Anna Skarbek: 'This planet we all share, and which holds your future in its hands, needs urgent care', Monash Business School

17 December 2019, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia

Anna Skarbek is the CEO of ClimateWorks Australia

Chancellor, Mr Simon McKeon; Deputy Vice-Chancellor & Vice-President Global Engagement, Professor Abid Khan; Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics, Professor Russell Smyth; members of the Faculty, Ladies and Gentlemen – and proud parents and families. And especially the new graduates:

Congratulations to all of you who have graduated today. Like you, I sat in this Hall, graduating from this Faculty. Twenty-two years ago, I received my Bachelor of Commerce with Honours in Finance, and my law degree two years after.

Many of my Monash friends are still my closest friends today. Many of them have given me career advice and support along the way, and now here I am, being asked to share some advice with you. My most commonly given advice is to follow your strengths. When we do that, we shine.

You all have skills. Your strengths are the sum of your skills and interests. Interests are the issues that drive you – the areas in the world you’d like to improve.

This era has the benefit of being guided by the global Sustainable Development Goals. I’ll come back to those.

I have also learned the value of finding balance for personal health and professional diversity. Someone on this stage today helped illustrate this to me early in my career. Professional diversity is welcomed, even when it may not appear directly work related.

When I joined Macquarie Bank as a graduate, I still held a voluntary role with Amnesty International that I had started here at uni. I thought I should keep this interest separate from work, but the then-Chairman of Macquarie’s Melbourne office – our very own Chancellor here today, Simon McKeon – encouraged me to talk with him about it, as he was on the board of World Vision at the time. Soon we had a connection beyond our formal roles at work, a connection that continues to this day.

Balance is essential for good performance – neuroscientists are reminding us of this even as it seems increasingly hard to achieve within the hyper-connected, fast paced era of today. Balance is also essential for teams. Diversity in teams improves outcomes, and innovation happens at the intersection of disciplines.

Now, more than ever before, it is essential to balance profit, people, and the planet. With a balanced mindset in business, your generation of leaders can avoid the pitfalls of current and previous generations.

I have learned that by being true to your interests – areas where you want to see positive impact – and making your interests known, you can not only make the change you want to see, but also turn this into a career. Chasing the cause works better than chasing a job. The jobs emerge when you’re focused on the cause.

When I joined Macquarie Bank as a graduate I made my environmental interests known, a bit unusual there at the time. But because of this, I was soon invited to join the team advising on the first water recycling infrastructure being developed in Victoria. This led me to be offered a job advising the Minister for Water – a job I might never have got from my business pathway if not for the experience I’d gained on water projects. Later, the Water Minister also become Climate Change Minister, and soon I was part of the team designing the first version of Australia’s emissions trading scheme.

I was then introduced by a friend from my time at Monash, who knew of my environmental interests, to the first climate change specialist investment bank in London. I moved there to work in it – drawing on my business skills again. When I was ready to come home, that Minister for Climate Change had come to Monash and was establishing ClimateWorks. I was asked to become its CEO. I now run an award-winning team advising governments and businesses, employing staff here and in Jakarta.

I realise in hindsight that by letting my interests guide my job decisions, I had built a cohesive career – and an enjoyable, meaningful one. I couldn’t have known these steps from the start because most of the roles I’ve held did not exist when I was at uni and sat where you sit today. There was however a Monash connection throughout, you may have noticed.

Now, your generation is being told that most – up to 80% – of the jobs you will go on to hold don’t exist yet. You can design your own paths.

A Monash degree is a passport to a new future. The world is yours to explore, to contribute to, and importantly yours to nurture. This planet we all share, and which holds your future in its hands, needs urgent care. When I graduated, it was into the old fossil fuel economy. You’re entering the new economy which will be carbon constrained – and needs to be decarbonised fully.

You are graduating at the beginning of what is now being called the transformational decade. This is because in the next decade, carbon emissions need to halve, and then halve again by 2040, for us to reach net zero emissions by 2050. By that time most of you will be not much older than I am now.

The physical consequences of climate change are now serious concerns for financial market regulators and investors. This is the last decade we have to turn emissions around, before we cause so much global warming that we destroy coral reefs forever, risk Asian coastal cities and Pacific islands to rising sea level inundation, and expose us all to reduced food security, health impacts, bushfires and extreme weather and species loss.

Transformational change is needed, and possible. Fortunately, this is also the decade in which the need for, and tools to address, climate change are better understood. While the world’s nations are still refining the processes for how they will take the necessary actions for this, already many national and subnational governments, businesses and institutions are committing to be net zero themselves. The Sustainable Development Goals help define what a better world looks like

No Poverty
Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well-being
Quality Education
Gender Equality
Clean Water and Sanitation
Affordable and Clean Energy
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
Reducing Inequality
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action
Life Below Water
Life On Land
Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Partnerships for the Goals

What a great menu to apply your life to. The UN has written these into 17 interconnected goals and agreed to achieve them all by 2030. That is the first ten years of your career. The solutions to these challenges are exciting and demand new ways of thinking and doing business, and these goals are shared between government, business and community.

Examples abound, including right here at Monash with the Net Zero Initiative. Monash was the first Australian university to announce a net zero by 2030 target, and is successfully implementing it right now. In its first two years Monash is on track for a 40% emissions reduction on 2015 levels by next year, which were otherwise due to be rising. Monash has also completed 30,000 LED lighting upgrades, installed Electric vehicle chargers and over 4000 solar panels and built two all-electric, ‘net zero ready’ buildings – with two more under construction. Monash will have a microgrid up and running next year and will provide a model for how to power a sustainable and reliable electricity network and maximise value for customers.

