What will Latin America bring to Davos 2013?

The Forum:Blog has prepared a special series on “Resilient Dynamism”, the main theme of 2013’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo, Global Shapers Community Manager for Latin America, discusses Resilient Dynamism and the future of Latin America.

Some might consider the discussion of “Resilient Dynamism” at the Annual Meeting 2013 in Davos as simply a plot by a gathering of the world’s incumbents on how to stave off the global currents of change. But such a narrow understanding fails to account for the Forum’s truly multistakeholder composition.

Reflecting the Forum’s mission of being “committed to improving the state of the world,” the inclusion of The Global Shapers Community within Forum communities demonstrates the organization’s desire to enact a truly representative conversation, including by bringing together the voices of disruption alongside leaders of industry, government and civil society.

As the Community Manager responsible for Latin America, I work with a region that has experienced major challenges and disruptions. Throughout, Latin America has shown itself to be particularly resilient and dynamic, especially in recent years. While much of the world has dipped into recession Latin America has experienced record GDP growth year after year, with millions of Latin Americans having found the path out of poverty.

Still, much work is left to be done: the region continues to be among the world’s most economically unequal and accompanying new discourses of growth are changing societal expectations: from Chile to Argentina to the Dominican Republic and Panama, citizens are taking to the streets to demand more transparency, more democracy, more action and more results.

From within this context new models of leadership are emerging based on the idea that civil society and the private sector can work alongside government to address some of the region’s most pressing issues.

Latin American Global Shapers attending the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2013 in Davos include:

• Daniel Buriticá from Bogotá. Through his organization Recojo, Daniel works to create an eco-system of young social entrepreneurs in Colombia dedicated to re-shaping the face of capitalism and creating a more inclusive economic and social order.
• In the neighbouring Caracas Hub, Linda Briceño uses her skills as a trumpeter and vocalist within El Sistema to bring classical music to the masses, promoting both social inclusion and youth development in the process.
• In Mexico City, Leticia Jauregui Casanueva trains low-income women entrepreneurs in business skills thereby allowing them to scale their operations and break the cycle of poverty caused by insufficient access to information and skills.
• In Brazil, Porto Alegre’s Tomas de Lara works to harness the power of the crowd to overstep traditional investment models and to promote social impact projects.
• In the Southern tip of the continent, through her work with Three Square Inc., Montevideo’s Delfina Zagarzazu educates businesses on how to make their operations greener and more sustainable.
• In Buenos Aires, Shaper Santiago Siri works as the Head of Innovation at Grupo 42 to identify new economic opportunities within the continent’s exploding tech sector. In addition, Santi is a co-founder of Partido de La Red, a movement of individuals whose aim is to apply benefits of digital tools to create a more inclusive, responsive and participatory democracy.

Along with 44 other Global Shapers from around the world this group of young people represents not the voice of leadership of tomorrow but the voice of leadership today. United by the belief that age and experience are not correlated to ability to create impact, Shapers come to Davos not only with the aspiration of a new world order but to demonstrate that one is already under way.

To quote the Founder of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab, “to be resilient is to possess the ability to adapt to changing contexts,” to which it could be added that adaptation not only includes adjusting to a new reality but also acting as a protagonist in forming a new reality. This proactive essence is what resilient dynamism means in the context of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting and represents what the Global Shapers from Latin America will bring to Davos.

About Resilient Dynamism
To be resilient is to be able to adapt, withstand shocks and recover from them. Future growth in this new context requires dynamism – bold vision and even bolder action. As the theme of 2013′s World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Resilient Dynamism refers to these combined attributes as fundamental concepts for leadership in coming years.

Author: Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo is Global Shapers Community Manager for Latin America

Image: A man takes picture of national flags fluttering in Brazil REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes