For example, I'm pretty inspired by what charity:water is doing, providing clean water to developing nations (http://charitywater.org). Also, Khan Academy in education.
The problem doesn't have to be related to developing nations. It can be something simple that helps you do your job.
The more specific you are with your problem the easier it will be to think about a solution.
Maybe install solar panels that act as shade during the day and light sources at night. Two birds, one stone.
When you poke at something as large and complex as "people," you sometimes get what you want, but you also sometimes get what you didn't expect.
This article is worth the read: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr051833#t=article
The 4-2-1 problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#The_.22four-tw...
- Journalism and PR: how to provide objective journalism through new tools like data analysis, computer models, simulators etc. Use historical analysis to put events in context. Get rid of sources of drama, like writers and editors and focus on charts. Those can be read and debunked quicker, various opinions/biases could be compared more clearly. A report about a murder should be a chart that includes the murder rate in nation, city, area, show population growth, poverty etc. A report on political affairs would show money paid to politicians, estimate # of lobbyists involved, size of affected market, etc. Reduce talking heads and drama to minimum.
- Suburban Sprawl: popularize condos instead of individual homes to contain suburbia. Better mortgage rates for condos, advertise urban services, cost of living without car, etc.
- Family planning site: encourage a smaller population. Give coupons to small families. Many governments have such programs, you'd make them easier to use at least.
- Obesity: coupons, money saving for buying proper food instead of processed carbs and fast food.
- Internet addiction: psychoanalyze internet users through traffic stats etc. Figure out how to get them off, maybe through exercise program, nature getaway, new experiences.
Personally I'm suspicious of attempts to solve problems in the developing world that aren't part of some all around solution. Making it easier to grow food, access to water without a simultaneous plan to lower population size seems like a dangerous game. And a lot of charity programs are undermining local economies by handing out free food.
I disagree with getting rid of drama, writers and editors in journalism. It's often drama that makes a story compelling enough to bother to read, and then care. It's also drama that gives some victims the only remembrance they might have. Few people beyond the geek-sphere are going to want to pore over charts and graphs.
Absolutely include those (interactive) charts and graphs along stories, I've liked this trend since I noticed it.
Here's an example of a dramatic story that made me care about a murder case and the people, both cops and victims, involved:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-laza...
It's enough to drive you crazy. These people are doing office work as if computers don't even exist.
So called "smart phones" aren't capable of solving this problem. For whatever reason, we lack the software capability of using our technology to really make these mundane tasks of sharing information easier.
Would be nice to have a similar set of health data, under my supervision, that I can submit to a new doc or hospital.
EDIT: Looks like an opportunity for someone to fill the role of LinkedIn for health data, instead of employment data. The various more or less stove-piped doctors, hospitals and agencies are going to take a long time to coordinate their data, and get it correct, if ever. I, however, am very motivated to keep my data up to date and available.
I recently saw a new doctor and was pleased that she had online history forms. I filled them out with pleasure. Then at my first visit ... wait for it ... I filled out paper forms with the same information. gack!
It's a good sort of question to ask, but it helps to narrow your domain.
- Access to clean water.
- Homelessness.
- Poverty.
- Access to health care beyond (in the US) access to anyone-who-can-get-rich-can-afford-it access.
- Joblessness; Employability.
- War as it affects people living in a war.
- War as it robs the war waging society of other amenities.
- War as it distorts local and global economies and relations.
- Mutual ignorance and fear of groups, cultures, religions and nations that allow people to be manipulated into supporting bigotry, terrorism and war.
- Access to meaningful post-secondary education in the developed world.
- Access to education in the developing world.
- The gradual and never relinquished erosion of privacy and civil liberties from citizens to the state.
If you see a bat or raccoon on your property, realize that it doesn't have a choice. There needs to be compassion and awareness.
Beyond the practical aspects of the problem is watching people work so hard to raise funds for research knowing that it is 'wasted' in a single purchase.
