A lot has been written about the generation known as Millennials – some positive, some less so. Of course, ascribing a particular set of characteristics to an entire generation of people is a bit absurd, given the enormous variability one can find in any large segment of the population at any point in time.

Nevertheless, what I see in many of today’s young people – i.e., many of the Millennials – is very encouraging. They give me hope.

We have a lot of people in their 20s and 30s working for us. They work in many parts of our organization – quite a few of them in our schools. They are typically bright, energetic, eager to learn, and excited about life. I enjoy talking with them.

I’ve also had several opportunities in recent months to speak on university campuses and interact with some incredibly bright, talented students. Most of those I’ve been fortunate to meet are interested in more than just getting into a career that will enable them to earn a good living. They’re also interested in helping make the world a better place. They want to make a difference.

I’m not just referring to liberal arts or social science majors either. Many of the students I’ve been meeting are majoring in business, engineering, or computer science. And some of the opportunities they are having on a number of university campuses today are helping them learn creative cross-disciplinary approaches designed to better prepare them to develop innovative approaches to help reduce some of the persistent social problems in our country and around the world.

One such program is being offered at my alma mater, Georgia Tech. It’s called Grand Challenges. Established in 2012, Grand Challenges each year accepts 110 entering freshmen and is open to students of any major. They live in the same dormitory for a year and learn how to work in multi-disciplinary teams, developing problem-solving skills to find possible solutions to real world problems. Students learn how to give and receive feedback, how to listen, argue, analyze, and persuade.

During the second semester, each team of students identifies a problem they want to tackle. Projects have dealt with a wide variety of food and water, energy, and health issues. One team last year worked on a project to benefit Goodwill of North Georgia. At the end of the semester, they can “pitch” their proposal for funding to continue working on their concept into their upperclassmen years.

A lot of my interest in Grand Challenges stems from what we’ve learned at Goodwill in central Indiana in recent years about how so many of our major social problems are interrelated. And yet, in our society we still tend to try to treat those problems in isolation one from another. Is it any wonder we’re not seeing better results? In our organization, though, we are now taking and further developing some truly holistic, often whole family approaches that we believe offer real potential for helping reduce generational poverty and some of the social problems that are associated with it.

So, for me, it’s encouraging to see universities offering opportunities for students to learn practical, multi-disciplinary approaches to solving societal problems. That, plus the contact I am privileged to have with a lot of young people who are similarly inclined, makes me optimistic about the future.

In my opinion, this generation of young people is going to have major positive impact in this country and many other places around the world. I look forward to seeing what they’re going to accomplish.