Yeah, even tech advanced at an exponential rate. So, the next 100 years should be REALLY exciting for humanity. Proper space travel may become a reality sooner than people think.
If the alien race were to be even 1000 years ahead of us, it would be a major difference between the state of their technology and ours. So, we could skip a lot of steps in the evolution of our tech! That would be wonderful. As you said, I hope that aliens are benevolent and would be willing to share their tech.