Who would have guessed that the video game industry would push graphics cards to a point where they are now incredibly beneficial to scientific applications? You could say the makers of PC games were just optimizing things for consumers, but there is a direct connection between what they did and the computing power we have for worthwhile applications today.
Who would have guessed, in 1847, that Boole's philosophical papers on logic, would form the foundations of computing a hundred years later? George Boole died without every knowing any of this.
The most impactful changes in people's lives are rarely direct. Seeking "impactful" goals is a trap in my experience. Find something that excites you and if its creative, my money's on that being more useful than you think.
Where am I to look for jobs where I have agency in the choice of technology and the direction of the product, a group of intelligent and supportive peers, and a product that directly improves the lives of others? These types of jobs seem to be a vanishingly small percentage of those that are available (not even accounting for the further filtering that happens: skill match, inteviewing, salary requirements, etc).