Learning from Millennials-- creative careers with noble purpose

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As a baby boomer on a quest to continually learn and find ways to make a difference, I am putting my faith in the future generation of leaders.

I am riveted by the Millennial generation—born between 1980 and 2000—who are not only doing well in their careers, but who are also doing good deeds outside the workplace. They will tell you that creativity and innovation are best used for noble purposes. They will tell you that goodness is essential to improve the world.

This is punctuated by three young RIT alumni I recently met:

• Katie Linendoll ’05 (information technology): Katie is an Emmy-award winning television personality known for her first-look technology stories and gadget roundups. She also devotes her personal time supporting children with cancer as a “big sister” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She helped start Batcole Foundation, where they are using virtual reality as a distraction for pediatric cancer patients.While children are going through hours of chemotherapy and radiation, they are relaxed and comforted with VR, where they can go underwater diving with whales or play at an amusement park.
• Austin McChord ’09 (bioinformatics): Austin’s gift of $50 million to RIT in December is the largest donation ever made to the university and one of the largest ever in the Rochester region. McChord is founder and CEO of Datto, a data protection company with engin–eering and support offices in downtown Rochester. The firm has created 1,400 jobs with nine global offices, including more than 200 employees in Rochester. His gift to RIT will be designated to two major areas: $30 million to foster creativity and entrepreneurship; $20 million to advance RIT’s capabilities in cyber–security and artificial intelligence. At the age of 32, Austin is among the nation’s top 50 philanthropists for 2017.
• Anna Sweet ’04 (computer science): Anna is a tech entrepreneur and executive with Caffeine, a new live streaming platform for the gaming industry. She also founded Octave Nine, a tech consulting firm focused on augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality. In addition to her career in the gaming industry in the San Francisco Bay area, Anna is co-founder of Sweet Farm Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the humane treatment of animals in the food system.

Katie, Austin and Anna are Millennials with “change the world” mindsets. Millennials have often been mischaracterized as entitled, over-protected and free-spirited to a fault. But research has discovered Millennials are incredibly generous with their time, talent and treasure. They have a strong sense of community, both local and global, as they blend their personal and professional lives, according to the Case Foundation’s Millennial Impact Report.

For example, 52 percent gave to a charity in 2016 and more than 70 percent volunteer, figures that rival older generations and surpass them in various metrics, according to the report. Millennials are idealistic, turning it into action and are on their way to becoming the “next great generation,” according to the Case Foundation.

Thank you, Katie, Austin, Anna and the leaders of a new generation for showing us that life is bigger than a successful career. Our future is amazingly bright.

Yours in Tiger pride,
David C. Munson Jr.
President