A philosopher, a Microsoft adoption leader, a Swisscom trust executive, and an innovation strategist walk into a fireside chat — and agree on one thing: the biggest barrier to AI-native organizations is not technology but the cognitive dissonance between the C-suite and the workforce. From Karuana Gatimu's blunt take on Copilot to a neuroscience-backed argument for slowing down, this panel challenges the 'move fast' orthodoxy.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• The disconnect between C-suite strategy and frontline reality is the primary adoption blocker — leaders and workers are 'not living in the same reality'
• Microsoft's AI adoption lead argues speed kills: 'slow down to speed up' is the single most important advice for CEOs implementing AI at scale
• Swisscom's trust framework rests on three questions every AI deployment must answer: Who am I talking to? Who is accountable if it goes wrong? What is authentic?
• Philosopher Topia argues we have forgotten what it means to be human — resistance to AI comes from a legitimate place, and leaders need to face their own ignorance before pushing adoption
• Budgeting cycles are a hidden blocker: yearly or five-year planning horizons cannot match the speed of external AI change, and governance reform may matter more than culture change

PANELISTS

• Stephan Balzer — Keynote Speaker, Host & Moderator; Managing Director, red onion (Moderator)
• Dan Sandu — Innovation Strategist
• Topia — Philosopher
• Christina Hirsch — EVP, Digital Trust Business, Swisscom
• Karuana Gatimu — Director, Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration, Microsoft

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: AI-native organization, AI adoption, culture change, digital trust, Swisscom, Microsoft Copilot, AI governance, leadership, C-suite, philosophy, slow down, budgeting, human-centered AI, Davos 2026, unDavos, REWIRE

Professor Vijay Gurbaxani makes a bold claim: most companies are approaching AI myopically, treating it as an efficiency tool rather than the next industrial revolution. Drawing on his transformation flywheel framework and examples from Reuters to a two-clinic veterinary startup that caught the attention of a 700-location PE firm, he argues the winners will be those who rethink their entire value proposition — not just their processes.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• The AI transformation flywheel starts with vision, not efficiency — companies must ask 'what more can I be doing?' rather than 'how do I cut costs?'
• Reuters uses AI to write first-draft financial news for speed, then reinvests savings into hiring more original news reporters worldwide — a model of competitive differentiation through AI
• A two-clinic veterinary startup (Dr. Treat) used AI to prompt vets during patient conversations and cross-reference an insurance database, earning acquisition by a 700-location PE firm
• Data is becoming the primary competitive moat — when all companies access the same AI platforms, what differentiates you is the proprietary data and know-how you bring
• McKinsey estimates $7 trillion in AI infrastructure investment by 2030; Mark Zuckerberg says he would 'rather overspend by $200 billion than be on the wrong side of that bet'

PANELISTS

• Stephan Balzer — Keynote Speaker, Host & Moderator; Managing Director, red onion (Moderator)
• Prof. Vijay Gurbaxani — Taco Bell Endowed Professor of Business & Computer Science; Founding Director, Center for Digital Transformation, UC Irvine

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: digital transformation, AI flywheel, AI strategy, competitive advantage, Reuters, AI first company, AI intensive, value proposition, data moat, AI investment, UC Irvine, Davos 2026, unDavos, REWIRE, business model innovation

In a data-dense keynote, Alvin Graylin argues we are walking a razor's edge — not choosing between utopia and dystopia, but balanced on a ledge where the next five years will determine which side humanity falls. With AI models already scoring 140+ IQ and producing hours of autonomous work, the question is no longer whether jobs will be displaced but how fast the transition curve drops.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• AI models now score above 140 IQ (99.8th percentile of humans) and deliver 4-5 hours of autonomous work without human intervention — with full-day autonomy months away
• Descaling laws are replacing scaling laws: inference compute, distillation, and quantization are putting data-center-level intelligence into pocket devices
• A Google engineer used Claude to solve in one hour what her team of five spent an entire year building — and Anthropic built Claude Code Workbench in 1.5 weeks using AI writing AI
• AGI is deflationary for basic goods but inflationary for unique experiences and luxury — the money saved on cheaper food, energy, and medicine shifts to scarce human-centric value
• The biggest threat is not technology but mindset: social safety nets are affordable, humanoid robots are overhyped toys, and the real risk is governments and labs pursuing dominance over collaboration

