Klaus Schwab

We must address, individually and collectively, moral and ethical issues raised by cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which will enable significant life extension, designer babies, and memory extraction.

For centuries, economic thinkers, from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes, have tried to identify the elusive formula that makes some countries more prosperous and successful than others. My curiosity about this topic spurred me, as a young professor of economics in the late 1970s, to research new ways of measuring national competitiveness.

It was a hallmark of Nelson Mandela's leadership that being open to change made him appear not weaker, but even stronger.

I am a great enthusiast and early adopter of technology, but sometimes I wonder whether the inexorable integration of technology in our lives could diminish some of our quintessential human capacities, such as compassion and cooperation.

Of all the many leaders I have met in the course of my life, none made a deeper impression on me than Nelson Mandela. His courage, compassion, humility and wisdom were without parallel on the world stage, and he himself was an enduring source of inspiration.

Diversity does not preclude political stability.

An overwhelming number of economists, international civil servants, and policy-makers argue that a fragmentation of the Eurozone would cause a new depression and massive wealth destruction around the world. It would also end the period of economic integration that has characterized world politics since the end of the Cold War.

Europe has never had a single or unified voice in world affairs: a common foreign policy. It has often appeared to be rudderless and unable to make quick decisions when faced with economic crises, presenting instead an image of division and hopelessness.

I am an enthusiastic European, and my first-hand experience of war and hatred has strengthened that conviction. I have seen how misguided unilateral nationalistic identities have brought destruction and death. I am, however, a world citizen, too.

I do not deny my German identity. But I also feel Swiss. Of my eight great-grandparents, seven were born Swiss. I have been living in Switzerland for more than 50 years.

We are now living in a completely digitalized world and a completely globalized world, so we have to find some new mechanisms and values to deal with this post-digitalized and post-globalized world.

As the physical, digital, and biological worlds continue to converge, new technologies and platforms will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts, and even circumvent the supervision of public authorities.