The Monash team is now beginning to turn its focus to its supply chain and global operations, beyond its campus, and the influence it can have in helping others on the net zero journey. Monash is using a ‘living lab’ research and education approach to help translate this new knowledge into regulatory advice and development of commercial business models. Their experience in this area is in turn developing the net zero leaders of tomorrow.

So when you as Monash graduates are offered jobs, ask your prospective employers, do they have net zero emissions strategy? And if not, you can choose elsewhere, or help them create one. And wherever you work, please look for ways to apply your skills to these great challenges of our time.

From that great list of 17 sustainable development goals, choose the ones you care most about and make it the thread of your career. There is no limit to how you can apply your career to addressing the SDGs – it takes a very wide spectrum of skills, skills you’ll be honing anyway for the new economy of system change thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration and mission-led innovation.

All it takes is to pay attention to what matters. The consequences are high when you don’t. Last month a big bank CEO and Chairman lost their jobs for not ensuring their financial products and services were not supporting money laundering for child abuse. Society knows what good looks like and is increasingly making that visible. Your generation are working in the era of ultra-transparency. Plus, it feels good to work on what matters.

You’ve been equipped by this Faculty, as I was, to navigate uncertainty and to not only find new solutions to complex problems, but to lead others through them. You all have your own special skills. Whatever your discipline, whether it be finance, economics, marketing, accounting, management, data, consumer design and so much more, all of this can be applied to addressing the sustainable development goals and climate change. We need all hands on deck in this transformational decade and you can make your business skills match what the future sustainable economy needs. I’ll end by quoting Paul Hawken, author of the New York Times best-seller climate solutions book, Drawdown. He said, and I agree: “You are brilliant, and Earth is hiring”

Thank you very much, Chancellor.

Tim Cook: ' If you’ve built a chaos factory, you can’t dodge responsibility for the chaos', Stanford University - 2019

Speech commences on video at 1:12:30

16 June 2019, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Good morning, Class of 2019!

Thank you, President Tessier-Lavigne, for that generous introduction. I’ll do my best to earn it.

Before I begin, I want to recognize everyone whose hard work made this celebration possible, including the groundskeepers, ushers, volunteers and crew. Thank you.

I’m honored and frankly a little astonished to be invited to join you for this most meaningful of occasions.

Graduates, this is your day. But you didn’t get here alone.

Family and friends, teachers, mentors, loved ones, and, of course, your parents, all worked together to make you possible and they share your joy today. Here on Father’s Day, let’s give the dads in particular a round of applause.

Stanford is near to my heart, not least because I live just a mile and a half from here.

Of course, if my accent hasn’t given it away, for the first part of my life I had to admire this place from a distance.

I went to school on the other side of the country, at Auburn University, in the heart of landlocked Eastern Alabama.

You may not know this, but I was on the sailing team all four years.

It wasn’t easy. Back then, the closest marina was a three-hour drive away. For practice, most of the time we had to wait for a heavy rainstorm to flood the football field. And tying knots is hard! Who knew?

Yet somehow, against all odds, we managed to beat Stanford every time. We must have gotten lucky with the wind.

Kidding aside, I know the real reason I’m here, and I don’t take it lightly.

Stanford and Silicon Valley’s roots are woven together. We’re part of the same ecosystem. It was true when Steve stood on this stage 14 years ago, it’s true today, and, presumably, it’ll be true for a while longer still.

The past few decades have lifted us together. But today we gather at a moment that demands some reflection.

Fueled by caffeine and code, optimism and idealism, conviction and creativity, generations of Stanford graduates (and dropouts) have used technology to remake our society.

But I think you would agree that, lately, the results haven’t been neat or straightforward.

In just the four years that you’ve been here at the Farm, things feel like they have taken a sharp turn.

Crisis has tempered optimism. Consequences have challenged idealism. And reality has shaken blind faith.

And yet we are all still drawn here.

For good reason.

Big dreams live here, as do the genius and passion to make them real. In an age of cynicism, this place still believes that the human capacity to solve problems is boundless.

But so, it seems, is our potential to create them.

That’s what I’m interested in talking about today. Because if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that technology doesn’t change who we are, it magnifies who we are, the good and the bad.

Our problems – in technology, in politics, wherever – are human problems. From the Garden of Eden to today, it’s our humanity that got us into this mess, and it’s our humanity that’s going to have to get us out.

If you want credit for the good, take responsibility for the bad

First things first, here’s a plain fact.

Silicon Valley is responsible for some of the most revolutionary inventions in modern history.

From the first oscillator built in the Hewlett-Packard garage to the iPhones that I know you’re holding in your hands.

Social media, shareable video, snaps and stories that connect half the people on Earth. They all trace their roots to Stanford’s backyard.

But lately, it seems, this industry is becoming better known for a less noble innovation: the belief that you can claim credit without accepting responsibility.

We see it every day now, with every data breach, every privacy violation, every blind eye turned to hate speech. Fake news poisoning our national conversation. The false promise of miracles in exchange for a single drop of your blood. Too many seem to think that good intentions excuse away harmful outcomes.

But whether you like it or not, what you build and what you create define who you are.

It feels a bit crazy that anyone should have to say this. But if you’ve built a chaos factory, you can’t dodge responsibility for the chaos. Taking responsibility means having the courage to think things through.

And there are few areas where this is more important than privacy.

If we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggregated, sold, or even leaked in the event of a hack, then we lose so much more than data.

We lose the freedom to be human.

Think about what’s at stake. Everything you write, everything you say, every topic of curiosity, every stray thought, every impulsive purchase, every moment of frustration or weakness, every gripe or complaint, every secret shared in confidence.