SPEAKER

• Alvin Wang Graylin — Chairman, Virtual World Society; Global VP of Corporate Development, HTC; Author, 'Our Next Reality'; Digital Fellow, Stanford Digital Economy Lab

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: AGI, AI jobs, AI displacement, descaling laws, AI IQ, autonomous AI agents, humanoid robots, social safety net, AI bubble, AI commoditization, Alvin Graylin, Our Next Reality, Davos 2026, unDavos, REWIRE, future of work

The ITU's AI for Good initiative and Deloitte's global research converge in a new report mapping where AI creates real impact — from detecting diabetes through voice analysis to predicting disasters that cost $460 billion annually. This fireside chat unpacks sovereign compute, the global skills gap, and why access to infrastructure, not talent, is the real barrier to AI equity.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• Sovereign AI is now a corporate issue, not just a government one — new models consume 40x more compute tokens than a year ago, making hyperscaler dependency a strategic risk
• An Estonian startup can detect blood sugar levels from voice alone — but if AI can read your blood, it can also detect lying, attention, and behavior, raising urgent dual-use questions
• The global AI skills gap is not about engineers — developing nations have the talent but lack compute infrastructure, which the ITU is addressing through programs in 70+ countries
• Healthcare and education hold the greatest AI-for-good potential: AI could save 15% of $460B in annual disaster costs through prediction alone
• ITU standards are embedding safety, equity, and interoperability into AI solutions — providing practical governance while global frameworks remain aspirational

PANELISTS

• Stephan Balzer — Keynote Speaker, Host & Moderator; Managing Director, red onion (Moderator)
• Frederic Werner — Chief, Strategic Engagement Division, AI for Good, ITU (United Nations)
• Costi Perricos — Global Leader, Office of Generative AI, Deloitte; Founder, Deloitte AI Institute
• Kseniia Fontaine — Senior Business Development and Operations Officer, ITU

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: AI for good, ITU, Deloitte, sovereign AI, compute infrastructure, AI skills gap, AI governance, AI standards, healthcare AI, disaster prediction, global South, digital divide, AI equity, Davos 2026, unDavos, REWIRE

What does AI adoption actually look like inside Pfizer, a London specialty insurer, and Procter & Gamble? Three practitioners share real deployments — from AI-driven drug discovery and digital twin manufacturing to agentic underwriting and enterprise-wide upskilling — revealing where the technology delivers and where culture still stalls.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• Pfizer is embedding AI across the entire drug lifecycle — target discovery, clinical trial optimization, digital twin manufacturing, and personalized prescriber outreach — to compress a 10-15 year pipeline
• A London specialty insurer built agentic AI to extract submission data from unstructured documents and resolve entity matching, cutting underwriting time from days to hours with 90% feature coverage
• P&G tackles 'AI slop' head-on: flooding organizations with AI-generated content actually increases workload unless you first ask whether the use case genuinely adds business value
• Pfizer ties AI adoption to individual performance goals — from senior leadership down — creating measurable incentives rather than relying on voluntary uptake
• Trust in AI adoption is declining globally (Edelman 2025: only 23% positive in Germany), making culture change and transparency the real bottleneck, not the technology

PANELISTS

• Stephan Balzer — Keynote Speaker, Host & Moderator; Managing Director, red onion (Moderator)
• Sean Gundy — Head of Partnerships, Pfizer
• Brigitta Kudor — Founder & Principal Consultant, WeDoData
• Shaje Ganny — Director of Digital Transformation, Procter & Gamble; Co-Founder, Swiss AI Academy

