-- doing in Davos alongside the likes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

Fair enough question. I am neither rich nor famous nor a member of the global power elite. Hell, I'm not even a member of the Bangladesh power elite.

This is how it happened.

One day I arrived at the office to see that I had received an email from a gentleman at the Swiss embassy by the name of Mustafa Moinuddin.

It turned out that the World Economic Forum was launching a new initiative called the Forum of Young Global Leaders and that Mr. Moinuddin was in charge of nominating candidates from Bangladesh.

The idea behind the initiative was to bring together a group of young people from around the world who have demonstrated significant leadership (or potential for leadership) and commitment to positive social change in order to create a global network to work towards making the world a more prosperous and peaceful place.

Was I interested, Mr. Moinuddin wanted to know.

Sure, I said. Why not?

That was it. A couple of months later, I received a Federal Express package from the WEF informing me that I had been selected as one of the inaugural group of Young Global Leaders and inviting me to Davos.

Perusing the list of the others selected, I couldn't help but think that this had to be some kind of mistake.

But no. Apparently, I was the one they wanted.

What exactly the selection criteria was and how exactly the selection committee came to choose me remains somewhat shrouded in mystery (more so when you compare me with some of the rather more eminent personages who were also picked, such as Rahul Gandhi and Fareed Zakaria).

But mine not to reason why. I was very honoured to be included in such an august grouping and quickly faxed back an acceptance before the organizers recognized their apparent error and rescinded the invitation.

The World Economic Forum was the first time the group was able to meet, and as I thought that it was important for Bangladesh's sole representative to be present from the start so that we would have a seat at the table and a voice in determining the YGL agenda, I made sure that I was there.

In addition -- to be perfectly honest -- going to Davos was an astonishing opportunity that I wasn't going to miss out on if I could at all help it.

In addition to being invited to the World Economic Forum, there was also a special intensive side programme arranged for the YGLs which included, among other things, a special presentation over breakfast one day from Al Gore on the subject of climate change.

I didn't know what to expect when I arrived in Davos on January 24 (two days before the main event) for the start of the special YGL side programme. I have learned to remain sceptical when it comes to the usefulness of big meetings like the WEF and of the effectiveness of ambitious organizations like the YGL forum.

The truth is that I expected the forum to be a good opportunity for networking and meeting a group of accomplished and committed young men and women who shared my passion for politics and social change. I was excited to meet some of the big names on the ticket and thrilled to have the opportunity to attend the World Economic Forum and find out what it was all about. But that was about it.

I certainly didn't expect that I would be inspired by the experience and filled with the conviction that together we could actually accomplish something. But meeting the other YGLs and hearing their stories and their ideas for how we can work together for the future was a truly remarkable experience.

Let me tell you a little about some of the other members of the forum and you will see what I am talking about.

I really don't know where to start. Literally every member of the forum had an impressive story to tell and a resume packed with achievement and accomplishment.

There was Gavin Newsom, the 37 year-old Mayor of San Franciso.

There was John Bryant, founder of a social investment bank in South Central Los Angeles.

There was Michelle Guthrie, the CEO of the Hong Kong-based Star Group.

There was Ken Wiwa, the son of executed Nigerian human rights activist and Nobel laureate Ken Saro-Wiwa, and a highly respected activist and journalist in his own right.

There was Malvinder Mohan Singh, executive director of Ranbaxy, the multi-billion dollar Indian pharmaceutical company.

There was Sylvia Matthews, ex-deputy chief of staff for Bill Clinton and currently executive director of the Gates Foundation.

Believe me, I could go on. The forum is a who's who of parliamentarians, cabinet members, CEOs, directors of non-profits, even a couple of heads of state.

This was an impressive group of people and I am honoured (if a little surprised) to be included among them.

It won't last forever, of course. Next year there will be another batch of 200-250 YGLs, and another batch the year after, and every year. My tenure (and indeed that of all the batches) runs out in five years.

But the question is what we will do with the time we have.

This is something that we began to discuss in the sessions we had together at Davos, but we still have a long way to go to reach any kind of consensus as to what would be a workable agenda for the group and what we can realistically hope to accomplish.

We meet again this June in the Swiss town of Zermatt for four days and it is here that we will hopefully hammer out a blueprint for action. It is possible that one practical approach will be to split the group into dozens of smaller sub-groupings, either according to region or issue, and to leverage our core competencies to achieve results that would be hard to get on one's own.

I am personally very interested in seeing what connections the South Asian members can make and how we can work together to enhance regional cooperation and other issues of mutual concern. I am similarly interested in using the forum to set up a network to help address the issues of human rights and development that I have spent the last year and a half writing about here in The Daily Star.

My own feeling is that there is a good chance that the forum will be able to act in an effective manner to bring positive change in a number of areas. I sensed real commitment and enthusiasm among the other members of the group and have no doubt that there exists both the will and the ability to transform this initiative into something quite meaningful.

Davos does a good job in setting out an agenda for change, but only in the broadest of terms. Both governments and the private sector are heavily influenced by the tenor of the debate at Davos and the issues that are raised there, but many of the participants are there for the experience and not to use the meeting as a spring-board for further action.

The YGLs are a little different. We envision our role as an activist one and the idea is to spend the next five years being active participants in bringing about the kind of change that was put on the table at Davos.

Whether we can live up to this ideal, of course, remains to be seen.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.

This piece is the third of a series.