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WEDNESDAY 24

• Keynote address: Angela Merkel, German chancellor, outlines her plans for the German presidency of the G8 and the EU

• Why do brains sleep: with Professor Robert Winston

• The security implications of climate change: Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern review on the economics of climate change

• The future of the dollar

• The age of the avatar and multiple identities

THURSDAY 25

• Leading figures discuss the impact of regulation on financial market competition – including the question of whether US markets are losing competitiveness

• Creating new body parts

• Who will run the internet?

• From private giving to social investing: debate on the New Philanthropreneurs

• CEO salaries: How high will they go?

• India – managing the global services economy

FRIDAY 26

• Hedge fund transparency, derivatives activity, financial stability, private equity activity - and the role that regulators could, or should, play in curbing any risks

• In China, does big equate to world-beater? Debate on Chinese industrial policy and state-owned enterprises

• The state of US leadership: Dinner with senators John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Maria Cantwell and Trent Lott; congressmen Sander Levin, Barney Frank, Ed Market, Christopher Shays

• What is today’s American dream? with senators John Kerry and John McCain

• Africa’s emergence as a vital strategic interest

• Housing deflation: What’s that hissing sound?

• Immigration: New blood for industrialised societies

• The Gulf States as an emerging financial hub: with prominent Gulf bankers

• The influence of the gaming generation

SATURDAY 27

• A blueprint for human settlement of the solar system: with Michael Griffin of NASA

• Keynote debate: on whether central banks can still manage global financial risks, attended by Jean Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank and Wu Xiaoling, deputy governor of the Chinese central bank.

• Frozen trade talks and the need for progress

BEYOND DAVOS:
OTHER MEETINGS THAT ADDRESS GLOBAL ISSUES

■ The Business Council

A US-based association of business leaders which meets several times a year ‘for the free exchange of ideas both among themselves and with representatives of governments’. Membership is personal (not corporate), by invitation, with an annual fee

■ Clinton Global Initiative

A foundation established by former US president Bill Clinton that aims ‘to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges’. Its annual meetings are attended by heads of state, religious leaders and CEOs. Membership is by invitation, with members required to make a ‘specific action commitment’ each year

■ The Bilderberg Group annual forum

A behind-closed-doors annual forum in which officials, academics and businesspeople from Europe and north America can speak frankly about topical global issues, the meeting is also a popular target of conspiracy theorists who see it as a sinister group of capitalists who secretly run the world

■ Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society

Consciously set up to offset the generally male bias of Davos and other such gatherings, the forum’s aim is ‘to highlight and enhance women’s contribution to the economy and society’. It attracts prominent CEOs both male and female. Membership is by invitation, with an annual fee

■ World Social Forum

Shares similar aims with some other meetings – reducing poverty, disease and environmental damage – but completely differs on how to achieve them. An anti-globalisation meeting tens of thousands strong, it is ideologically opposed to the idea that companies can improve the state of the world and sees Davos as its ‘capitalist rival’