100+ global problems worth solving

I was wondering what are the biggest problems we have on earth today. I know there are thousands, millions or even billions of problems to solve. I get asked so often on Quora or at startup events what problems do actually exist that could be solved, that I compiled this list of 100+ global problems worth solving, after a day research on the Internet and my own observation.

Of course this list is far from being complete. It’s just a tiny start.

CONTRIBUTE
And you can add to this list of “global problems worth solving” on our Google Drive. Feel free to add yourself to the contributor list. Do not spam it – please.
We will update this post once in a while.

100+ global problems worth solving

(1) Building a platform that collects problems, anybody can contribute and be curated by the community.

ENVIRONMENT

(2) Inventing new material or techniques to replace plastic
(3) Inventing new techniques, and materials to replace paper
(4)Inventing new techniques and products, recycling any given material
(5) Inventing new materials replacing plastic bottles and cups
(6) Creating new ways to package food (100’s of varieties of food) environmentally friendly
(7) Finding artificial, yet environmentally friendly replacement for wood to reduce deforestation
(8) Inventing new motors that neither use electricity nor fuel

EDUCATION

(9) Finding ways to augment education in conventional schools and universities with highly relevant education
(10) Creating social education programs that can run in parallel to schools, universities or jobs
(11) Offering classes for undergrads, how to get successful and rich
(12) Providing better base education programs on political know how
(13) Providing better education programs on the general concept of economies
(14) Providing better education on how wars are started and how peace is achieved and maintained today
(15) Creating more tangible lifelong learning concepts
(16) Creating more universally applicable career guidance mechanisms or platforms
(17) Creating solutions to shift from an “all learn – all work” model to a more balance model

ENERGY

(18) Exploring new ways to generally reduce and safe energy
(19) Providing a more transparent and plausible energy consumption prediction for the scenario that most people on earth are out of poverty, living in newly developed countries
(20) New ways to harvest energy from bio thermal energy sources
(21) New ways to harvest solar energy
(22) New ways to harvest hydro energy
(23) Finding ways to transmit energy created on the moon, down to earth
(24) Identifying new ways to harvest energy from unidentified sources
(25) Finding all new ways to store electric energy in bigger volume and less in size and weight
(26) Smart energy re-distribution for those who produce excess energy that can be provided to others

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY

(27) Lower cost reliable Internet connections
(28) Independent and reliable “News & Information Publishing” organization
(29) Better, social media integrated search engines
(30) All new and modern operating systems
(31) Fully integrated business application tools
(32) Meteorology technology provider not only for weather forecasts but for everything agricultural
(33) Generally available intelligent traffic lights, connected to a traffic flow system, but autonomous features
(34) Low cost mini satellites to explore earth and space, provide data hubs, accessibility and more
(35) Omnipresent, inexpensive and easy mobile payment system
(36) Building robots for all kinds of dedicated tasks such as cleaning shoes, planting crops, cleaning windows, etc.
(37) The whole range of wearable products counting, watching, recording, measuring all kinds of things underway
(38) Situation dependent automatically changing materials to turn a lofty t-shirt into a rain covering shirt
(39) Smart materials that change their behavior based on environmental conditions i.e, taking the carbon out of carbon dioxide and returning the dioxide back to air
(40) Smart Contract development for cryptocurrency agnostic blockchain like media
(41) Universal low voltage power connection system that handles everything from a single wall plug to staggering distribution
(42) Creating universal ultra small IOT devices that allows any product to be programmed by a smartphone including remote controls, refrigerators, heaters, air conditioner, lights – anything. One interface for any product in the future.
(43) New better zipper that do not stuck, break or derail

WATER & SANITATION

(44) New ways to get to clean water
(45) Better ways to turn salt water into sweet water
(46) New ways to manage waste water in rural areas
(47) Cheaper ways to produce sanitation products i.e. toilets
(48) All new toilette models alleviating paper use
(49) More efficient ways for flushing toilets than using precious water
(50) New product for cleaning replacing bathtubs and showers or make their use a less used luxury
(51) More water consumption sensitive products such as water cranes, showers, garden watering systems

FOOD & DIET 

(52) New ways to offer unified insights into the ingredients of food in any supermarket
(53) Ways to eradicate factory farming (mass animal farming)
(54) More scientifically proven and generally understood advice to a healthy diet
(55) New ways to provide food portions in smaller sizes to stimulate reduction of food consumption and reduction of food waste