In a world without digital privacy, even if you have done nothing wrong other than think differently, you begin to censor yourself. Not entirely at first. Just a little, bit by bit. To risk less, to hope less, to imagine less, to dare less, to create less, to try less, to talk less, to think less. The chilling effect of digital surveillance is profound, and it touches everything.

What a small, unimaginative world we would end up with. Not entirely at first. Just a little, bit by bit. Ironically, it’s the kind of environment that would have stopped Silicon Valley before it had even gotten started.

We deserve better. You deserve better.

If we believe that freedom means an environment where great ideas can take root, where they can grow and be nurtured without fear of irrational restrictions or burdens, then it’s our duty to change course, because your generation ought to have the same freedom to shape the future as the generation that came before.

Graduates, at the very least, learn from these mistakes. If you want to take credit, first learn to take responsibility.

Be a builder

Now, a lot of you – the vast majority – won’t find yourselves in tech at all. That’s as it should be. We need your minds at work far and wide, because our challenges are great, and they can’t be solved by any single industry.

No matter where you go, no matter what you do, I know you will be ambitious. You wouldn’t be here today if you weren’t. Match that ambition with humility – a humility of purpose.

That doesn’t mean being tamer, being smaller, being less in what you do. It’s the opposite, it’s about serving something greater. The author Madeleine L’Engle wrote, “Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.”

In other words, whatever you do with your life, be a builder.

You don’t have to start from scratch to build something monumental. And, conversely, the best founders – the ones whose creations last and whose reputations grow rather than shrink with passing time – they spend most of their time building, piece by piece.

Builders are comfortable in the belief that their life’s work will one day be bigger than them – bigger than any one person. They’re mindful that its effects will span generations. That’s not an accident. In a way, it’s the whole point.

In a few days we will mark the 50th anniversary of the riots at Stonewall.

When the patrons of the Stonewall Inn showed up that night – people of all races, gay and transgender, young and old – they had no idea what history had in store for them. It would have seemed foolish to dream it.

When the door was busted open by police, it was not the knock of opportunity or the call of destiny. It was just another instance of the world telling them that they ought to feel worthless for being different.

But the group gathered there felt something strengthen in them. A conviction that they deserved something better than the shadows, and better than oblivion.

And if it wasn’t going to be given, then they were going to have to build it themselves.

I was 8 years old and a thousand miles away when Stonewall happened. There were no news alerts, no way for photos to go viral, no mechanism for a kid on the Gulf Coast to hear these unlikely heroes tell their stories.

Greenwich Village may as well have been a different planet, though I can tell you that the slurs and hatreds were the same.

What I would not know, for a long time, was what I owed to a group of people I never knew in a place I’d never been.

Yet I will never stop being grateful for what they had the courage to build.

Graduates, being a builder is about believing that you cannot possibly be the greatest cause on this Earth, because you aren’t built to last. It’s about making peace with the fact that you won’t be there for the end of the story.

You won’t be ready

That brings me to my last bit of advice.

Fourteen years ago, Steve stood on this stage and told your predecessors: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Here’s my corollary: “Your mentors may leave you prepared, but they can’t leave you ready.”

When Steve got sick, I had hardwired my thinking to the belief that he would get better. I not only thought he would hold on, I was convinced, down to my core, that he’d still be guiding Apple long after I, myself, was gone.

Then, one day, he called me over to his house and told me that it wasn’t going to be that way.

Even then, I was convinced he would stay on as chairman. That he’d step back from the day to day but always be there as a sounding board.

But there was no reason to believe that. I never should have thought it. The facts were all there.

And when he was gone, truly gone, I learned the real, visceral difference between preparation and readiness.

It was the loneliest I’ve ever felt in my life. By an order of magnitude. It was one of those moments where you can be surrounded by people, yet you don’t really see, hear or even feel them. But I could sense their expectations.

When the dust settled, all I knew was that I was going to have to be the best version of myself that I could be.

I knew that if you got out of bed every morning and set your watch by what other people expect or demand, it’ll drive you crazy.

So what was true then is true now. Don’t waste your time living someone else’s life. Don’t try to emulate the people who came before you to the exclusion of everything else, contorting into a shape that doesn’t fit.

It takes too much mental effort – effort that should be dedicated to creating and building. You’ll waste precious time trying to rewire your every thought, and, in the mean time, you won’t be fooling anybody.

Graduates, the fact is, when your time comes, and it will, you’ll never be ready.

But you’re not supposed to be. Find the hope in the unexpected. Find the courage in the challenge. Find your vision on the solitary road.

Don’t get distracted.

There are too many people who want credit without responsibility.

Too many who show up for the ribbon cutting without building anything worth a damn.

Be different. Leave something worthy.

And always remember that you can’t take it with you. You’re going to have to pass it on.

Thank you very much. And Congratulations to the Class of 2019!

Jeff Bezos: 'Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice', Princeton - 2010

30 May 2010, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA

As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.” My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car, and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.

At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage — figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”

I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.

Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans — plodding as we are — will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications. I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton — all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.

How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?

I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!

Tim Cook: - 'If you hope to change the world, you must find your fearlessness', Duke University - 2018

13 May 2018, Duke University,

Hello, Blue Devils! It’s great to be back.

It’s an honor to stand before you—both as your commencement speaker and a fellow Duke graduate.

I earned my degree from the Fuqua School in 1988. In preparing for this speech, I reached out to one of my favorite professors from back then. Bob Reinheimer taught a great course in Management Communications, which included sharpening your public speaking skills.

We hadn’t spoken for decades, so I was thrilled when he told me: he remembered a particularly gifted public speaker who took his class in the 1980s…

With a bright mind and a charming personality!
He said he knew—way back then—this person was destined for greatness.

You can imagine how this made me feel. Professor Reinheimer had an eye for talent. And, if I do say so, I think his instincts were right…

Melinda Gates has really made her mark on the world.

