Once upon a time, in 15th century Florence, during the Age of Discovery, toiling away for hours in a studio was Leonardo da Vinci. His unquenchable curiosity and inventive imagination throughout his life had him bouncing between painting the “Mona Lisa” and conceptualizing flying machines and armored fighting vehicles. This was the birth of the polymath. Flash-forward to 2017 and the world has changed dramatically. Just a few decades ago, the internet was born, and it plunged us into the accelerated Information Age, where we now have smartphones in our pocket, more powerful than NASA’s combined computing that propelled a human to the moon in 1969. The role of the polymath therefore has also changed, and has given birth to what is referred to as the “neo-polymath.”

Unlike the polymath of the 15th century, the neo-polymath is sitting bravely at the intersection of industries that are naturally colliding due to the influx of knowledge and communication without geographic limits.

The neo-polymath is someone who can harness a level of expertise in multiple disciplines and act as the translator between seemingly unrelated fields. Prolific investor Marc Andreessen famously declared that “software is eating the world” as more major businesses and industries are being disrupted by their overlap with technology—from movies to agriculture to national defense.

This phenomenon can be applied to technologists venturing into more traditional industries, but also to creatives who cover multiple disciplines such as music, film, and architecture. The common denominator is the multi-hyphenate nature of the individual and their ability to facilitate collaboration. They are able to drive the innovation at the eye of the storm, or the center of the Venn diagram.

Individuals with this neo-polymath mindset will constantly be “out of the box”—and will not be contained within or defined by any one industry vertical. Here are a couple specific neo-polymath examples:

Neri Oxman

Oxman is a professor at MIT Media Lab, where she has started to codify this neo-polymath mindset into new forms of education. She has pioneered a new field of study, called Material Ecology, to leverage computer science, design, and biology as it applies to technology, fabrics, and even buildings. Named one of the 10 Most Creative Women in Business by Fast Company, and with permanent works in the MoMA, Oxman’s unique approach has sparked a worldwide dialogue on how formerly disparate areas of study can be combined to create cross-disciplinary innovations. MoMA curator Paola Antonelli called her “a person ahead of her time, not of her time.”

Donald Glover

Glover is a millennial neo-polymath, born into this new internet-driven age. Starting his career as a writer on 30 Rock, Glover has gone on to be a touring comedian, a respected hip-hop artist, and now a producer/writer/director of the two-time Golden Globe-winning TV series Atlanta. His ability to focus the kinetic energy of his creativity into multiple fields is a direct result of his frictionless communication of creative vision across mediums. Those of the next generation are natural hyphenates, and therefore will not define themselves by one title or role.