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: AI adoption, enterprise AI, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, AI use cases, agentic AI, digital twins, drug discovery, insurance AI, AI culture, upskilling, AI slop, trust in AI, Davos 2026, unDavos, REWIRE

Kenya’s diaspora sent $5 billion home last year — more than any other sector including tourism. Before colonization, African lands were sacred, communal, and could not be sold outside the community. The property rights regime imposed by colonial powers is still causing land disputes, mining conflicts, and unsustainable extraction today. This closing session pairs Kenya’s Ambassador to Switzerland with a compliance investigator to reflect on what an African future actually looks like.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• Why Africa controls only 3% of global trade despite being the richest continent in natural resources — and how a new sovereign wealth fund in Kenya aims to change the equation
• How pre-colonial property rights — communal, sacred, and non-transferable — were the original sustainability framework, predating carbon markets by centuries
• Why the perceived corruption narrative is structurally biased: Transparency International scores where corruption happens, not where the corrupting companies come from
• Kenya’s government reserving one-third of all procurement for women, youth, and people with disabilities — with entry points as low as $1,000 and no collateral required
• Why “just go” is the most practical advice for the diaspora: visa-free travel, citizenship pathways in Ghana and Benin, and the East African Community enabling seamless cross-border movement

PANELISTS

• Pascal Gali — Strategic Advisor & Compliance Investigator; Founder, Shock Division (Moderator)
• Ambassador Fonzi Abbas — Ambassador of Kenya to Switzerland & Liechtenstein

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: Africa, Kenya, diaspora, sovereign wealth fund, corruption, property rights, colonialism, indigenous wisdom, sustainability, trade, procurement, governance, youth, women empowerment, East African Community, African future, investment, unDavos, Davos 2026, WEF

The African diaspora sends €54 billion to the continent every year — representing 10% of Senegal’s GDP alone — yet most of it is consumed rather than invested. A gender-lens fund is building a pathway to a billion-dollar carbon-market-linked fund. A pineapple farmer in Uganda is turning agricultural waste into vegan leather. This panel explores what it really takes to mobilize private, public, and diaspora capital into African ventures.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• Why gender-lens investing is a performance strategy, not charity: women-led businesses reach 62 million people and gender-diverse teams deliver 20-30% higher financial returns
• How a Chatham House market-focus event at the Geneva Chamber of Commerce unlocked a 30 million Swiss franc investment pipeline for Uganda
• Why African entrepreneurs should “lead with the numbers, not the story” — the three ingredients investors need: discipline, governance, and demonstrated scale potential
• How SheEquity’s blended finance model combines philanthropic technical assistance with private capital to bridge the $42 billion gender funding gap
• Why the biggest unlock for Africa would be energy infrastructure and education — from the last village to the largest city

PANELISTS

• Mafrida — Moderator
• Pauline Kerber — Founder & Managing Partner, SheEquity
• Elizabeth Sekaja — President, Chamber of Commerce Swiss-Uganda
• Sidney Sampson — Founder & CEO, Sedanic Group

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: Africa investment, gender-lens investing, diaspora capital, blended finance, carbon markets, Uganda, female founders, impact investing, SheEquity, trade, development finance, agriculture, climate, public-private partnership, emerging markets, unDavos, Davos 2026, WEF

Only 3.8% of global climate research funding targets Africa — the continent most affected by climate change. Of that sliver, just 14% of the research happens on the continent itself. Meanwhile, only 2% of venture capital goes to all-female founder teams, and the stats have actually gotten worse despite years of panels about fixing it. This panel brings together the African Union Commission, a renewables engineer, a founder-support platform, and a governance expert to separate perceived risk from real barriers.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• Why Africa exports raw cocoa, wood, and minerals but imports chocolate, cement, and refined oil — and what the African Continental Free Trade Area is doing about it
• How the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and African Commodity Strategy aim to move the continent up the value chain through technology transfer and integration
• Why the Basel Institute’s governance work in Ghana gave tax deductions to informal businesses that adopted minimum integrity standards — creating a win-win that increased government revenue
• How FounderVine discovered that underserved founders build more capital-efficient businesses that outperform peers on revenue despite receiving less funding
• The corruption reframe: every African corruption scheme involves a foreign company, but transparency indices only score where corruption occurs, not where it originates

