleeves, first with Brad Smith, president of Microsoft and Troels Oerting Jorgensen, the head of the cyber security centre at the WEF, leading a key panel on a new global architecture for cyber-cooperation, bringing in key points including expanding cyber norms, the new Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, and the OECD Global Forum on Digital Security for Prosperity– all global actions initiated in just the last few months.
Dispatches from Davos — Monday morning
This is the first of a number of dispatches from the World Economic Forum in Davos. Read here
Troels then led a group focusing on future-proofing cyber security, which took a deeper dive, looking at key WEF focuses including cyber resilience, resisting systemic cyber risks, and the introduction of
new technologies into the global cyber supply chain.
It’s clear that the Davos delegates have cyber security on their mind, and that it’s critical to get right in order for society to enjoy the many promised benefits of Globalisation 4.0. Follow along here as
the week rolls out, and I continue my dispatches from Davos.
Written by Tom Patterson, chief trust officer, Unisys
Dispatches from Davos — Monday afternoon
