Selecting the Sixty

Under the Road to Davos 2008 heading, you can find some information on the 60 participants who will be going to Guildford in less than a month. However, as always there’s more to the story.

 

I started working on this project in late August 2007, at a point when the application process was just about to start. One of the main ideas was to make some use of the Web 2.0-related technologies, in addition to the traditional application forms,  in selecting the candidates. But which one? At the time, the media craze about Second Life was already abating, and only the slowest of mainstream media still thought SL "cool" and "modern". Also, we wanted to avoid tech that was gimmicky and that would appeal only to a subset of our possible candidates – anything that is too reminiscent of computer games, like SL, would draw only a certain kind of crowd.

 

We finally decided on using YouTube prominently, mainly because it’s perhaps one of the best examples of what Web 2.0 can be. It’s very easy to use, which means it’s much more democratic than more tech-head applications. Nowadays, many up-to-date mobile phones can record videos, so chances are an applicant’s friend can film the two-minute video we asked for. Also, it’s one thing to write an application form, answering questions like "How would you describe yourself as a (social, environmental, cultural, political)  activist?" or "What challenge would you set for the world leaders in Davos?" – having to talk to an audience (even if that audience, for the moment, is just a mate with a small video camera), in most cases in a language that isn’t your mother tongue, and coming across as assertive, convincing and clear is a very different issue.

 

We received over 130 applications, and the same number of YouTube videos. Even though the requirement was, in theory at least, that the films weren’t longer than two minutes, many of the applicants showed that they had more to say than could be covered in two minutes. Some chose a simple, direct style, talking to the camera in one uninterrupted take (reminiscent of Obama Barack’s YouTube message to the American people). Others went for more elaborate, edited videos. All applicants had something to say, and they showed considerable conviction, and indeed courage, in exposing themselves to the selection team… who then had the task of going through the videos and choosing the sixty participants who would go to England in January 2008. Our task of selecting the final group was not easy – every single one of the applicants, every single one of the videos, was compelling in one way or another. But, alas, there’s no way we could have invited 130 young people to England.