Invest (in) Yourself

As I passed the thirties, one would wonder why I am writing to the youth. The answer to me is simple; it was those years of my life that defined how and where I am now as a person. It was during that period when I commenced traveling, which eventually led to me living in nine different cities outside my Macedonia in the last ten years. It was exactly in spring ten years ago when I first moved outside the borders of my home country, and I did so completely on my own; to the other side of the Atlantic. Despite all the hardships and failures, living in a different country away from my family’s protection taught me so much. It shaped the man that I am now.

Meeting people while you travel, or simply chit-chat with locals in the places that you spend time in, can offer you an unmatched education. Speaking another language, or coming into contact with another culture can alter the way you view things or the world. We live in a very privileged era, traveling can be simple and inexpensive, given the available opportunities. We also have the benefit of living in one of the most advanced and tolerant societies in the world. There is simply no excuse anymore for narrow-mindedness.

Despite all its faults, the EU together with the partner countries, including Turkey, can offer each one of its young citizens opportunities that would simply not be possible in their own communities. And it is of utmost importance for the leaders of Europe and elsewhere to understand that limiting the progressive policies can only harm the future. All the policies are vital to form a mobile, multilingual, educated, and diverse future generation, which will benefit the country’s economy in the long term. For it is this kind of youth that will give an advantage to the society when comparing its competitiveness with other countries or regions. The best investment that state leaders can make, is securing the future with a cosmopolitan, highly skilled, and educated working class.

If you leave better children to the world instead of leaving a better world to the children, the problem will be solved by itself.

- Aziz Nesin

Yet, reading this mostly gives us some abstract impressions and the idea of securing the future for the next generations just hovers around, if I do not give concrete examples. In this digital era, it is the Generation Z, with their obsession with screens, that will lead the progress, the innovation, the trends, the changes. Let me briefly present to you two exceptional instances of young innovators and leaders. The first is Neval Çam, who at 16 years of age, developed software for translating sign language in real-time; consequently helping millions of speaking and hearing-impaired people, and winning herself a full scholarship at Stanford University. The second one is a duo of young entrepreneurs Pia De Marchi and Elif Özsahin who discovered how to ease the needs and fears of millions of students when moving to other countries especially for studying. Namely, their startup ‘The Ned|Lon’ encompass services (housing, transportation, moving, and wellbeing & mentoring) they were struggling to find while they both moved to study abroad. Therefore, they chose to compete in five cities: London, Hamburg, Milano, Tilburg, and Toronto, and in the arena filled with people, who are business-wise experienced but are lacking the practical knowledge of being a student abroad.

Be curious, travel, and learn languages. As result, you will become the necessary pillars of a fairer, more progressive, more prosperous, and more diverse society that in return will benefit you and your families. If you want to leave your mark and shape your and your community’s future, grasp the opportunities that are available to you now. Become the change that you want to see.

And remember that future generations will blame you if you do not even try!

Vladimir Jovanovski