Dear graduates,

It is with great pleasure that I am back here at CBS to open the graduation ceremony today. It is a special day for you, for your families and your friends and certainly a day worth celebrating.

I feel the buzz and I see how excited you are to mark your academic achievement and to move on to something new: life itself.

You graduates really have reason to embrace the future, so why not reflect a little on the past:

Let’s go back some 10.000 years… Back then, in the stone age, a graduate was a boy who had achieved the skills to sustain and support his family and tribe. He was now able to hunt and make tools of stone. He would be around 13 years old…,  His father was a proud man for he could now rest assured that the next generation was capable of continuing his achievements and take over the responsibilities of a patriarc and a contributor.

Likewise, you graduates of 2018, have now reached a point of transition. You have worked hard at it, many of you have already signed up with a new employer and some of you have even set up your own enterprise!

It is time that you show your community what you are up to… but unlike the boy in the stone age, who had to prove his worth to maybe 100 people, you are part of a community of more than 7 billion people on 6 continents… Is that daunting?... Maybe… but it gives you a world of opportunities – literally! Now go out there and conquer that world!

And finally, one little piece of advice from an old tribesman: If at some stage in your life, between now and you retirement, you should feel down and insufficient, work sucks and you’re trapped in a stalemate: then think of that boy from 10.000 years ago… Behold what he and his successors achieved! That’s evolution! We wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for him. Appreciate that and rest assured that you too are part of something huge that is just about to begin.

Let’s get started!