Four Indians to represent voice of youth at World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has selected four Indians to represent the voice of youth at the forthcoming annual meeting at Davos in Switzerland. They include Kanika Kumar, associate vice-president at Intellecap; Dipika Prasad, co-founder Lakeer; Jaideep Bansal, Leader, Energy Access, Global Himalayan Expedition and Karanvir Singh, Chairman, Visionum group.

All of them are members of the Global Shapers (a WEF initiative), a youth led organisation with 7,000 members across 150 countries working to bring about a positive change in their communities. Each year 50 Global Shapers are selected to represent their generation at Davos. Kumar is a development professional working to further sustainable development in emerging markets of Asia and Africa. Prasad focusses on inclusive development by using technology to identify and amplify strategies that leads to systems change.

Bansal, on the other hand, is working to electrify remote mountain communities using solar micro grids while Singh works with governments at various levels on multiple social ventures.

WEF’s 48th annual meeting to be held in January (23rd to 26th) has ‘Creating a shared future in a fractured world’ as its theme and will explore topics such as driving sustained economic progress, navigating a multipolar and multi-conceptual world, overcoming divisions in society and using technology to shape governance.

A strong Indian delegation led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a few state chief ministers including Chandrababu Naidu and Devendra Fadnavis is expected to attend the meeting. Business leaders Mukesh Ambani, Chanda Kochhar and Uday Kotak are expected to attend.

They will be joined by international leaders from over 50 nations and business leaders such as Eric Schmid, Sheryl Sandberg and Satya Nadella.