RESEARCH, DATA & INFORMATION

(56) Finding new ways to research all the facts and sources of climate change
(57) Finding new ways to deal with climate change and leverage the development so far
(58) Finding ways to predict climate change more precisely for the next 50 years and provide meaningful indications for the agricultural industry
(59) Better ways to organize research in general, creating more unbiased data.
(60) Catalog of things that could be done with AI and inspires developer
(61) An AI development system that could be used by virtually anybody
(62) Research for a more rational view of the evolving powers of Artificial Intelligence
(63) Creating algorithms that focus on environmental dependencies of new technologies
(64) Identify new ways that help certain countries to get off of the data protection hysteria
(65) New suggestions for data privacy models that give more power to the individual
(66) Developing ways to deal with the general risk of eradicating life through asteroids
(67) Developing scenarios to evacuate earth if needed, even though we would probably take 1,000 years to find the technical possibilities.
(68) New tools and platforms to interact with governments and communities
(69) New apps that cover all of the problems, allow to contribute in all kinds of ways and see reports
(70) 3-D printing companies, producing unique products, spare-parts, artificial organs, and more
(71) Cyber security improvements to significantly reduce or even alleviate hack attacks
(72) Data ownership mechanisms, rules and technology that makes sure that personal data are controllable by its owner

INDUSTRY

(73) Providing better technology for customer experience management
(74) Providing a new value system for corporate balance sheets involving employee contribution
(75) Providing new ways to offer equity to highly innovative employees
(76) Develop new systems that can track the degree of innovation development
(77) Design new systems for customer interaction with corporations
(78) Design new corporate employee education systems including lifelong learning
(79) Create a fortune 100,000 leader board with indexes addressing environmental, employee and other key aspects
(80) Creating all new insurance business models that provide much more contract transparency and easier to deal with
(81) Online grocery stores with home delivery like a few in Germany or Switzerland
(82) New media business models, disrupting the user unfriendly monopolies
(83) Much easier booking systems for public transportation anywhere in the world
(84) Creating systems that alleviate waiting (in line, at doctors, at shops, at bus stops….)

SOCIETY

(85) More effective ways to deal with birth control in times where we help more people to survive
(86) Starting large scale research that can only be done with tens of thousands of supporters
(87) Finding better ways to deal with migration, integration and return mechanisms
(88) Finding ways to replace prisons with socially effective methods of societal reintegration
(89) Finding new policies to deal with people ignoring the generally accepted rules of societal coexistence
(90) Finding solutions to get to a broader reach of well being for all humans
(91) Developing new political concepts or new varieties of democracy that is more applicable in today’s world
(92) Developing new job concepts for people who work on social or macro economic solutions to be financed
(93) Developing new concepts for city creation addressing the bigger problems of today’s cities
(94) Developing new and holistic ways to reduce traffic congestion in larger cities
(95) Developing new logistical concepts to bring the huge amount of products directly to the citizens
(96) Developing new techniques to transport the remaining waste to the designated areas without the current waste disposal chain
(97) Finding new methods to alleviate corruption in government and other large organizations
(98) Finding new mechanisms to make governments more accountable, providing rewards and punishment solutions based on their achievements relative to their promises

HEALTHCARE

(99) New ways to provide a more balanced healthcare for the various developed nations
(100) New ways to provide healthcare in the first place for developing nations
(101) New ways for mental health care
(102) New ways to produce cheaper medicine or secure living without medicine

 

This list of “global problems worth solving” will sooner or later grow much bigger. We are looking forward to your inputs.

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500 autonomous cars from 50 brands in San Francisco – the new automotive technology epicenter

Pretty much every car manufacturer on the planet are testing their autonomous cars here in Silicon Valley. Resources are plentiful, rules and regulations, as innovation friendly as possible without going overboard. And again the accumulation of knowledge is unparalleled. We spoke with a few test drivers and physically sensed the excitement, the community and the open exchange. The learn every 24 hours new things. Then share and compare in Silicon Valley style open and freely and learn 50 times as much from all the others. Knowledge aggregation and rapid execution has always given the Bay Area its technological edge. And since the workplace of these ever driving software developers, analysts and testers is not in a coworking space, they meet at parking lots of super markets to share and compare.

The epicenter of innovation is – and probably remains for a long time – Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Rules and regulations on one side and lack of courage on the other side prevents true innovation in the rest of the world – maybe except China.

What do they actually test?

We ask them what the do and they told us that they simply analyze every move the cars are doing in any situation and constantly optimize their algorithms and sensor usage and so forth. The terrain is great and the environment perfect. These tests happen in a culture of innovation where the large part of the public is innovation friendly.

