WEF launches San Francisco tech policy centre

Klaus Schwab, founder and president of the World Economic Forum, holds his book during a press conference, in January Keystone

The Geneva-based World Economic Forum, which sponsors that annual Davos gathering of world leaders, is opening a San Francisco office to explore policy and regulatory questions surrounding new technologies such as artificial intelligence, automated vehicles and blockchain.

The office, called the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, will have 50-60 people working on about ten different projects by the end of the next year, Murat Sonmez, a one-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur who will lead the effort, said in an interview.

The goal is to develop policy approaches to address the novel issues raised by new technologies, said the member of the forum’s managing board. Many “policies and regulations were written before the internet was invented. Policy-makers don’t know what to do,” he said.

About half of the new centre’s staff will work full-time and the rest will include fellows and others from industry, academia and government, Sonmez said.

Klaus Schwab, founder and chief executive of the forum, said in a statement that “given the accelerating change brought on by innovation, continuous public-private cooperation on a global level is needed more than ever”.