What attributes and skills does one need to navigate successfully in the Future? Henrietta Kekäläinen gives her professional opinion.

1: EMPATHY
More than compassion, empathy is the ability to set yourself in another person’s situation and life.
As we grow in numbers on this planet, urbanize, and life grows in complexity as we get more connected, it’s an imperative skill to be able to co-exist and act with each other.

2: RESILIENCE
Resilience is to adapt and cope in new situations. We need resilient communities around the world who can produce their own basic necessities and generate electricity for own needs – and fix those systems when they break. We need resilient communities to support each other, such as communities of women who hold together and help out an unfortunate of their circle when a microloan can’t be repaid. Or communities such as scouts, who provide an important second family to young people. Resilient communities and resilient teams can adapt to sudden negative changes and make the hit smaller by all taking a portion of the blow.

3: TECHNOLOGICAL SELF-CONFIDENCE
Many organizations, schools and individuals face the fact of an ever more technological world. Technology is entering more areas in life and business – energy, mobility, information, commercial areas and consumer products. The transformation from being a consumer with limited knowledge of how devices and applications work to an informed actor who can influence the world around us is all in the mind and effort. Once you seek information and practice in programming and building or modifying things, you see the world with different eyes, more opportunities and less fear. At mehackit, we bring complete novices their first steps in building and programming robots. Through seeing results made with your own efforts, the first experience of success around self-expression using technology as a tool brings courage, turning the previously unknown into something less intimidating and more exciting.

4: CRITICAL THINKING
As information flows faster and more information floods your landscape, being able to think critically about the information you are receiving raises its importance. Also, as more people tend to throw opinions on the web (like me here!), being critical and objective is key to getting as truthful an idea as you can. Of course, not everyone seeks after truth and correct knowledge. Skills of critical analysis need to be rehearsed, too.
News article stating mysterious holes appearing in the ground? Seek the area on google maps, zoom out, and you’ll see that it’s a naturally occurring phenomena thanks to the shapes of the holes, some of which have been filled with water and are lakes.

5: SYSTEMIC THINKING
When acting in this tight-knit, connected world, every action or inaction taken will lead to consequence. You should be ever more aware of the greater effects and consequences of your and your company’s decisions. How will your authority accreditation strategy affect other companies in the field? How well do you know your supply chain sourcing? What shifts do you force in the broader scope? Think globally and long-term.

6: ABILITY AND THE WILL TO LEARN ANYTHING
14-year olds at Singularity University were asked “what is the meaning of education?” to which they answered that the most important thing that can be taught to them is simply to “make me believe that I can learn anything”. This in essence is the key factor to millennials navigating in an ever-evolving world – they will probably change jobs and industry more than 20 times during their lifetime, and need to develop a skill of learning on the go.

7: SOFT SKILLS
Problem-solving, team working, conflict resolution and other co-operation skills were also mentioned when the 14-year olds told Singularity University what education should look like. Personally, I find that personalized ways to development, tools to manage this crazy life and build your own persona, path and peace would be extremely important to facilitate in many different ways, so each individual could find a comfortable way to address challenges from within.

8: SEEKING OPPORTUNITY IN PROBLEMS
Climate change causing emissions, warming, erosion, rising sea level, natural catastrophes (the list goes on), mass mobilization from war, political, climate and other refugees, fossil fuel dependency in how our agriculture, mobility, industry, energy and more of society’s key necessities depend (still) all on humanity-endangering fossil fuels, food distribution and sourcing, clean water, urbanization, healthcare.. the list of global grand challenges goes on. Anyone can make a list of the issues only in their immediate environment, and address them. Entrepreneurs who combat problems are not all “social entrepreneurs” or non-profits. Pretty much any new startup you see will have started from an issue, big or small, that they are out to solve. Whether it’s a solution to help you render 3D modelling faster or a solution for disease outbreaks tracking, it all started by seeing a problem and doing something about it.

The author Pia Henrietta Kekäläinen is the founder of mehackit, a Singularity University Alumna and recognized as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. Find her on twitter @phenriettak