'To be here in your 20s is a huge opportunity'

TO UNDERSTAND what Davos is all about, Mike Fitzgerald is a good place to start.

The chief executive of Kerry-based Altobridge, a mobile communications developer, was invited to attend this year’s World Economic Forum, pitch his company and pick up a technology award.

Founded a decade ago, Altobridge brings low-cost, low-energy telecoms technology to the estimated 1.7 billion people in the world who live “off-grid” in remote locations. For Fitzgerald, it’s been a dizzying week of chance encounters and serious dealmaking.

“I sat having dinner with one of the biggest telecoms operators in the world. What better opportunity is there than that?” he said. “For us to come here and meet people and be, in a sense, peers and be able to chat is incredible.” The secret of Davos, Fitzgerald says, is the unique mixture of access to and openness of top executives a normal businessman would never otherwise reach.

That’s an experience shared by IDA chief executive Barry O’Leary. For the Government agency charged with attracting foreign direct investment, the Davos mountain retreat is a short cut through the circuitous approaches to potential partners.

The agency had a significant presence at Davos, sponsoring forum discussions and organising a dinner hosted by Taoiseach Enda Kenny. The dinner, of Irish smoked salmon and beef, helped introduce existing investors in Ireland – employing 22,000 people – to potential new partners. “Kenny gave an incredible speech and really spelled out just how far Ireland had come,” said one participant, who asked not to be named.

For O’Leary, the contacts made on a Swiss mountaintop will make themselves felt in the Irish economic data in the months and years to come. The fruits paid off yesterday after Adobe announced in Davos that it is to establish its EU computer services operation in Ireland – an announcement Kenny described as “tremendously encouraging”.

"It is a reflection of the very positive feedback I got in Davos from business leaders about Ireland as a destination for investment, including from Adobe's chief technology officer, Kevin Lynch, who I met today," he said. Another Davos business first-timer was Paddy Cosgrave, organiser of the Dublin Web Summit and the F.ounders conference, which brought 150 leading technology chief executives to Ireland. Cosgrave was invited to Davos on the "Young Global Shapers" programme.

“To be here in your 20s is a massive privilege and a huge opportunity,” said Cosgrave. “It’s amazing to be here and to meet such a diverse group of people, from entrepreneurs to activists from Tunisia and Egypt at forefront of the movements there.”