Europe’s positioning in the emerging order

Was listening to a rather interesting debate at Davos this year on Europe's position in the emerging world order. I personally find this line of argument that Europe in a steady period of decline rather tiresome- after all, if every country in the regional vicinity is clamouring to join the EU, come on, it cannot be that bad… However, what is rather important is for Europe to think about its relative positioning, given that the world is moving away from a Trans-atlantic centricity to a multi-polar world, each interest group's ability to influence global agenda will be determined by its relative value add.

Thinking about what Europe would bring to this order, I would look to what Europe does best as a start point. One idea that comes up is the high level of "social responsibility" displayed in Europe- think about putting the citizen (never mind it is just the European citizen) center-stage, think about democracy, liberal values, welfare state, people's needs etc. I think Europe could very credibly take an agenda setting leadership stance in issues pertaining to what would loosely be defined as "Social responsibility"- sort of defining the core around positioning the European brand.

The implications are not trivial- From Green technologies, Education, Healthcare, Corporate Governance, Infrastructure, Administration, Regulatory governance, the sectors this theme could cover are vast enough to sustain a very profitable economic and a leadership model for Europe.

Bill Gates and a new approach to capitalism

An account-What people are doing with their intelligence, wealth and knowledge to help the not so privileged… I find this very interesting, and fairly sophisticated in the way this is being approached by the single biggest kitty on the planet to help the underprivileged…

Trying to articulate bill gates view of a new Capitalism- Creative Capitalism as articulated in Davos…

The concern with market capitalism is that it tends to benefit the ones that need it the least, and penalizes the ones that will hurt the most. So we need a new capitalism- the challeng is to design a system where market incentives drive recognition in serving the underprivileged- market based social change- self interest with interest in fortune of others- creative capitalism- where govt,business and ngos stretch together…

Market: In Africa, they needed to find a vaccine to be priced at <50 cents- and a student in india found a new vaccine for 40 cents- and 250 million of these were sold- in another case, the dutch company for cholera vaccine that shared the rights for emerging world for free- resulting in a a Vietnam based drug manufacture priced at < $1.

Business: Government funds aid, research, healthcare- but the highest leverage is to set policy that sets market incentives for biz activities that help the poor- eg bush- any drug developed for say malaria- can get a priority review from fDA for another drug- bringing the other drug into the market a year early- worth 100s of millions.

NGO: If u give people a chance to associate with a cause they care, while buying products- they will buy- eg Red campaigns in Davos- $50 MM to fight aids, tb and malaria- impacting 2 million people.

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Discussions at Davos- Water

This year, water was a topic of priority- 7 sessions including a plenary. Exremely complex, multiple facets (quality, quantity, use of water etc) big Sense of significant urgency but is eminently solveable problem. Convinced this is as big a problem…

Peter Brabeck and Nevill Isdel set the context –interesting large co ceos are passionately talking about water- both Coke and Nestle have a huge water footprint- but that's not enough-u use 9000 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bio diesel- the big issue is that water is not being valued. We "eat" a lot more water than we drink.

Potential solutions-

2^nd green revolution- addressing 70% of water consumption- perhaps using Biotech and Genetech-

Also we should not make decisions on other issues that exacerbate water situation-eg if we try and solve for the Co2 by increasing water use in creating Bio fuels, for instance, we are making a huge mistake- also currently oil takes about 2.5 liters of water/ liter of oil- if we go after new reserves in heavy oils and oil-sands will multiply by 10-=100 times.(steam injection)-

Last optimistic notes- perhaps market forces? Oman has a system for 4500 years- farmers have access to water that they pay for thro infra and thro money, and those rights are tradeable- every famrer can buy and sell water- the other interesting thing- a certain % goes to mosque for poor people.

Nuclear power as an option- dialogue from Davos

Another interesting debate from Davos- nuclear power/ proliferation and consequences…

There was an Iranian (Larijani) on the panel- interesting views. On a question on Iran's views on Israel- he made a point about anti-semitism being a western notion…

Brahma was emphatic about the cost of nuclear power not beign articulated well enough- the specific points were that the nuclear industry did not need to pay for the collateral costs of nuclear power- ex liability damages, cost of retiring plans, radioactive material management and storage, R&D etc… and hence the true costs of nuclear power would never justify the benefits.