I’m grateful to Bob, Dean Boulding, and all of my Duke professors. Their teachings have stayed with me throughout my career.

I want to thank President Price, the Duke Faculty, and my fellow members of the Board of Trustees for the honor of speaking with you today. I’d also like to recognize this year’s honorary degree recipients.

And most of all, congratulations to the class of 2018!

No graduate gets to this moment alone. I want to acknowledge your parents, grandparents and friends here cheering you on, just as they have every step of the way. Let’s give them our thanks.

Today especially, I remember my mother, who watched me graduate from Duke. I wouldn’t have been there that day—or made it here today—without her support.

Let’s give our special thanks to all the mothers here today, on Mother’s Day.

I have wonderful memories here. Studying—and not studying—with people I still count as friends to this day. Cheering at Cameron for every victory.

Cheering even louder when that victory is over Carolina.

Look back over your shoulder fondly and say goodbye to act one of your life. And then quickly look forward. Act two begins today. It’s your turn to reach out and take the baton.

You enter the world at a time of great challenge.

Our country is deeply divided—and too many Americans refuse to hear any opinion that differs from their own.

Our planet is warming with devastating consequences—and there are some who deny it’s even happening.

Our schools and communities suffer from deep inequality—we fail to guarantee every student the right to a good education.

And yet we are not powerless in the face of these problems. You are not powerless to fix them.

No generation has ever held more power than yours. And no generation has been able to make change happen faster than yours can. The pace at which progress is possible has accelerated dramatically. Aided by technology, every individual has the tools, potential, and reach to build a better world.

That makes this the best time in history to be alive.

Whatever you choose to do with your life…

Wherever your passion takes you.

I urge you to take the power you have been given and use it for good. Aspire to leave this world better than you found it.

I didn’t always see life as clearly as I do now. But I’ve learned the greatest challenge of life is knowing when to break with conventional wisdom.

Don’t just accept the world you inherit today.

Don’t just accept the status quo.

No big challenge has ever been solved, and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved, unless people dare to try something different. Dare to think different.

I was lucky to learn from someone who believed this deeply. Someone who knew that changing the world starts with “following a vision, not a path.” He was my friend and mentor, Steve Jobs.

Steve’s vision was that great ideas come from a restless refusal to accept things as they are. And those principles still guide us at Apple today.

We reject the notion that global warming is inevitable.

That’s why we run Apple on 100% renewable energy.

We reject the excuse that getting the most out of technology means trading away your right to privacy.

So we choose a different path: Collecting as little of your data as possible. Being thoughtful and respectful when it’s in our care. Because we know it belongs to you.

In every way, at every turn, the question we ask ourselves is not ‘what can we do’ but ‘what should we do’.

Because Steve taught us that’s how change happens. And from him I learned to never be content with things as they are.

I believe this mindset comes naturally to young people…and you should never let go of that restlessness.

So today’s ceremony isn’t just about presenting you with a degree, it’s about presenting you with a question.

How will you challenge the status quo? How will you push the world forward?

Fifty years ago today—May 13th, 1968—Robert Kennedy was campaigning in Nebraska, and spoke to a group of students who were wrestling with that same question.

Those were troubled times, too. The U.S. was at war in Vietnam. There was violent unrest in America’s cities. And the country was still reeling from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King a month earlier.

Kennedy gave the students a call to action. When you look across this country, and when you see peoples’ lives held back by discrimination and poverty… when you see injustice and inequality. He said, you should be the last people to accept things as they are.

Let Kennedy’s words echo here today.

“You should be the last people to accept [it].”
Whatever path you’ve chosen…
Be it medicine, business, engineering, the humanities—whatever drives your passion. Be the last to accept the notion that the world you inherit cannot be improved.
Be the last to accept the excuse that says, “that’s just how things are done here.” Duke graduates, you should be the last people to accept it.
And you should be the first to change it.

The world-class education you’ve received—that you’ve worked so hard for—gives you opportunities that few people have.

You are uniquely qualified, and therefore uniquely responsible, to build a better way forward. That won’t be easy. It will require great courage.

But that courage will not only help you live your life to the fullest—it will empower you to transform the lives of others.

Last month I was in Birmingham to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. And I had the incredible privilege of spending time with women and men who marched and worked alongside him.

Many of them were younger at the time than you are now. They told me that when they defied their parents and joined the sit-ins and boycotts, when they faced the police dogs and firehoses, they were risking everything they had—becoming foot soldiers for justice without a second thought.

Because they knew that change had to come.
Because they believed so deeply in the cause of justice.

Because they knew, even with all the adversity they had faced, they had the chance to build something better for the next generation.

We can all learn from their example. If you hope to change the world, you must find your fearlessness.

Now, if you’re anything like I was on graduation day, maybe you’re not feeling so fearless.

Maybe you’re thinking about the job you hope to get, or wondering where you’re going to live, or how to repay that student loan. These, I know, are real concerns. I had them, too. But don’t let those worries stop you from making a difference.

Fearlessness means taking the first step, even if you don’t know where it will take you. It means being driven by a higher purpose, rather than by applause.

It means knowing that you reveal your character when you stand apart, more than when you stand with the crowd.

If you step up, without fear of failure… if you talk and listen to each other, without fear of rejection… if you act with decency and kindness, even when no one is looking, even if it seems small or inconsequential, trust me, the rest will fall into place.

More importantly, you’ll be able to tackle the big things when they come your way. It’s in those truly trying moments that the fearless inspire us.

Fearless like the students of Parkland, Florida—who refuse to be silent about the epidemic of gun violence, and have rallied millions to their cause.

