These opportunities don’t come very often

The town of Davos is still reasonably quiet as everyone prepares for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, set to open formally today.

I have been invited to participate as a social entrepreneur to help explore this year’s theme: Resilient Dynamism. It’s a provocative and timely theme, of particular interest to me and projects currently underway at Evergreen, where we are working with a network of partners in a variety of sectors, including the Forum, to research and provide a baseline forecast for spending on urban infrastructure across the globe.

Resilient Dynamism doesn’t simply mean “bouncing back after a crisis.” We have experienced a great deal of crisis recently–economic turmoil, political failure, violence, food shortages, severe weather and environmental collapse. The ability to bounce back from these problems is important, but the more urgent discussion we need to have is about the change required for us to become better able to manage the complex times ahead.

I hope this influential group of almost 3,000 people from around the world can play an active role in presenting the courageous and visionary ideas that will provoke change and help define resilient dynamism. These opportunities don’t come very often.

 

Author: Geoffrey Cape, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Evergreen, Canada; Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Canada, 2007 

Since its inception in 1990, the Evergreen has partnered with over 700 urban projects and 4,500 school projects, reaching over 3 million people directly. Evergreen is a recognized international leader in the green/sustainable city movement, in large part because of its core strength in facilitating community partnerships and convening leaders to support action to green cities. It is now replicating its effective model to forge community, government and corporate partnerships for change in cities globally.