I’m an activist going to Davos for the World Economic Forum. Here’s what I hope to accomplish.

When I received the invitation to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, my first reaction was embarrassment at the thought that my activist peers would find out. For practically every profession, from corporate CEO to philanthropist and artist to world leader, attending Davos is a coveted proof of success in their field. Not so for contemporary activists like myself who have spent their lives organizing unruly protests against powerful elites. For me, attending Davos will most likely be reputational suicide: a sign taken by a movement consumed by cancel culture that I’ve done something wrong, sold out or been compromised.

And yet, the same activist impulse — do what you’re afraid to do — that inspired me to co-create Occupy Wall Street, also compels me to go to Davos.

After I accepted the invitation, I sought to understand how I ought to navigate this gathering.

The few activists that I spoke with privately about the situation inevitably asked the same question — what did I hope to achieve by going to Davos? Behind the query was a deep skepticism that anything good can come from a gathering of elites and that, perhaps, even less good could come from activists attending.

And yet, as I researched the World Economic Forum and the philosophy of its founder Prof Klaus Schwab, I uncovered a long history of uneasy engagement between activists and elites at Davos.