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> It took me 4 years of manic polymathic learning (at the expense of my actual schoolwork) to come up with this list.

I'm impressed that you independently came up with those ideas, but it seems like an average news day on HN. Those problems are regularly being discussed.

I think that highlights that, even in our inter-connected social media world, our biggest problem is still one of communication. You are quite right that anyone can easily gain the skills necessary to work on those projects. Maybe you can even find the capital necessary.

However, you are going to really struggle to catch up with what people already know. If you want to build a driverless car, for example, you are going to spend years reimplementing what Google has already figured out because there is no good way for the average person to build atop their existing technology. By the time you finally get to new problems, someone will have already figured them out too.

The first startup who figures out how to solve that communication gap will provide the most transformative technology to date.



Haha "come up with the list" meaning agregating the list; I'm not taking credit for first thinking of them all! The problem domains where I've thought of / sometimes written about original solutions are just these ones:

- camera drones to provide a "real-time Google Earth"

- genetically engineered supercrops for the developing world that provide protein, fiber, and every vitamin

- AR / VR glasses (shameless plug: http://vergencelabs.com)

- myostatin inhibitor gene therapy as an OTC cosmetic procedure -- would solve obesity

- VR telepresence to eliminate the massive petroleum waste of the workday commute

- "brain backup" using high-res MRI + in-depth biographical interview + DNA sample

- "bio lab on a chip" using microfluidics, flourescence-assisted cell sorting, nanopore sequencing, and phage-assisted directed evolution




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