Day in and day out they roam the city with ever new tests and updates from previous tests. We were asked not share photos but found it OK to post about it. Each of the cars, no matter what brand is manned with 4 people multiple computers each, mounted screen on the back seat and one of the seat next to the driver. The driver is simply focused on taking care that in every situation the car is under human control. We jokingly asked if they don’t trust them yet? One said: “the only device we do not really trust is the human driver” – huge laughter. The main reason for running these tests under human control is that the driver is sensing tiny anomalies to human driving style in either situation: the advanced precision and superiority of the machine and the reaction to unknown situations and the reaction even if the computer would not have an answer. Very much like a human. If all of a sudden in the middle of the Market street an elephant would fall from the sky, we are not trained to that situation but we stop the car immediately. And that is what the machines is conditioned to do as well.

Obviously nobody shared any – not even personal – views of when the car industry, the policy makers and the public would be ready for autonomous cars. Yet it was not hard to guess it would not be any soon – but it would also not take two decades.

Why San Francisco?

We asked one team from a European brand, why San Francisco? A point blank answer: “Where else could we go. In the past 30 years we have always the same cycle: Europeans want innovation, but it must be in harmony with the existing business and we allow the existing industry to fight it with lawsuits. AirBnB, Uber, Tesla, Google, Amazon all the major disruptors have a hard time in the old world – they want to wait and see and if they can’t stop it anymore. It’s really sad.”

In any case 500 cars, 3 engineers each car, that is 1,500 AI developer, analysts and testers plus the people in the offices and labs, making Silicon Valley again, the world’s number one hot spot in next generation automotive technology.

Let’s see what else we discover in the next few weeks.

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Who should build the MVP

I’ve been asked so many times that I felt it would be good to write a blog post.
Obviously there are many consulting services, software developer and others who could built your MVP in a rather short period of time. Then you get what you asked for and can enter the market. If customers report bugs, you go back to your developer. And you hire them again and again – or you ignore the requests for now until you get more funding. It sounds totally logical. However reality tells a very different story:

Your MVP is a barebone minimum solution. It is supposed to be up rather quickly and your customers tell you what they experience, what they like and what they don’t like. If you have a CTO, it is not just taking the bug reports but carefully listening to each request. Each discussion with a customer contains a wealth of insights about how they use the product, what key benefits they have or want to have, how it is or should be integrated in other technologies and so forth. From that moment on you get probably daily requests for changes and more important lots of tiny little cool ideas that your developer or developer team can implement. I remember we received 1,400 feature requests, update requests and bugs within the first three month. You can’t pay your outsourcing organization to handle that.

Moreover our CTO saw what directions this will take and prepared the platform a bit differently. In the first six months, he was involved in almost any customer discussion. He needed to know and feel where this is going. More importantly he sensed functionalities based on the customer stories that led to functionalities they didn’t dear to ask but made a lot of sense and was no problem to do. The CTO is the one person who shapes the product, the future technology decisions and the technological direction of the company like nobody else. This cannot be outsourced – not at reasonable cost.

On top of all, the CTO does not try to build an MVP that meets the specification you gave them. The CTO is building the foundation of a solution that will change the world in the future and crafts an MVP that acts like the first cell of an organism.

Early Adopter Customer

If you have a sensational new application, you won’t get typical customers. Those ask you who else is using it, how many customers you have, are you funded and so forth. And so you have to look for early adopters. Thos premium customers are willing to check out new things because also they want to lead their market. BUt if you tell them that the technology was done by a freelancer, outsources, service organization or a like they get less motivated. They are taking a risk, dealing with a ne technology – but far less so when there is no CTO.

With all that said, there should be no reason to hire a consultant, rather than involving a top notch technologist.

Hire or Co-Founder?

first: as a startup you just cannot hire a top performing developer. No matter what you offer to pay. Therefore attract them as co-founder. Yes, they are hard to find and you want to start. But there is no shortcut what so ever. If that technology is a core element and differentiator of your business, than the person that builds it and develops it further over the next 10 years should have a seat on the founders bench.

As an investor

I would never invest in a company that outsources their development. It’s too clear that there is no technological focus or the technology doesn’t play any important role. It also shows that the founder could not attract any co-founder and I must ask: can they attract customers?

All in all the number of reasons for a co-founder CTO outweigh the short term benefit of getting a MVP slapped together for a demo.

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