Words by: Juliana Uribe, Mariana Diaz and Lina Torres from Movilizatorio.

Being in Davos and receiving the award of Collective Social Innovators of the year was really exciting, but also profoundly challenging. Above all, it was a crucial reality check: a close-up look at where the world stands today, characterised by stark contrasts and urgent choices.

Davos is a snowy village in the middle of the Swiss Alps where, once a year, a fairly surreal concentration of CEOs, world leaders, and founders descends to share perspectives on the future, compare notes, and do a lot of networking during the World Economic Forum. It is an annual moment of unparalleled visibility for the forces shaping our global destiny.

It is one of the most intense concentrations of global power and influence. Being there as social innovation entrepreneurs, thanks to the recognition of the Schwab Foundation for Movilizatorio, meant inhabiting a space marked by a very visible tension: two visions of the world unfolding at the same time, often under the same roof. This dichotomy was palpable.

In some rooms, the presence of figures such as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk set a dominant tone. Their speeches, symbols, and narratives – often focused on individual power, technological disruption, and national self-interest – captured the immediate headlines and shaped many public conversations. This vision represents a world striving for competitive advantage and top-down control.

But in other, equally important rooms, something fundamentally different was happening. Here, a counter-narrative of global cooperation and systemic change took shape. Figures like the Prime Minister of Canada spoke about the necessity of a bold and fair multilateralism, detailing how middle powers can strategically help reorganize the global landscape to be more equitable. Others, like historian Yuval Noah Harari, spoke about artificial intelligence, but with necessary limits—a deliberate, values-driven design to ensure technology builds the future we want, not the one we fear. In focused spaces such as the WEF Corporate Leadership Council on Social Innovation, Goals House, or the Women Leaders Dinner, conversations intensely focused on collective leadership models, social innovation at scale, distributed power, equity, and the design of systems that truly work for people and nature, not just profit. These were discussions about re-balancing the scales, prioritizing planetary health, and redefining what ‘success’ means on a global stage.

Crucially, the most important conversations did not happen only inside auditoriums. Davos also spoke through its streets, through cultural gestures, artistic interventions, and symbolism that spilt beyond protocol. At the top of the mountains, the quiet but powerful message “No Kings” appeared as a constant, quiet reminder: the world urgently needs a balance of power, a dramatic reduction in inequality, and leadership defined by responsibility rather than mere authority. Furthermore, Ukraine reminded the world of the fragility of peace through a large-scale AI-generated video projected on the street showing bombings in other European capitals. It was a harrowing, powerful statement that they too are within missile range and that what is happening in Ukraine could happen anywhere else, underscoring the urgent need for global stability.

These two realities coexisted under the same roof, and that profound contrast defined the week. The powerful message from this tension is one of immense hope and agency. Precisely because things are still taking shape—because the future is not yet fixed—we have agency. We have the possibility—and the profound responsibility—to shape them, influence them, lead them, and steer them decisively in favour of people and the planet.

This year’s Davos gathering also made something else clear: this critical moment demands dialogue, radical honesty about where our efforts truly matter, and an understanding that isolated action is insufficient. As members of the RISE UP community, we evidenced firsthand that the conversations around ocean protection, for instance, are not at the level of visibility and urgency they should be. But more importantly, we recognised that the only hope to raise these and other vital conversations to the level they require is through networked efforts and multi-stakeholder platforms like RISE UP, needed now more than ever.

However, the level of collective action needed will not happen in a void; it will happen only in places where the most intangible, delicate, and valuable currency of our time exists: trust. No matter the institution or the level of power, the currency that we all require is trust—to broker new partnerships, to convene disparate voices, to enable difficult compromises, and fundamentally, to move things forward with shared purpose.

Winning the Collective Social Innovators of the year left us with an ongoing, deeper reflection regarding our role in the networks we belong to. We must consider how we can effectively leverage this opportunity to open space for others, to elevate the causes we believe in, and, most importantly, to fiercely protect and honour the trust that communities, partners, and colleagues have placed in our organisation. The work is only beginning, and the pathway to a more just and sustainable world is, without a doubt, collective.

Movilizatorio is on a mission to mobilize citizen power and drive systemic change toward social and environmental equity. Through research, innovation, community engagement, and strategic collaboration, they work with partners around the world to strengthen civic participation and build solutions that center people and the planet. Learn more about their work here:https://www.movilizatorio.org 

The views in this interview may not necessarily represent the views of other RISE UP network members or RISE UP as a whole. It is only through open dialogue and a diversity of ideas that we will arrive at the solutions necessary to restore Ocean health.