Background on How the Interactive Dialogue on the World Economic Forum’s Network Readiness Index came to be a CIO Year Ahead 2010 Presentation

The World Economic Forum publishes an Annual Global Competitiveness Report to assess the Network Readiness of countries.

Through its reports and activities the Global Competitiveness Network of the World Economic Forum identifies impediments to growth thereby helping to stimulate the development of relevant strategies to achieve sustained economic progress. The GCN team works with leading academics worldwide to ensure latest thinking and research on global competitiveness are incorporated into its reports. In the past two years, Pakistan’s rankings have been slipping and several pockets of professionals across the industry have expressed concern that perhaps there isn’t enough communication ongoing between the local industry and the team producing the report. (Click here to visit the Online Interactive version of the report)

Keeping this in mind, when I chanced to meet Sushant Rao at a local event here in Karachi last year, I discussed the possibility of having an interactive discussion with the editorial team to help establish a stronger dialogue with the local community. Sushant got me in touch with Christoph S. Sprung, Senior Manager India & South Asia, who put CIO Pakistan in touch with Irene Mia, the co-editor of the report, and we mutually decided to set a date when stakeholders in the industry could engage in a discussion with the team via a video conference session. What was the most surprising discovery during my preliminary discussions was the fact that no email or correspondence had been received by the publishers from Pakistan, formally documenting the concern of the country’s sliding rankings – more than anything, that was real incentive for us to change that status.

We are identifying and requesting senior and strategic stakeholders from across the industry who have made a contribution to the growth indicators and feel perhaps the report is not reflective of the report. If you are part of an industry vertical you feel is inadequately represented in the report, then you need to be sure and have your voice heard at the Summit.

Joining us from the GCN Team:
Irene Mia, Director, Co-Editor and Senior Economist, Global Competitiveness Network, World Economic Forum
Thierry Geiger, Economist, Global Leadership Fellow, World Economic Forum
Christoph S. Sprung, Senior Manager India & South Asia

We’re extremely grateful to the Global Competitiveness Network team for being so cooperative and accommodating through several email exchanges and phone calls and look forward to creating a stable communication bridge between the industry and them.

If you are interested in participating in the event, you can register yourself here, or you can email us, however, please note that we have VERY limited attendance and have already declined a number of participants. We’ll keep you posted on the updates over the next few days, right upto the event.

Below is a YouTube video clip of Irene talking about some of the findings in the most recent report.