Fearless like the women who say “me, too” and “time’s up”… women who cast light into dark places, and move us toward a more just and equal future.

Fearless like those who fight for the rights of immigrants… who understand that our only hopeful future is one that embraces all who want to contribute.

Duke graduates, be fearless.

Be the last people to accept things as they are, and the first people to stand up and change them for the better.

In 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech at Page Auditorium to an overflow crowd. Students who couldn’t get a seat listened from outside on the lawn. Dr. King warned them that someday we would all have to atone, not only for the words and actions of the bad people, but for “the appalling silence and indifference of the good people, who sit around and say, ‘Wait on time.’”

Martin Luther King stood right here at Duke, and said: “The time is always right to do right.” For you, graduates, that time is now.
It will always be now.

It’s time to add your brick to the path of progress.

It’s time for all of us to move forward.
And it’s time for you to lead the way.
Thank you—and congratulations, Class of 2018!

Jack Heath: 'Be Good. Be Grateful. Be Kind. Be Still', University of Melbourne - 2018

11 April, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Jack Heath is the CEO of SANE Australia. SANE helps the more than 700,000 Australians living with mental illness, including bipolar, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorders, eating disorders, PTSD, complex forms of anxiety, and depression.

Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, distinguished guests, teachers, GRADUATES

Thirty-two years ago, I graduated from this fine University with degrees in Law and Arts. It took me seven years to get there and I dealt with some mental health challenges along the way. In fact, just a few months before I was to sit my final law exams I was going to throw it all in. It was only thanks to a very kind Sub-dean of the Law School that I was convinced to stick it out and complete my degree – thank you Sally Walker. So, for those of you graduating today who have faced similar challenges, I have a sense of what it’s like and I salute your simply being here today.

Coming back to this building brings up mixed emotions. Over the years, I think I must have sat more than 30 exams here – the nerves haven’t gone away. But the main emotion I feel today is relief – no more exams! And for all of you graduating here today I suspect the feeling might be mutual.

I am deeply honoured to address you today and do so on behalf of the many members of my family who graduated from the University of Melbourne in arts, law, medicine, commerce, science, veterinary science and agricultural science. Apologies to the architects, engineers and others! My wife Catherine and I started dating at the University – 34 years later she is still beautiful, still fiercely intelligent. And while our daughter is set to graduate from two Sydney Universities to follow in the footsteps of her great grandmother, our son Jamie will head this way after his gap year.

Today as we celebrate your graduation, I ask you to consider FOUR invitations.

My first invitation is to BE GOOD. It was always the last thing my father would say to me whenever we parted company be it heading off to boarding school or back to Uni – BE GOOD. My father graduated in Ag Science in 1958 two years before I was born. He was a cricket tragic. Dad prided himself on ensuring his children had the best education possible even if that meant the only holiday we had each year was when we would drive down from Mooroopna for the Boxing Day Test. The last time I saw Dad alive was just over fifteen years ago – not too far from here. We had spent the day at the MCG watching the cricket. We left the members pavilion. I veered left towards the city and Dad veered to the right to his car. BE GOOD he said.

There are some events in public life where you can remember exactly where you were – like the time Princess Diana died. More recently, I was one of the many Australians outraged at the Australian cricket team’s ball tampering in South Africa. I was dismayed when I read it on my iPhone as I was getting of bed. I was bewildered when I watched the first media conference Steve Smith gave. How could he possibly not realise the enormity of what had happened – as if you could just say you were sorry, that everyone would move on and you would remain as captain. He failed to appreciate that whenever we do the wrong thing there are consequences. And so, my invitation is to be BE GOOD. Doing the right thing is always the right thing to do. And as you pursue your careers, I beseech you – if something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.

At the same time, I was very moved at Steve Smith’s second media conference when he showed deep and genuine remorse. I suspect Dad might have forgiven him as well.

My second invitation for you to consider is BE GRATEFUL. My family made big sacrifices to send me to boarding school and I’m sure many of you are graduating today thanks to the generosity of your families both here in Australia and overseas.

Our family tradition of giving your children the best education, whatever the financial cost, stretched back to my paternal grandmother Nellie Frances Carrick whom we knew as “Gran”. In April 1920 – 98 years ago this month – Gran graduated with a BA from the University of Melbourne. She then went teaching in Horsham before returning to the University to complete a Masters of Arts which was conferred in April 1922. She was one of only two women to complete her MA that year. Gran was an extraordinary woman. She had a consistency, depth, stoicism and grace that reminded me of the Renaissance sculptures she studied. At Christmas time, the only presents she ever gave her grandchildren were books – and we loved that.

It was only after she died that I came to understand how much Gran gave and how much she endured. When Gran was in her thirties my grandfather died unexpectedly leaving her with seven children, the eldest sixteen, the youngest nine months. Gran moved her family from Casterton to Melbourne. She would later teach History at Camberwell Girls High. She would see five of her seven children graduate from this University with the sixth becoming a priest and graduating from Maynooth University in Ireland and the seventh became a wonderful nurse. And whenever we went to visit Gran in Camberwell she would usually be outside … gently, wistfully but thoroughly sweeping up the leaves as though she was raking up all our sins and making things right again. Whenever I think of Gran, I feel incredibly grateful and proud.

My third invitation for you to consider is to BE KIND. My inspiration here is my mother who never went to University but rejoiced that I did. Mum is now in an aged care home in Pascoe Vale. Like my grandmother, Mum endured extraordinary hardship and tragedy that led to her spend some time in a psych hospital here in Melbourne. At home, she always sought to be the peacemaker, often to her detriment.

A few years back Mum developed dementia and last year when our family felt we could no longer give her the round-the-clock care she needed we put her into Edith Bendall Lodge – a

great home full of kindness. Many of you here will already have a family member who has suffered with dementia. Many of us here will end up with dementia ourselves.

