4 Reasons Millennials Will Be The Generation To Really Change The World

I’m tired of hear­ing about how Mil­len­ni­als/Gen Y, aka. WE, are lazy, nar­cis­sis­tic and apathetic.

So far, I’ve trav­elled to and worked in 17 coun­tries. I maxed out every oppor­tu­nity dur­ing my uni­ver­sity years to travel by work­ing, vol­un­teer­ing, intern­ing, research­ing, teach­ing and study­ing abroad.   I can say from first-hand expe­ri­ence that young peo­ple from North Amer­ica to Europe to Africa are Dig­i­tal Natives and Global Cit­i­zens who are work­ing to cre­ate a bet­ter world.

1.  Mil­len­ni­als aren’t afraid of tech­nol­ogy that changes too fast.

In fact, we wel­come it.  We are quick to pick up on the lat­est wid­get, gad­gets and apps and find ways to use them to solve our prob­lems in ways that the inven­tors hadn’t even con­sid­ered.  We dive right in and learn how to use new tech­nol­ogy with­out a sec­ond thought.

2. Mil­len­ni­als embrace a global mindset.

We spend hours upon hours online and we devour infor­ma­tion about events hap­pen­ing around the world.  We can make friends with other young peo­ple all around the world and stay in touch with them with the click of a but­ton.  As we grow older and older, those rela­tion­ships will grow with us and we’ll have a global net­work of friends.  A global net­work like the Sand­box Net­work is a per­fect exam­ple of how young entre­pre­neurs and lead­ers are meet­ing up around the world, sup­port­ing each other and shar­ing their ideas.  

3.  Mil­len­ni­als are impatient.

We are impa­tient about fin­ish­ing school. We’re impa­tient about find­ing a job.  We’re impa­tient with gov­ern­ments that fail their nations.  We’re impa­tient with prob­lems that should have sim­ple solu­tions.  So we cre­ate our own solu­tions.  Whether its a web­site, an app or a social enter­prise, we find ways to boot­strap solu­tions and get them out to the peo­ple who need them.    Freed from the con­straints of insti­tu­tions and poli­cies, we cre­ate new mod­els for social inno­va­tion that orga­ni­za­tions have yet to real­ize the ben­e­fits of.

4. Mil­len­ni­als feel entitled.

This is often con­sid­ered a bad thing, but I see that it is the very rea­son why so much mil­len­ni­als will cre­ate the change they wish to see in the world.  Cou­pled with tech­nol­ogy and a global mind­set, Mil­len­ni­als have come to real­ize the injus­tice in the world and are using the Inter­net and social media to make a state­ment.  We feel enti­tled to live in a world with fresh air, clean water, non-GMO foods.  We feel that edu­ca­tion, health­care and free­dom from oppres­sion are things that all human beings are enti­tles to.