A one-hour editorial panel discussion at the World Economic Forum – CNBC’s IOT: Powering the Digital Economy – Demand in a Connected World. This session aims to highlight Decarbonisation, Investment, and Digitalization. A look to the future.
Akon, a Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum selling artist, producer, entrepreneur, and philanthropistAkon isan American-Senegalese RnB singer and producer. Brought up in a family of musicians, he spent his early childhood in Senegal before leaving at the age of seven to live in the USA in Union City, New Jersey.Akon is one of the world’s most influential voices in music today, in addition to having two multi-platinum albums, 27 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and over 150 guest appearances with artists such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Eminem and Gwen Stefani. Akon is the first artist to accomplish the feat of holding both the number one and two spots simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 charts twice.Drawing upon his recognisable celebrity combined with pride of his heritage and passion for supporting Africa and youth, Akon formed in 2007 the Konfidence Foundation to improve the quality of life for people in Africa and the United States.In 2014, Akon co-founded with two partners, Malian entrepreneur Samba Bathily and Senegalese-US youth leader Thione Niang, Solektra International. Incorporated in New York and with offices in numerous African countries, Solektra International aims at providing clean, renewable and affordable solar solutions in rural and off-grid areas. The company has developed an innovative prefinancing model which has led to impactful results. Solektra International is now operational in 17 African countries with a wide offer of solar equipment including solar street lamps, micro-grids and domestic kits. Solektra also created the first Solar Academy in Africa and the first “made in Africa” solar street light assembly plant both based in Mali.The son of two Senegalese natives, Akon was born Aliaune Badara Thiam, in St. Louis and raised in Senegal, West Africa until age 7. His father, Mor Thiam, a well-respected Senegalese percussionist and jazz musician, and mother, Kiné, a renowned African singer, dancer and humanitarian, helped to foster a general love of the arts in Akon as well as a deep appreciation of his heritage and homeland. Their influences were truly ingrained within Akon and fuelled his desire to create a better future for Africa, beginning with empowering its youth.
Bernd Leukertis a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE with global responsibility for development and delivery of products across SAP’s product portfolio. This includes the entire technological foundation of all of SAP’s products as well as application development for lines of business. In addition, Leukert heads strategic innovation initiatives at SAP, driving the development of new growth opportunities for SAP together with the go-to-market organization, for example, in the area of the Internet of Things (IoT), Industrie 4.0, Analytics, SAP S/4HANA, as well as SAP Cloud Platform. He is also responsible for user experience of SAP products.Leukert was named to the Executive Board of SAP SE in May 2014. In addition to his SAP commitments, Leukert is a member of the Supervisory Boards of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Kuenstliche Intelligenz, DFKI) and of Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, as well as a member of the Market Strategy Board of the International Electrotechnical Commission. He is also member of the Supervisory Board of TomTom, the pioneer for navigable maps, real-time traffic information service and fleet management from the Netherlands. In addition, Leukert is steering committee chairman of the Plattform Industrie 4.0 for the German government’s Industrie 4.0 initiative.Leukert joined SAP in 1994 and has held various management positions in application development, technology development, software engineering, and process governance. He began his SAP career as a software developer for SAP R/3 and took on responsibilities as project lead for international customer development projects. Later, he was part of the architect team that designed the business integration of SAP R/3 to partner software. In 1999, he assumed development responsibility transportation and master data. In 2001, he became vice president for installed base development in supply chain management, including innovative technologies with in-memory databases. From 2005 to 2010, he was head of the Quality Governance & Production organization. In 2008, he was named to the senior leadership team. Since 2011, he has been responsible for development of SAP Business Suite and the SAP Business One application. Leukert holds a master’s degree in business administration with an emphasis on engineering and information technology from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. He also spent one year at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
Fahd Al-Rasheed is the Group CEO and Managing Director of Emaarthe Economic City (EEC), a publicly listed company leading the development of one of the largest private sector projects in the world, King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC). KAEC is a next-generation city on the Red Sea coast of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,with a planned population capacity of two million people and a total investment of over USD 100 billion.Under Al-Rasheed's leadership, KAEC developed the first private deep-water container port in the region and attracted more than 120 leading global and regional companies to establish operations in the city, making KAEC the fastest growing logistics and manufacturing hub in the Middle East. In addition, Al-Rasheed is spearheading the development of a significant number of residential and leisure projects that will transform KAEC into one of the leading tourism destinations in the region.Al-Rasheed is the Founding Chairman of the non-profit Red Sea Foundation, a Geneva-based NGO think-tank established in 2016 to support the development of the Red Sea region, which is the largest, fastest growing emerging market in the world (750 million people today growing to 1 Billion by 2030).Al-Rasheed is also the Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Prince Mohamed Bin Salman College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Saudi Arabia’s first world-class business educational institution to focus on entrepreneurship and leadership. The College is developed in partnership with the Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Foundation, Babson Global and Lockheed Martin.Priorto joining EEC, Al-Rasheed held the post of CFO and Deputy Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA). Previous to his work in SAGIA, Al-Rasheed led strategic initiatives in investments and corporate finance for Saudi Aramco.Al-Rasheed serves on the boards of several organizations including EEC, Vice Chairman Petromin, King Abdullah Port, Harvard Kennedy School Dean’s Council, Saudi Airlines Catering Company, the New Cities Foundation, and the Foundation Board of the Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum. Al-Rasheed was honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011.Al-Rasheed holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA from the Stanford Business School.
Steve Sedgwick co-anchors CNBC's flagship program "Squawk Box Europe" having spent nearly three decades in and around financial markets, first as a trader and then as a journalist.Steve has attended high levels international events for CNBC for over a decade including key G7, G8 and G20 meetings, as well as the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia and the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he also routinely moderates key panels on a host of subjects. Steve also led our coverage of the COP21 climate change talks in 2015.In 2014 Steve was on the ground for CNBC in Kiev, Ukraine during the Russian annexation of Crimea and interviewed key players, including the President and Prime Minister of Ukraine throughout the conflict.Steve is also CNBC's OPEC reporter, covering major meetings and interviewing top OPEC oil ministers, non-OPEC ministers and heads of bodies such as the IEA and EIA.Prior to joining CNBC, Steve worked for the UK Press Association on the City desk and at Dow Jones on the European Markets desk. At Dow Jones, Steve regularly broke market-moving stories and was a contributor to The Wall Street Journal Europe.Before his career in journalism, Steve spent 11 years trading in the financial markets, specialising in equity and bond market derivative products. In 1988, Steve joined Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (formerly Kleinwort Benson Securities) and worked as an equity option marketmaker before moving on to Credit Lyonnais where he became Head of the London option market-making team on Liffe.Steve studied politics at the University of London, with a focuson world economic development, IMF, World Bank and WTO; and journalism at the National Council for Training Journalists.
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