Prior to Mum moving into care, my brothers and sister would rotate taking care of Mum often bringing her down from Tatura to spend the weekend in Melbourne while one brother and his family cared for her up in Tatura.

Dementia is so debilitating. I remember a weekend that I was looking after Mum and she could no longer manage going to the toilet. It was not an easy thing the first time I wiped my mother’s bum. In fact, it took me a quite a few times before it suddenly clicked into my self-obsessed brain that Mum had spent many, many months, if not years, wiping my bum and this was the least I could do to repay her kindness. BE KIND.

My final invitation for you to consider is BE STILL – not something I’m very good at. Many of us graduate from this University with great energy and ambition. We sometimes rush to change the world because that’s a far less daunting task than changing ourselves. It was the French philosopher Pascal who said “All man’s problems are caused by his inability to sit quietly in a room with himself.” My ambition drove me to become a Senior Adviser to Prime Minister Keating at the ripe age of 34. I thought I had arrived but I was struggling to stay well and keep it together. It was only a ten-day meditation retreat that led me to realise that I needed to stop, I needed to slow down. I’m still learning that lesson today. But what I do try to do every morning and night is to make time to be still. Even if I can’t still my mind, I try to still my body.

What I’ve come to learn is that without a sense of stillness and calm, it’s virtually impossible to be truly kind or truly grateful. When we’re rushing we often lose perspective and it can result in poor choices. So, I would strongly encourage you to find time to be still each day – make it part of your daily routine.

As you head out into this next chapter in your life – be it as a graduate or post-grad – I truly hope that each and every one of you makes the most of the incredible opportunity this University and its teachers have given you. I wish you every success.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if each one of us could see the benefits that will flow and the gratitude that will be expressed by your children and grandchildren 96, 98, or 100 years from now.

Be Good. Be Grateful. Be Kind. Be Still

Thank you.

Carol Bartz: 'Embrace failure', UW-Madison - 2012

20 May 2012, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Are you guys bored? You’re looking awfully gloom. Say hi to me. Ok guys. Congratulations.

And a big congratulations to your mums and your mum figures because they worried about you every day since you came to Madison and rightly so. If they would know what happened on Thursday nights they would never, ever let you come here. And the problem that I’m going to explain to you is there ain’t no more Thursday nights. Once you get out of Madison it is not quite the same as that. And another tip I’m going give you before I start is when you do go out and get that job, sit in the front row. I mean seriously. You know who sits in the front row in companies I run? The ones that get the big raises, the ones that are known by management and the ones that are doers. If I can give you any tip, sit in the front row. And congratulations to those of you who at least edged up a little bit. Really. Take their names — oh, they already have grades so that doesn’t help. Ok.

I think that I should give you a little warning about the advice that you’re about to receive. It comes from a 63-year-old unemployed, recently fired, former CEO who occasionally has salty language. The salty language I’ll try to hold back in deference to your young ears but consider yourself warned. Also consider yourself fortunate because you’re here graduating from, I believe, the best university in the country. [applause]

I was so proud when Wisconsin passed Harvard as having the largest number of Fortune 500 CEOs. I was proud to be one of those. [applause]

Growing up in a farm town, Alma, Wisconsin, 800 people, I knew everybody [and] that was a real bummer. I was proud that because of this education that you have received and I received in 1971 — oh, a long time ago — that we can go anywhere in the world. We can be anything. We can do anything. And that’s what is ahead of you. Now, when I graduated in ’71, it wasn’t that much different feeling than now.
Had headlines were tough. The economy seemed tough. In fact, inflation was rampant. Unemployment was going to reach a 20 year high. The war in southeast asia was expanding. Yes, I did some nefarious things and I told some people and they told me not to say it any more. Economists said it was an era for the us and the global economy war was over and japan and european counties were going to dominate. They were the new rising super powers. So much for predictions.

But let me tell [you that in] 1971 with those headlines and no job it was a hard to look through what everybody was saying. I had a UW degree in computer science that was only a few years after the department was formed. Jobs in that field were scarce. They were especially scarce for somebody wearing a skirt. Still are. But 1971 was a special year in the us. That year the NASDAQ stock market began trading. In fact there wouldn’t be a Facebook, an fb symbol on the stock market in NASDAQ if they had not started in 1971. A new airline called southwest started flying. In california a company called intel invented the microprocessor.
You wouldn’t be on any of those devices that you’re on without the microprocessor and all the chip that followed. Wouldn’t be possible. See you’re looking real guilty there. You can tweet your mum later.

Accept I don’t think that your mum know what is a tweet is but she does know what a message is and I’m going to give a sound piece of advice to all the parents. When you message your kids, don’t sign your name. They think you’re stupid. [laughter] my 23-year-old says, mum, what is wrong with parents? We know it’s from you. And I said well, I say mama at the end. Isn’t that sweet? No, it’s stupid. So, parents, don’t sign your name. They know it is you.

So again back a little bit to ’71. We lifted the embargo with china and new service, cheap long distance from mci came about which was the last batch of excuses why we didn’t call home. You don’t know what long distance is but trust me it
was something. Now we didn’t see a lot of this coming. In fact, we just believed the events of that moment. And so my message to you is don’t believe all the
gloom and doom today. It is not going to shape your future because your work life is going to be very long. In fact, you’re the first generation that is actually going to have to work 50 years. Because you have to pay for all these people. [applause ] oh, big applause. Ya.