PANELISTS

• Talula — Moderator
• Tariq Ahmed — Senior Economist, African Union Commission
• Kontini Kenfak-Moafi — Founder, Three E’s for Africa
• Izzy Obeng — Founder, FounderVine
• Scarlett Bonavich — Head of Collective Action, Basel Institute on Governance

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: Africa, perceived risk, African Union, AfCFTA, governance, corruption, climate research, female founders, venture capital, informal economy, value chains, trade policy, business integrity, trust, innovation, development finance, unDavos, Davos 2026, WEF

In the last eight years, Sedanic Group grew from one person with no office to a $10 million management consulting firm operating across 12 countries with 200 professionals. Its founder made a deliberate choice: leave a comfortable life in Russia and return to Nigeria to build. This keynote-style address makes the case that Africa’s future must be built by Africans working with the world — not waiting for the world.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• Why “the risk is not in the absence of opportunity — it is in the absence of understanding” and how local knowledge is the ultimate de-risking strategy
• How one scholarship to Russia became the foundation for a 12-country consulting practice headquartered in Nigeria
• Why intra-African trade is only 14-17% compared to intra-European trade at 65%, and how the African Continental Free Trade Area aims to close the gap
• The mindset shift from asking for aid to offering value: positioning Africa as a frontier for profitable, scalable investment
• Strive Masiyiwa’s insight: “Africa is not short on opportunity — it is short on partners willing to invest with patience and purpose”

PANELISTS

• Sidney Sampson — Founder & CEO, Sedanic Group

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: Africa, investment, entrepreneurship, Nigeria, management consulting, development, intra-African trade, diaspora, emerging markets, scalable investment, AfCFTA, leadership, African growth, sustainable development, unDavos, Davos 2026, WEF

Before colonization, sub-Saharan Africa had no prisons. In 2022, the continent sequestered over 40 billion tons of CO2 — worth 3.6 trillion euros at EU carbon prices — yet none of that value is reflected in any GDP. This panel of diaspora entrepreneurs building biofuels in Ghana, investment platforms in West Africa, and electric fleets in Kenya explores what it means to build Africa from seven generations back and seven generations forward.

WHAT THIS PANEL COVERS

• Why Africa produces 500 million tons of unconstrained agricultural residue every year — and how Afresurf is positioning the continent to convert it into sustainable aviation fuel
• How the African diaspora sends €54 billion home annually but 90% is not strategically invested — and why blockchain investment platforms are changing that
• How a Swiss lawyer left the boardrooms of Swiss Re after her asthmatic child asked why African cities don’t use e-bikes — and built an electrified fleet company in Kenya
• Why a 45-minute flight between Accra and Lagos costs $500 compared to $30-40 for a similar EU flight, and how energy costs drive 40% of that gap
• The seven-generation framework: indigenous wisdom applied to infrastructure, mobility, and investment decisions

PANELISTS

• Christopher Mbanefo — Moderator
• Kwame Biko — CEO & Co-Founder, Afresurf
• Julien — Founder, Mina (Investment Platform)
• Celeste Chetgen-Fogo — Founder, Brutus (E-Mobility, Kenya)

unDavos is a community-driven summit running during WEF week in Davos, democratizing the conversation around global challenges.

🌐 undavos.com

Tags: Africa, diaspora, sustainable aviation fuel, biofuels, e-mobility, electric vehicles, Kenya, Ghana, West Africa, carbon sequestration, investment, blockchain, remittances, agriculture, energy transition, infrastructure, indigenous wisdom, unDavos, Davos 2026, WEF