LUTES ANSWER: How can innovation help meet the challenges of the moment?

 “Embracing innovation ensures we have a pipeline of ideas focused on improving our future as we manage the current complexities in our lives today. We must be eager to engage students, communities and colleagues in discussions about new ways of thinking and solving problems. Innovation, combined with an agile mindset, that will propel our transition to new norms.”
–Michelle Y. Long,’85
Chair, PLU Regents
General Manager, Business Optimization, Chevron USA

“Sustainability. How do we provide? Or how do we think about the world in a more sustainable way? We’re innovating around that. It’s not just a consumption of goods and services anymore, right? It is the reuse of goods, and the extension of services, to allow circularity in our products, in our economies, and in our lives.”
-Tom Saathoff ’87
PLU Regent
Head, Commercial Lifecycle Services, Hewlett-Packard

“Innovation is about doing things differently than they have been done before. This can mean using technology to do things cheaper, faster, better, or about using a new mindset to work collaboratively through an inclusive process. We can work toward solving problems from climate change to racial equity if we stop relying on old systems. Innovation allows a new framework to emerge and new voices to be heard.”
-Shelly (Cano) Kurtz, ’98
Co-Founder, Giving Tech Labs

“The world is constantly changing, and without innovation, we cannot meet the demands of an evolving world. Innovation is crucial because it meets today’s challenges by offering freedom to provide answers without boundaries, fostering unconventional thinking, and enabling an environment focused on solutions that sustain progress with intention.”
-Silong Chhun
PLU Digital Communications Manager 

“Innovation, for me, means to create and/or make a situation better. Wherever one is, they have the capacity to be or create a positive impact or outcome. No matter what one is doing, they can change the situation they are in for the better to be able to leave a brighter legacy behind them.”
-Mindy Tieu ’23
Business Major
Rieke Scholar

“Innovation can also be failure. In tech we often talk about ‘failing fast’ in innovative pursuits. Failure can be progress because it allows you to test your assumptions and failing fast prevents false assumptions from getting too entrenched.”
-Matthew Conover ’19
Senior Software Engineer, Rainway, Inc.

Read more articles from our innovation-themed issue of ResoLute Magazine.