MONTREAL and DAVOS – ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu brought important civil aviation security, innovation, and sustainability perspectives to the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week, where she contributed to a wide range of high-level panel discussions.
Reflecting on her overall experience, Dr. Liu remarked that this year’s WEF in Davos “clearly highlighted for me that ICAO is on the right track in terms of being more proactive in identifying and engaging with the many private sector innovators currently at work on shaping aviation’s future.”
“Air transport today is on the cusp of a very bold and exciting era,” Dr. Liu continued, “with drones, flying taxis, autonomous operations, and many other incredible technologies and capabilities being fine-tuned all over the world. As the UN agency responsible for harmonizing aviation country-to-country, such that our global system progresses based on globally aligned-solutions, ICAO must be able to respond dynamically so that these new technologies will foster instead of hinder the development of the global air transport system.”
The ICAO Secretary General made important impacts for ICAO and global aviation at Davos by providing the Special Remarks setting the stage for three distinct Davos panels, focused on: Advancing Cybersecurity in the Aviation Industry; Security in Travel; and Clean Skies for Tomorrow.
She also participated as a Co-Chair of the Stewardship Board reviewing the new WEF Mobility System Initiative, and as a Member of the WEF Global Council which concentrated its efforts this year on Drones and Tomorrow's Airspace.
Dr. Liu lastly took part with industry and policy makers at Davos as a main panellist reviewing the latest developments in Flying Cars and Designing for the New Aerial Logistics.
While in Davos, Dr. Liu met with a wide range of dignitaries and business leaders including Mr. Jurgen Stock, Secretary General of INTERPOL; Mr. Houlin Zhao, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union(ITU); Dr. Amani Abou-Zeid, the Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission (AUC) as well as Mr. Guillaume Faury, President of Airbus Commercial Aircraft and Mr. Marc Allen, President of Boeing International.
