Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, everything has moved online and it comprises on-ground graduation ceremonies too. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google did address this year’s graduating class through a virtual event that was organized by the video platform of Google, YouTube for giving students a farewell.

Besides Pichai, the ceremony also witnessed the participation of Mr. Barack Obama, The president of the United States, along with his wife Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai, the activist, singers Lady Gaga and Beyonce, BTS, the Korean pop group etc. Sundar Pichai addressed graduation class of 2020 amid the present pandemic and said that they are going to prevail along with the reasons mentioned below:

Sundar Pichai told the class that similar to other students who have prevailed, they will also prevail. The 1920 class also graduated amid pandemic and it was 100 years ago. Again, the graduation of 1970 happened when the Vietnam War was prevailing.

The class of the year 2001 graduated some months ago before the incident of 9/11. So, there are several remarkable instances like this. Graduates were needed to overcome new challenges and prevail too.

Pichai also added that if students follow the protracted arc of history, then they have got more than one reason for being hopeful and so, being hopeful is the best thing. He said that he has noticed an exciting trend which is highly conventional for all the generations for underestimating the capability of the subsequent ones.

This is as they fail to realize that one generation’s progress turns into the foundational evidence for the following one. And, it takes some new set of individuals who can come along to realize every possibility.

The Google CEO doesn’t think that it is the graduation ceremony that anyone had imagined. He said that at a time when people must be celebrating their gained knowledge, they might spend their time in grieving over what they have ended up losing, like the moves they planned, their earned jobs, and also the experiences they were hunting for. So, in these dreary moments, it turns tough to discover hope.

So, his suggestion is to be impatient, hopeful, and open. When anyone can do these things successfully, then history would always remember that class for not what they have lost but for the changes, they have made. Graduates have the opportunity to alter everything and Pichai is optimistic about it.

The Google CEO also advises the class of 2020 not to lose patience. He also says that there are most probably many things related to technology that habitually make people frustrated and impatient and they will form the subsequent technology revolution.

They will allow students to develop things that this generation is incapable of dreaming of. The class of 2020 might become frustrated by the approach of this generation to education or changes in climate but it would be wiser to remain patient and this will make the progress that the world requires.

According to Pichai, graduates can make a world a better place in their way even when they do not know the proper manner of knowing how. The vital thing is becoming open-minded for finding their desired things.

Hence, they need to spend their time in discovering things that really excite them more than other things in this world. This comprises the things that their parents wish them to work on or the things their friends have been doing or the things that their society asks them to do.

At the time of addressing the graduates, Pichai recollected his roots and gave stress to the significance of remaining optimistic during difficulties. He recalled the challenges that he confronted at the time when he went to the US for pursuing a course at the University of Sanford.

He added that his father had spent an equal amount of money that he got as his one year’s salary on buying his plane tickets for the United States. For this, he could attend Stanford and it was also the first time when he traveled on a plane.

The Google CEO found America to be pretty costly as he used to spend $2 per minute for making a phone call to his home. Additionally, even a backpack costs him the same as his father’s one month salary back in India.

The only thing which got Pichai to America from India besides luck was a desire for technology as well as an open mind. He also added that he was raised without getting access to technology and he did manage to get a telephone when he was ten years old.

In fact, he got access to computers when he landed in the US for graduate school. He also recalled that during that time the television had got only one channel. Pichai started his career being a materials engineer.

However, after that, he joined Google to do the job of a management executive in 2004. After some years, he turned the Product Chief of the company, and in the year 2015, became the CEO of the company. Sundar Pichai turned the CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google in December 2019.

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Source: Indian Express