Launching Dreams for The Future of Work
Online publication featuring the innovators, investors, and problem solvers building the Future of Work.
đ Iâm launching Dreams for the Future (of Work), an online publication thatâll take you behind the scenes of the most innovative ideas, promising startups, and influential people building out the Future of Work.
Every week(ish), Iâll release a new post featuring key insights from founders, investors, and problem-solvers in the sectorâââand help you answer the questions:Â
What does the Future of Work look like?
How do you thrive in this new normal?
Why now? Itâs personal.Â
âBut Siya, no one is hiring. Internships are canceled. 2020âââis canceled,â my 19-year-old cousin groaned over Zoom.
Just like other college students, my cousin, a rising junior, suddenly found herself option-less for the summer. Her college closed with 4 days noticeâââimmediately moving classes online, canceling study abroad programs, and emptying out dorm rooms.
As an early-career employee, it was the first time I was seeing friends be laid off, promising startups downsize, and my manager transition into a âwar-time CEO.â No one was prepared for this.Â
While speaking with my cousin, I remembered a conversation I once had with our Grandpa. He was telling me about his careerâââthe excitement of securing a prestigious Indian Government job at 21, his impactful and respectable three-decade tenure, and then the fear of becoming irrelevant when he was in his late 50s. The Indian Government had an age-based retirement processâââbut Grandpa didnât feel ready to retire.Â
It was the 1990s and Indiaâs markets were opening up to the world. He yearned to be part of that growth but his credentials carried little merit in the private sector. So Grandpa, at age 56, decided to return to school to pursue his MBA.
Years later, I asked him whether it was difficult to go back to school with people half his age. He chuckled.
He told me that you canât possibly prepare for all the opportunities youâll get in your life from the onset. Youâve got to keep reinventing yourselfâââand the environment around youâââto take advantage of those possibilities.Â
It was advice I had pocketed away for #Siya56 to reflect on. I didnât foresee that at 27, Iâââor at 19, my cousinâââwould already need to find ways to âreinventâ ourselves.
Photo: Grandpa reading b-school textbook, Siya showing off red pants (1996)
Starting to Reinvent Ourselves
The workplaces many of us will return to in the next few weeks/months wonât look like the ones we left behind. And the professional sector wonât look like what upperclassmen had told my cousin to prepare for.Â
COVID-19 has exposed significant flaws in global supply chains, wiped out several businesses that depended on on-going revenue, and forced all of us to become remote (and/or gig) workers.
How do you thrive in this new normal? What does the Future of Work look like?
I want to answer these questions for my cousin, myself, and everyone else trying to build or grow their career in this unprecedented time.Â
In Dreams for the Future (of Work), Iâll highlight promising ideas, startups, and people that are changing the ecosystem and enabling new opportunities to learn, earn, and grow in your career.Â
Hereâs how Iâll define the Future of Work:Â
Education for Employment (solutions for workforce readiness and economic mobility)Â
Gig Work (task-based work for both low-skill & knowledge professionals)
Remote WorkÂ
Productivity Tools
And anything else that impacts an individualâs ability to learn, earn, and build a financially-secure life for themselves.
Together, weâll navigate the unprecedented opportunities that this time providesâââand figure out how we can âreinventâ ourselves to leverage them.
If youâre interested in learning more about Future of Work founders, investors, and problem solvers, subscribe to Dreams for the Future (of Work).Â