World Economic Forum series of research reports and engages its members in sector-specific initiatives. There have been many other international conferences nicknamed with "Davos". However, the World Economic Forum objected the use of "Davos" in such contexts for any event not organised by them. This particular statement was issued on 22 October 2018, a day before the opening of 2018 Future Investment Initiative (nicknamed "Davos in the desert") organised by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. The WEF was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a German-born business professor at the University of Geneva. First named the "European Management Forum", it changed
International Economic Forum of the Americas of Montreal, the Toronto Global Forum, the World Strategic Forum and the Conference of Paris. The International Economic Forum of the Americas was founded in 1995, when Gil Remillard, a former Minister of Justice of Quebec, held an inaugural Conference of Montreal, on June 20–22, 1995. At the time, the globalization of the economies was beginning to emerge at an increased rate. With the fall of communism, the success of the "Uruguay round" in 1989, the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994 and the beginnings of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the world was ready to