On Thursday, I launched a new series for NextGen Journal, a platform featuring voices of the next generation. My column is called End of the Old World. While melodramatic in name, it’s hopeful in outlook. We celebrate those with ideas and solutions.  Despite the messed-up economy, the young broke and beautiful can create their own opportunities. Each week features a pioneer between the ages of 18-28 who is scrapping the old for something new. Any suggestions for future features, let me know. Here is the first post!

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There are a lot of pessimists these days. Who can blame them? With an inexcusably high youth unemployment rate and a weakening global economy, it’s sure to be the ‘end of the world’ soon!

But with the world ending, there is another world being created altogether. A world where not much more than yourself, an idea, a computer, and a little chutzpah is needed to – poof!- make something happen. Magic, you say?

Last year, the editors of Inc. magazine sorted through more people than ever to create their 30 under 30 list, a compilation of the hottest visionaries who have created their own companies. There are more people in their 20s starting companies than ever before. Forget the naysayers. The sky is no longer the limit; it is the new starting point. I am fueled with optimism for the future.

I am optimistic because what we lack in jobs, we more than make up for with a wild imagination. What critics see as mindless distraction, I see as talent. Talent to be found in varying forms – virtual communities, music remixes, self-started companies, and cat videos– all talent, nonetheless.

Today, we kick off NextGen’s End of the Old World series, a weekly column that highlights enterprising people between the age of 18 and 28 who are building new companies, redefining age-old industries, and dictating employment on their own terms. These are people who refuse to be limited by circumstance and subsequently, designing their own profession. Using technology at their disposal, they are blowing art, business, design, engineering, journalism, and marketing categories into bits. As Harvard Business Review predicts, “countless new jobs will be created connecting these bits in unexpected but useful ways. And who better to name them than you?”

Join us as we celebrate the end of the world.  We start next week with our first team of game-changers.

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