The World Economic Forum, the membership-based organisation who arrange the annual Davos Summit in Switzerland, have announced their list of Technology Pioneers 2020 featuring 100 early to growth-stage companies that are shaping the emerging world economic, commercial and political structures.
Among the businesses listed are familiar names from the blockchain sector including ChainLink, Lightning Labs, and MakerDAO, as well as those still gaining wider public attention such as crypto-asset risk management company Elliptic, Latin America’s financial innovator Ripio, and Veridium Labs who are creating a tokenised marketplace for environmental assets and carbon credits.
Alliances
By being selected as one of the 100 Technology Pioneers, the companies will be “…part of the World Economic Forum’s initiatives, activities and events, bringing their cutting-edge insight and fresh thinking to critical global discussions…” over the next 2 years.
In addition, the chosen will join the Forum’s invitation-only Global Innovators community and the “…Strategic Intelligence ecosystem, which helps industry leaders and decision-makers navigate transformations across industries, economies and global issues based on the insight and perspectives of the experts and innovators engaged with the Forum.”
Similar lists from previous years have included the names of Airbnb, Google, Kickstarter, Mozilla, and Twitter.
The inclusion of blockchain-based companies into this years’ Forum communities could be seen as public confirmation of a wider roll-out of the associated technology. This is because the World Economic Forum has officially sought “…to empower global leaders to shape the future for the better…” since their formation in 1971.
As an entity, they are well placed to pursue that goal as global leaders and leading industrialists are either part of their steering group or regularly attend their meetings.
Among the current Board of Trustees can be found President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde, Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Chairman and CEO of Black Rock Laurence Fink, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, ex-Vice President of the U.S.A. Al Gore, Managing Director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva, President of the Inter-American Development Bank Luis Alberto Moreno, Chairman of Singapore’s Monetary Authority Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and ex-Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney.
According to a press release from ChainLink, their founder Sergey Nazarov believes “Using smart contracts on the blockchain to bring enforceable guarantees to contractual obligations has widespread social and economic benefits. We’re proud to play a role in bringing accountability and automation to global and local economies, and we look forward to contributing to Forum dialogues on this challenge.”
