Yesterday, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik shared a “Beginner’s Guide to Davos,” for first-time World Economic Forum attendees. In his latest dispatch for the Harvard Business Review, Fertik shares insights from his first day at the Forum, and how thousands of entrepreneurs, politicians, and other civic leaders are working together to solve global problems.

Check out Michael Fertik’s full day one dispatch below:

The Congress Center is buzzing. The crowd is hyper-international, and business is on everyone’s lips. You probably overhear the word “China” or “Obama” every third minute. It’s been snowing, but there’s no sense of that inside the building, which has been set up like a small, self-contained city.

This morning I participated in a working session between the WEF’s Technology Pioneers and Social Entrepreneurs. We had an active and impassioned discussion on global topics including health, water, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and employment. The people here are working on fascinating projects. One fellow has funded a project that has collectivized waste pickers in the developing world and raised their daily income from 65 cents to seven dollars. By doing so, he has also made health insurance affordable and possible for the same community. Another, based in South Africa, has paired international designers with local craftsmen to increase the value of the hand-made goods for export, raising their incomes from 40% to 100%. A third is focused on getting more high school students to go to college in the United States, driven by the fact that the top contributor to urban growth is local college attainment levels.

I’m tweeting photos via my Twitter account if you want to follow live.

Michael Fertik will continue covering Davos for the Harvard Business Review and other news outlets during the week. Check back here often for the latest updates.