The Beneblog is a weblog by Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman, on issues and ideas that affect the application of technology to unmet social needs.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

  Every year there's a big party at the WEF on the last night (Saturday). Countries vie to sponsor the main event, throwing a big show and serving up their best food. Of course, the reason is economic development. After the opening show, we were treated to a short video extolling the virtues of investing in Malaysia. Knowing their audience it prominently featured a beautiful golf course (and of course beautiful Malaysian women). I was surprised how attentive the audience was to this commercial. Willing participants in a transaction of an evening of entertainment for a four minute video.

The Malaysians had brought a dance troupe, and it was fun. It had more of a feeling of a traditional cultural experience than last year's India party (which was Bollywood to the max). After singing some Malaysian songs, the four top singers switched to popular (American) music. Lots of Motown. And of course, we were dancing up a storm. There was also two other venues for music: one was sort of a jazz nightclub with jazz duos and the other had South African singers followed by recorded dancing music.

My challenge on these parties is that they go very late. Because I'm staying at the Schatzalp, the last train up the mountain leaves at 2 am. If you miss it, the next train is at 6 am! And, there were some people who ended up on the 6 am funicular. Of course, I caught the 2 am train and ended up in the lounge of the Schatzalp talking about the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) project and getting a CD of Amazonian music from my Brazilian buddies (the big column in Brazil's major Sao Paolo paper was entitled (Jungle Boys go to Davos!).

Labels: Davos07, Malaysia, Party