Have you heard of Davos? It sounds a bit like a planet in Star Wars, doesn’t it?
Or maybe a baddie in an Avengers movie? Well done, though, if you knew that it’s a posh ski resort in Switzerland. But do you know that it’s actually famous for something else…?
Every January, many of the world’s most important politicians and businesspeople – plus a lot of people who just happen to think that they’re important – get together on the top of the snowy mountain in Davos. They don’t ski much. Mostly they do a lot of talking.
Sometimes, as well as talk, they do important stuff. Two years ago, it was at Davos that they set up CEPI, the organisation that is coordinating the global fight against flu and which you can learn more about in the main article below.
This year, as well as talk at Davos, they did some listening – to young people changing the world.
One of the “teenage change-makers” at Davos was someone WoW! readers met before. Fionn Ferreira won a big science prize from Google last year when he was still at school.
He’d seen the damage being done by plastic rubbish in the ocean near his home on the west coast of Ireland. It inspired him to invent a way to clean our wastewater of plastic “microparticles” found in some shampoos and soaps – using magnets. Clever stuff.
Fionn, 18, had this advice for leaders at Davos, who included U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel:
“We should invest in some of the younger people in science,” he said.
“It takes time to discover something. If we can get people started a little bit younger and earlier, maybe we can get them coming up with fresh ideas.”
Fionn Ferreira
