They’re confident, they’re cool, they’re open to change. They’re great multitaskers, helped in large part by one common fact: They’re connected, wired, plugged in.

 

They’re the millennials, born between 1982 and 2000, so-called because they’re the first generation to come of age in the new millennium. Imagine their possibilities.

 

Starting Friday and continuing every Friday thereafter, Inquirer Opinion is running “IamGenM,” a new column to be written alternately by millennials Kay Rivera, Michael Baylosis and Hyacinth J. Tagupa, who are in fields (medicine, accountancy, communication and marketing) as diverse as their bases (Manila, Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro).

 

All in their 20s and looking bright-eyed at the world, they are products of the country’s best private and public schools (University of the Philippines, University of St. La Salle, Ateneo de Cagayan)—and show it.

 

Notably, all come from the ranks of “Young Blood,” Inquirer Opinion’s constant blockbuster.

 

What to expect from these young professionals who wield online tools, ace research assistantships, and preside over Leo Clubs (the youth arms of Lions Club International)?

 

Apart from dating apps, epiphanies in the public school library, or college underdog blues, they promise insights into casual misogyny in the workplace, volunteerism in tutoring and environmental protection, awakening at the turning point of technology and heightened crime and violence in communities, misperceptions about mental health and suicide even among health professionals, the rights of women, children and the elderly.

 

And also issues that grip them, madden them, punch them in the gut, memories of mourning, and stories that they tell one another in order to live (Joan Didion), stories of “something bright and distant, like gold falling through water” (Helen Macdonald).