Bad news for me! In todays world, I am sorta hoping that alternates to fossil fuels are perhaps the most cutial- and before solar/ wind become wide spread, there needs to be some bridging sources like nuclear power- if that aint it, what else is? And what will good ole india and china do?

America at Davos 08

Listening from the congress hall, I found Condy's speech at davos extremely moving- very eloquent address of the value of values and the need to act with it- a stellar job particularly given the credibility challenge the current presidency faces. A valiant attempt, perhaps, on her behalf trying to address the stereotypical American fallacies and take them head on.

Henry Kissinger was on stage open plenary as a co-chair as well- quite interesting- a throwback to a bygone era, perhaps? He made a point about idealism and realism- which was very interesting-something the art of the possible; about how u needed idealism if u wanted to lead, but needed realism to get there (all a bit confusing after a nearly sleepless night, but hey, there you go)-

Also heard a few views on the "Transatlantic alliance"- I think America has enough going on (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea) for it to legitimately not focus too much on Europe.

The one thing that came out for me is there seems to be an attempt to create a legacy for George Bush on perhaps gaining some ground around the Israel- Palestine situation. I must profess to skepticism here, don't know if he has enough going on for anyone to listen to him- albeit he is still the head of state of the most economically active nation.

That said, America still has the clout to have a commanding presence wherever it is represented , and it is represented in Force, in Davos -08.

 

 

China v India- brought home to me…

At the fortune global forum, New Delhi, and, got really involved in a conversation around how China and India were different. I will not try and put together a laundry list of what is different- enough has been said about democracy (and the lack thereof), infrastructure (and the lack thereof) etc., however, I think One particular interchange really got across the point to me.

The panel on Indian growth was asked a question about why india's performance in sports did not reflect the size of population (in short, it "sucks"), and why India could not do what China did, and improve sports performance. On introspection, my view is the following:

China is quite capable of taking a problem, and putting together an army to work on this problem, and churn out oceans of athletes, swimmers, sports players, etc, but I cannot ever imagine India doing that. Things are much too free flowing, much too democratic, and much too "free willed" for the country to go from Zero to 100 medals in 2 olympics… things will happen, but they will happen much slower, and will happen with consensus- people need to have bought in etc.

Now the good part is that people's opinion will count. The bad part is that things do not get done..the issue seems to be- there is no organization- and hence Brownian movement prevails- every individual doing a bunch of things by themselves- which makes for brilliant individuals (hence the demand for Indian talent), but does not make for a very cohesive society.

There is something about the Silicon Valley…

We all read about it- how the valley is what it is because of the confluence of various factors: VC money, top universities, very high entrepreneur activity, a great ability to attract talent, and of course, a great climate. The Valley has been the bellwether for technology innovation and we have read about it. But reading about it is not the same as experiencing it…

I happen to work in a role that takes me to the valley regularly, and every time I get here, it gives me new food for thought. Since I am spending an extended period of time here this visit, I am hoping to explore what is happening in the valley around some of the newer phenomena such as Social networks etc. And I still marvel and how this part of the world is indeed just that little bit ahead of the rest of the world…

I was at this event that focused on this entirely new space that is being created around building applications on Facebook, and met a few people there that brought home to me the "valley effect".

For instance, I met this "power youngster"- Mike Sego who developed the fluff-friends application for Facebook, this application is currently on 2.1 million profiles on Facebook, and is valued at $ 1.5 Million. He has graduated in 2003, works with Google, and developed this application in his spare time. The panache and aplomb with which he was handling queries and telling us his story about how he developed this application was just admirable- and he definitely symbolized what was different about the valley for me…

Or my interactions with Blake Commagere, whose love of horror movies and sheer persistence with asking for "help" translated to building applications such as Zombie, Vampires and Werewolf on Facebook. He described to us with a little apologetic hand-wringing, how people found great pleasure in biting/ sucking blood etc from their friends…

Or, take my interactions with Naval Ravikant, a VC who had a lot to do with Epinions from the dot com bubble days, and the razor insight and clarity he brought to how he made decisions on what to invest – which gave me quite a few views on where this entire space was going.

Or, my conversations with Murtaza from peanutlabs.com, a business that has been able to monetize presence on Facebook.

A closing comment-one interesting insight I got out of my interactions is that there seems to be a higher tolerance to failure here in the valley. People are not afraid of taking risks, and consequently failing, indeed, it seems to be celebrated, which, I suppose, has something to do with why the valley is and will possibly continue to be the hub of innovation for technology…

 

New York, The Big Apple...