Now, before you decide to run out of here really it might sounds like an eternity but instead of thinking of it as a burden think of it as a series of opportunities.
You can have several careers. When you find a job this summer or start a job or start a company or whenever it is, you have a chance to do a lot of things in that 50 years. People used to talk about a career ladder and if you are lucky and diligent and sat in the front row and all that, you managed to go up that ladder one step at a time, that was boring and predictable. What’s happening now is that you can choose your different opportunities. Your different career lives. You have a real, real chance to do that. Back when I started at 3M and digital equipment corporation, everything was so predictable in the 70s and 80s.
Yes, it was the beginning of the computer age. But very, very much the beginning.
Computers didn’t talk to each other. Oh, gee, no internet, no apps, no iPhones. Nothing. No answering machines for heaven sakes. You don’t even know what those are because you never answer anything. Am I right? My daughter does not — will not answer e-mail. That is so old. She will answer ims only if I I'm her boyfriend. Because he’s scared of me. So that’s a hint actually because they won’t do it otherwise. There were no ping-pong tables. No beanbag chairs. No hoodies.

None of that back then. But as we advanced and as times have changed, especially in silicon valley, we are so eager for your voices.

We’re so eager for your ideas. We’re eager for your energy. And there is a whole new feeling about what you can do to help with us the economy. Now, the question is how are you going to take advantage of it? So no ceremony like this is finished without some unsolicited advice so this is mine.

First of all, hang with the right people. This is a collaborative world now. It is a very open collaborative world. You know that. From Facebook and all the other social media, LinkedIn or whatever and hang with the right people because if you hang with smart people you get smarter and hang with good people you get gooder.

I was computer science. I can’t spell and I can’t speak and I’m sorry it was lns. I don’t know why but there you go. So make sure that you hang with the right people. Second learn how to communicate. Learn to write a whole paragraph.
Not 140 characters. [applause ] learn how to explain your ideas in a succinct way.
Learn how to promote your products and services so that somebody is interested. Learn how to politely tell your boss that she’s wrong. Did you get that? She, girls? Come on. Woe. Ok.

And then after all that, readily, the most important thing, learn [how to] listen.

Listening is the most important skill you will have. People want to be heard.
People you work with. People you live with. People that work for you. They want to be heard. Learn how to really listen. Shut the mouth and listen. Sometimes I worry that this generation is always on transmit and never on receive. I know that is a hard concept for lns but that means input, output. Ok.

Now, my third piece is to accept failure and learn from it. Failure, especially in your 50 years of working, failure is so important to understand how it can
progress you forward. Not everybody in life knows how to take advantage of
failure. Everybody has failures of many kinds but how do you take advantage of failure? I think the greatest strength that we have in the us and especially in silicon valley is that we actually view failure as a sign of experience. We view failure as a way of life and those people are willing to take on risks to the road to innovation. I have a saying that I have used at my companies. Fail. Fast. Forward. Take risks. Fail. You’re not going to get hurt by that. Try and figure it out as quickly as possible that it is not the right thing. That’s the fast part. And move forward. Fail. Fast. Forward. Do not be afraid to take risks. Most of all, be really passionate and excited about what is in front of you. The virtue of that 50 year career that is you have a long time to plan plenty of space for the unexpected and take advantage of all of that. Plan to raise kids. It’s the best advance degree you can get. [applause]

Discover interests outside your work. I was rarely bored because I knew I could come home after a multi week trip after a hard day to my family, my garden, my books. Do something else. It is not just a work life. It is not just sports. Round yourself out. You have a long time to live and you want to be an interesting person. Always, with all of these plans I talked about, just be open for new things. Be open for any fork in the road. You might have a great career and something else comes along that you never thought of. Move over and try it.

I hope all of you have a chance to take the long view. I hope all of you relish this day with your friends and families. I wish you only the best for your future. Always be proud that you graduated from Wisconsin. Be great. Thank you. [applause]

Virginia Rometty: 'It will not be a world of man versus machine, it will be a world of man plus machine', Northwestern - 2017

19 June 2015, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

Virginia Rometty is the first female CEO of IBM.

It is a great honor to get this degree, but it is a greater honor to sit and look at you, where I once sat and be up. To deliver your commencement speech.

I must say to all of you, as I remember sitting there, this is your day. Having been one of you, I know how hard you worked to get there. My own congratulations. One more applause for you from me. [applause] This is what happens with age. I will put my glasses on, and I will follow some advice. It was Franklin Roosevelt gave his son on speeches, he said, you be brief, you be sincere, and then you be seated.

Let me share what are three stories from my light. It is really the resulting lessons learned that i got the i humbly submit to you that as you leave, maybe somewhere down the line, you will find them of use. They come from three people close to me. One you will recognize, my mother. The other, my husband. For now, let's say, "a significant other."

The first story comes from my childhood. Like many, i grew up in a middle-class family not far from here, in a suburb of Chicago. I am the oldest. Like many of our time, we went to Sears for our school clothes. I remember one family vacation, a campout. It was a simple and very happy life. Then, one day, all of that changed. I was a teenager, and my father left my mother. In fact, he left us all. My mother, who had never worked a day in her life outside of our home found herself with four children, but soon, no money, no home, no food.

While she never ever complained, she never spoke of what happened, I must say, my brothers and sisters, we watched and we learned. She had to find a way to keep a roof over her head. She was so proud, she did what she had to do.

She found a way to go back to school in the day to get a degree, and then she worked at night so that we could quickly get by on her own. My mother was so determined to not let anyone define her as a failure, single mother, or anything worse, a victim. Through her actions, she taught us all - Never let anyone define you.

