The annual World Economic Forum every winter in Davos stands for the power of rational thought and how it seeks to change events for the better.
It stands firmly against anyone resorting to violence and emotional polemic as the way to try to solve problems.
Over the years it has built a formidable momentum and it now attracts an exceptionally high-powered mix of political leaders, businessmen from the world's largest companies, and a substantial number of people who try to see the way ahead like scientists, academics and political analysts.
The next few days will be like a pressure cooker as over 2,500 participants are locked into a tiny Swiss village of picture-book beauty to debate the major issues facing the world.
The list includes 27 heads of state (and maybe some more who have not been announced), 113 members from many cabinets around the world, religious figures and some of the world's greatest business leaders.
I look forward to seeing how Mukesh Ambani of Reliance might interact with Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, or Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister.
Bill Gates of Microsoft, Carlos Ghosn of Renault and Nissan, or Abdullah Juma of Saudi Aramco will have an opportunity to network with Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan or Ban Ki-Moon of the United Nations.
Top officials
The list is endless and impossible to reproduce in the space available.
The UAE is well represented with three ministers due to speak: Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister; Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of Economy, and Mohammad Al Gergawi, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs; as well as several senior business figures like Sultan bin Sulayem of Nakheel, Maurice Flanagan of Emirates, and Sameer Al Ansari of Dubai International Capital.
This year's Economic Forum will work under the catch-all theme of 'Collaborative Innovation', which covers a huge range of human activities. Sessions will discuss how businesses need to work together (with Nissan and Renault being a prime case in point); how Shiites and Sunnis need to collaborate to build a new Iraq; how the world's leaders need to make the UN Committee on Climate Change work through seeking collaboration otherwise we all will see the seas washing over our homes as global warming fails to be stopped. Al Gore is due to lead the debates on that one.
Other important strands within the overall theme include dealing with 'Economic insecurity', as one poverty and individual's lack of economic stability are one of the major causes of harming both economic growth and rational politics.
The violence in the world and in the Middle East are due to get special time, and they come under the broad heading 'Aligning interests across divides' which is a very Davosian way to sum up the peace process in Palestine: interests do indeed need to be aligned in order to make prog-ress.
But the Economic Forum is not all grim stuff: the organisers have also included a session on the Mysteries of the Mind, looking into the way knowledge, memory learning and emotions all bump around in one's head.
A further session will be on the Power of Scent: looking at how our sense of smell is largely underused, and what should be do to be more aware of its uses. I cannot imagine where that session will take the world's leaders.