Well, i always enjoy my trips to the US, and New York has a particular interest for me...

Why not, with 1 £ fetching $2, it is a great time to be coming to the US, and sorta buying up the house... (oops pun not intended on the housing market) - i did end up buying a few baubles though...

My best experiences- this is a city with buzz, and one can see why this is the financial capital of the US, and it is always a pleasure dealing with newyorkers- no nonsense, focused, and very very competent...all my business meetings were jolly good fun...

I also found that it is not enough to have the address, but what is more important, possibly vital to ensure that your taxi driver will not end up screaming at you, are the "grid coordinates"- drop me off between the 50th and 51st on the 5th avenue is probably music to the taxidriver's ears... whereas 76, park avenue is met with a pained look, and possibly sorry, have just decided to take the rest of the day off...

And oh, plan your meetings around the taxi shifts- i found myself unfortunately requiring a taxi at 4:30 pm- and there is a shift change at 5 pm- so around that time, all taxi drivers will studiously ignore you, even if you did the whoopi-whoopi -war dance wearing bright yellow markings with your hair dyed in the colours of the rainbow...

the hotels were something else, though... Apparently it was the UN in session and the fashion week, but i very quickly found that getting a room for less than $500 was not possible, hence had to stay in a rather poor quality hotel right next to the JFK (the double tree) rather close to an interestingly named Jamaica. Rather strange, why it is so difficult to find a decent place to stay in New York for a pocket that is not a millionaire's, or one that does not require authorisation (or atleast raised eyebrows) from authorities to spend a princely sum sleeping in a bed...

Ofcourse staying in this hotel meant that i had to schlep across to Manhattan every day, and the traffic was quite painful- but i did make a few friends amongst the taxi drivers, who, seemingly were all from the subcontinent- found myself conversing in english, and very quickly moving onto hindi, punjabi and bengali... (did you know that the license to own and drive a taxi costs nearly $500 K?)

finally, a word to my airline- i was asked if i would fly EOS, and i must say it turned out to be a very pleasant experience...

Musings from Berlin...

Was in berlin last week..

did a guided cycle tour of the history of the third reich.. why the third reich? well, the guide, Wolf asked me this question and i answered- this was one of those momentous periods in history- of races and extermination, of ruthless effectiveness and of vicious crimes, of a city divided (Berlin) and of the start of the cold war... definitely something i wanted to learn a bit more about...

One aspect that emerged for me (apart from the very serious disquiet about the enormity of the atrocities against humanity commited by this regime) was the relative openness in Germany to examine this terrible period. It takes a lot of courage for a country to stand up and admit to its mistakes, and i must say- the amount of information available about this in Germany tells me something about its peoples.

Another thing that i hadnt known before- that the wall between east and west berlin was actually a ringfence around "west" berlin- it completely encircled a part of berlin occupied by the Western allies.

i wonder what it was like growing up in city to have 2 parts, both completely isolated from each other for almost 30 years...particularly for those in the East...

on a parallel note, unlike in China, i found communication a lot easier- everyone understands english, and i understand a bit of german, and found getting vegetarian food a lot easier (again, seemingly the chinese dont understand the notion of vegetarian food)

China Floored Me...

visited china the week before last...

have read, heard a lot about this country, but a visit is an absolute necessity to grasp the enormity of what is happening there...yes, i know. it is not a democracy, it is not a place for freedom, it is very regulated etc.

but...

it is the place where i experienced the highest speed i have ever reached on land (432 kmph, on a Maglev train to Shanghai Airport), i saw great infrastructure, and great development. The insight?

To me China resembles a company. A small group of people at the top decide what happens, and there is a sequence set in motion, where a series of incentives and disincentives ensure that people behave according to the rules. And follow the rules they do.

Whilst this may sound a bit restrictive, there is no hiding the fabulous results this has brought about for the . Am looking forward to the olympics, which, by all accounts will be a chinese showcase.

The link to Europe and India? My first thought of comparison to India was a sense of disappointment, and a comparison with Europe was like comparing sunrise and sunset... but then, i believe that this is a great opportunity for us. In my chat with the indian ambassador to china, Nirupama, she tells me that the india-china trade is growing really really fast.

Opportunity anyone, to try and do a business idea which had a triage between China, India and Europe?