That is the first lesson i want to leave you with. Only you define who you are. Only you. [applause] i have to tell you, happy ending -- my mom got the associate degree and retired after 25 years from a hospital near Chicago. My brother and two sisters, they share among themselves five degrees from Dartmouth, Georgia Tech, and Northwestern, and think goodness for this doctorate because i was losing that race on number of degrees. [laughter]

My second story comes from early in my career. This is about risk-taking. I had worked for a senior executive, and he decided to go for a new job. He came in and said to me, 'Wonderful., you are the candidate to replace me.' I was called into the office and told with great excitement I would be offered this job.

I can remember my reaction. It was not the same great excitement. I looked at him and said, 'It is too early, I'm not ready, just give me a few more years and i will be ready for this, I need to go home and need top go sleep on it.' That evening, my husband -- he is up there ... well he's up in the stands. [laughter] my husband of 35 years -- oh boy . He says i never mention him, and then I do, and I mess it up. He sat and listened patiently to my story. He looked at me and said one thing. He said, 'do you think a man would have answered the question that way? I know you, in six months, you will be ready for something else.'

You know what, he was right. I went in the next day and i took that job. That takes me to my second lesson to leave you with - growth and comfort never coexist. I want you to close your eyes, if they are not already --  and ask yourself when have you learned the most, and I guarantee it will be when have you felt the most at risk.

This has proven to be a really important realization to me throughout my career. I have always looked for challenges, and I have found plenty.

This now brings you to my last story. This is about my quote "significant other." It is not about my past. It is about my future. A future I believe you're walking into.

So, it's early 2011, IBM Research has built a computing system, something the world has never seen. It is called Watson, now Watson is named after TJ Watson, IBM's founder and I am sitting not in a lab, but a TV studio. I'm watching Watson play Jeopardy against the two most successful human champions that have ever been.

Now I knew Watson, it stood on decades of our research, but now I'm watching Watson on television, doing something else. Watson talks, converses with Alex Trebek. He understands puns, metaphors, clues, buzzes, wagers, wins!

And it is an amazing moment. And one more time on the way home, i call my husband and say, and i remember to this day, 'I think i just saw history'.

I will come back to that story of Watson in a second.

But let me first share a brief perspective on the worldly you are walking into. I believe years from now, historians will look back and look at this as the dawn of a new era -- dawn of the new era. First, it is the new era of computing, something we call 'cognitive'.

Surprising as it may seem to all of you, the world has only known two eras of computing. I'm not going to make you engineers, don't worry about that. The first was the tabulating era,. machines that counted, that did the national census, this is what did the social security system. The second era is the programmable era, everything that you know to this day. Smarter systems, your smart phone, PC, no matter what it is. Now they do exactly what we tell them to do.

Now, you and we are entering a third era. Watson is an example of this. It's the first cognitive system. These are systems, you don't program them. they learn. They analyze more data than you will ever remember or handle. And they understand natural language, like i speak today. More importantly, like humans, I say, these systems reason. They deal with the gray area. When you go to make a decision, you think of and form a hypothesis and tested against -- test it against everything you know in your mind and quickly you come up with an answer.

But These systems do it with evidence and degrees of confidence. Some people call this artificial intelligence, now., AI. But the reality is this technology will enhance our thinking. Instead of artificial intelligence, i think it will augment our intelligence. It will not be a world of man versus machine, it will be a world of man plus machine.

In fact, i predict in our near future, every important decision mankind makes will be informed by cognitive system like Watson, and our lives and the world will be better off for it.

While this is hard to appreciate now, i think this dawn means that you sit at a very unique point in history. Footnote, there is one more thing -- the age you are facing is made possible by a natural resource. You recognize it around you. It is just the sheer amount of data.

One day you will look back and what steam was to the 18th century, electricity to the 19th centuryhydrocarbons to the 20th century, we are going to say data was to the 21st century. it's sheer volume is staggering. Every day, 500 million dvds worth of data is created. For all of you, 80% of the world's data was created during your junior and senior years.

This is why i think of it as a natural resource. It will be the phenomena of our time.

One more thing. The volume. Whether it is images, the photos you have taken, sensors, people blogging, texting -- which what some of you are probably doing maybe right now. I must tell you, normal systems will not understand it.

This brings you back to my story. It brings the back to Watson. And iIf you haven't guessed, he is is my "significant other." My husband is only one who did not want me to use significant other in this speech, by the way.

Since that day in Jeopardy 2011,. Watson has come a long way. Finance,. retail, insurance. But most of all hard at work in health care. In fact, we have had the honor of helping institutions like Memorial , cancer center, the New York Genome Center and the list goes on. Doctors will struggle with that exponential increase in information. By 2020, medical information will double every 72 days. But with the era we are about to enter, collaborators like Watson, abilty to digest all that information, then form hypotheses about your diagnosis and treatment. Our doctors will have a chance. 

So now it brings me forward to september 2012. It is another personal moment i will always remember. I was going to the theater with my husband in New york City, and Ihear someone yell out my name. I turned around and it is the CEO of a health care company that i work with. She looks at me and says, 'we will change the face of health care'. I fast forward to today and I tell many of my IBMers-- IBM has been privileged to play some of the greatest roles in history., whether it was to help do that census, to help land man on the moon, but make no mistake. Watson will be our modern-day moon shot.

And we will do our part to change the face ofhealth care.

Which brings me to the ending of the story. My final lesson to you -- Work on something that matters. Have a purpose. Northwestern has prepared you richly for this, but there is so much potential ahead. Choose your work with a purpose. You are all high achievers. You wanted to get here, and you got here. You will have many more goals in the years ahead. Do not confuse a goal with a purpose. You may find that purpose in business, public service, academia -- you choose.

But I hope for you is that you leave today with a purpose to change the world in some way. Congratulations again to the class of 2015, and to everyone who made this day possible for you. To paraphrase my earlier quote from Franklin Roosevelt, i hope i was brief, I know I was sincere, and now I will be seated.

Congratulations.