Davos 07: the conversation starts here

Now's your chance to post the questions you'd like to ask the world leaders attending Davos next week.

January 18, 2007 12:02 PM

Georgina Henry

Davos, the exclusive Swiss ski resort, is host next week to the annual World Economic Forum - with its stellar cast of world leaders, global businessmen and smattering of politically engaged celebrities. This year's participants include Bill Gates, Tony Blair, King Abdullah of Jordan, Angela Merkel, Joe Biden, Rupert Murdoch, Eric Schmidt, Hua Jianmin, John McCain, Mohammed El Baradei, Sergy Brin, Gordon Brown - and Bono. As Julian Glover blogged, this year's themes are geopolitics post-Iraq, climate change and technology - the shifting power equation, as Davos puts it.

True to that last theme, the WEF is trying to change its closed-door image this year by opening up the discussions to a wider audience online. The Davos Conversation page, which launches next Tuesday (January 22), is a collaboration between them, us at Comment is free, BBC News, the Huffington Post and Jeff Jarvis's Buzzmachine and will integrate blogs, news, video, audio, pictures and reader comments. What we'd like from you from today is questions for participants: every day at least one of the questions posted by text or video will be answered by whoever it's addressed to at the meeting.

If you want to record a video question you need to put it up on YouTube (tagged "davos07" to make sure it's posted on the Davos Conversation page). It's not difficult to do - in fact it's incredibly easy to record and upload a video to YouTube. But now there's an even easier way: go to YouTube's Quick Capture, let it take over your webcam, and you can record and upload a message in one easy step.

Davos say they want an open conversation - so let them have it. Below are some of the 2,000-plus participants to aim questions at - and some of the topics they'll be discussing and which we'll be blogging about. Our main bloggers include Alan Rusbridger, Julian Glover, Larry Elliott and Ben Hammersley, with guest appearances from Ken Livingstone and anyone else we can persuade. On the Davos Conversation page itself, which we'll highlight prominently on Cif from next week, you'll also be able to read all the Davos blogs/news/video/audio from the Huffington Post, Jeff Jarvis and the BBC. We hope that once it's up, you'll also contribute thoughts and comments as the debates unfold.

Heads of state:
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority;
King Abdullah II Ibn Hussein of Jordan;
Bertie Ahern, prime minister of Ireland;
Prince Albert II of Monaco;
Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan;
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, president of the Philippines;
Shaukat Aziz, prime minister of Pakistan;
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, prime minister of Malaysia;
Tony Blair, prime minister of the United Kingdom;
Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, president of Mexico;
Jakaya M Kikwete, president of Tanzania;
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil;
Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa;
Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany;
Ahmed Mahmoud Nazif, prime minister of Egypt;
Nguyen Tan Dung, prime minister of Vietnam;
Fouad Siniora, prime minister of Lebanon;
Viktor Yanukovych, prime minister of Ukraine.

Heads of international organisations:
M El Baradei, director general, International Atomic Energy Agency;
Pascal Lamy, director general, World Trade Organisation (WTO);
Paul D Wolfowitz, president, World Bank;
Koichiro Matsuura, director general, Unesco;

Webcasts include:
The Shifting Power Equation: Lord Browne of Madingley, Michelle Guthrie, E Neville Isdell, Angela Merkel, Sunil Bharti Mittal, James J Schiro, Eric Schmidt, Klaus Schwaz
Connectivity: Sergey Brin, Chris DeWolfe, Chad Hurley
Climate Change: A Call to Action: Margaret Beckett, Lord Browne of Madingley, John McCain
Arab Peace Plan: Amre Moussa
Energy 2007: The New Era of Petropolitics: Ilham Aliyev, Bi Jingquan, Samuel W Bodman, Alexander Medvedev, Jeroen van der Veer, Viktor Yanukovych, Thomas L Friedman
European Identity: David Cameron, Christine Lagarde
China as a Global Player - A Conversation with Hua Jianmin
Who Shapes the Agenda? Gordon Brown, Rupert Murdoch, Eric Schmidt
Is Freedom Over-rated? Shimon Peres
What Is Today's American Dream? John F Kerry, John McCain
A Business Manifesto for Globalisation: Lord Browne of Madingley, Carlos Ghosn, James J Schiro, Joseph E Stiglitz
Delivering on the Promise of Africa: Tony Blair, William H Gates III, Bono
Iraq and The Future of the Middle East: Adil Abd al-Mahdi, John F Kerry, Mohammad Khatami, Javier Solana Madariaga
The Impact of Web 2.0 and Emerging Social Network Models: Chris DeWolfe, Caterina Fake, William H Gates III

Georgina Henry joined the Guardian in 1989 as media correspondent and took over editing the media pages a year later. She was appointed deputy features editor in 1992. She was deputy editor of the Guardian from 1995-2006 and on the board of Guardian Newspapers from 1996-2006. She is now the editor of Comment is free.