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Get Four
|  | JANUARY 25, 2005
By Bruce Nussbaum Davos: Stars, Snow, and Seminars Celebs and business luminaries discuss social change at the World Economic Forum, which has a key theme of reaching poor consumers I'll be at the World Economic Forum in Davos from Jan. 25 to Jan. 30, and I plan to have a lot of fun. There's the usual Saturday night black-tie soiree, which in the past has featured caviar, champagne, celebrities, and even choreographed swimming -- possible because the party is held in a big pool house. The celebrities on board for this year's event include Richard Gere, Angelina Jolie, and Sharon Stone. The actors, who will surely add some buzz to the Swiss skiing village, packed with some 1,000 CEOs, political leaders, bureaucrats, artists, and journalists, are speaking at a late-night session called "Nightcap: Star Power and Social Change." INNOVATIVE OUTREACH. While it's all too easy to poke fun at the "celeb-ness" of Davos, Gere, Jolie, and Stone will be joining the likes of Microsoft (MSFT ) co-founder Bill Gates and C.K. Prahalad, University of Michigan professor of business administration, in serious discussions of how best to promote economic growth and development in Africa, South Asia, and other poor parts of the globe. I'll be moderating two panels: "How to Tap the Bottom of the Pyramid" and "Small Customers, Big Business." They'll include not only Gates and Prahalad but Hector Ruiz, the CEO of AMD (AMD ), Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Latmathe, K.V. Kamath, CEO of ICICI Bank in India, Vodafone (VOD ) chief Arun Sarin, and several social entrepreneurs, such as Nick Moon, founder of ApproTEC, which makes and distributes inexpensive pumps for agriculture in Kenya. A major theme of the WEF conference this year is using the markets to get to the 4 billion in the world who earn less than $2,000 a year. A small but growing number of companies are beginning to use innovative strategies to reach these low-income, capital-poor consumers. AFFORDABLE MEDICATION. One of my panels will delve into the kinds of products and services that are in greatest demand in bottom-of-the-pyramid markets. It will examine what practices can overcome the challenges of marketing where distribution and pricing are constrained. And it will go into how private companies, nonprofits, and nongovernment organizations can work together to create profit-oriented strategies that benefit local producers, employees, and consumers in that market. One major issue in the discussion is where private markets end and public or subsidized markets begin. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, is helping to finance the international vaccine initiative. The philanthropic foundation is funding research and clinical trials for the AIDS vaccine and will lock in a modest market price if one is identified (www.gatesfoundation.org). That's one way to help the developing world afford pharmaceuticals. Prahalad has done a huge amount of research on developing new approaches to selling to the bottom of the pyramid. You can access many of his ideas at the university's Web site (www.umich.edu). KILLER CUBICLES? Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of the Acumen Fund (www.acumenfund.org), uses a venture-capital model to build new businesses, generate jobs, and battle health problems. Novogratz won't be in Davos this year, but the work she's doing bears looking at by the attendees. Acumen helped set up a private factory in Tanzania to make permethrin-treated nets to protect people while sleeping from malaria-carrying mosquitos. UNICEF has bought most of the production for distribution. But Novogratz is raising additional private financing to expand production and lower costs so the nets can be sold throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The insecticide-impregnated material can also be used for curtains and door screens, keeping out mosquitos during the day as well as night. So Davos will not be all fun and games, although it does offer sessions such as "Organics of the World, Unite!" and "Killer Tomatoes and Other Cautionary Tales." There will be heavy stuff on American leadership in the world, the Israeli-Palestinian relations, the U.S. dollar, China's rise, and Europe's tepid economic growth. And I mustn't overlook "Sex and the Brain," about the brain and gender differences, "Has Brand America Caught a Transatlantic Chill?" about U.S. brands and anti-Americanism, and one on "Great Economies Need Great Universities." The session on "Welcome to Blogopolis" looks pretty good. And I'll try to get to "The Case of the Killer Cubicle," about office design, work culture, and performance, with architects Richard Meier and Zaha Hadid. And, oh, yes, there's that nightcap with Richard, Angelina, and Sharon.  Nussbaum is editorial page editor for BusinessWeek Edited by Patricia O'Connell
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