Last Thursday and Friday I had the great pleasure of speaking about “Tech for Good” and facilitating a workshop on entrepreneurship at the World Business Dialogue 2014 in Cologne. It was an incredible event — not only because it was extremely well organized (especially when taking into account that the congress is completely student-organized and -run) or due to the overall quality of the speakers. But because it’s simply incredible to interact with hundreds of highly motivated and smart students from all around the world.
In many, many interactions with the attending students the question came up: What shall I do after I leave university?
The answer, for me, is always the same: Do something meaningful.
Meaningful is contextual. It’s personal. What’s meaningful to you doesn’t mean it’s meaningful to me or anyone else. If you want to dig water wells in Africa: Awesome. If you want to make enough money so that you can retire with 35 and travel the world in luxury: Awesome. Do whatever is important to you. You. Not anyone else. All the other people need to live their own lives. You can only live yours. So don’t judge or be judged.