Everything agriculture, most farmers had their children go off to school and then the cities. Now it’s only really people in their 50s in the fields. As someone who has a farm and regularly asks for knowledge transfers from the older farmers around me.. it’ll be difficult when they move on. It’s things you wouldn’t expect either, like how to install a new piston & hydraulics line on a tractor. Or how to repair an old…
The average age of a farmer in Canada is 56 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220511/dq220...
Here in Japan, average 67.9yo. Industry is going to die.
Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta
I work on a gamification product. We have schools as customers, they made a game that engaged the students and in an a/b testing showed much better results over time. They pay 0.1% of what other, non-education customers pay. Because that's all they could spare and allow. Needless to say, the servers alone cost more than what they pay. Not to talk about the massive amount of support they consume. So if you wonder why…
Ding ding ding… we have a winner. Scrolled all the way down waiting for someone else to mention the hard truth that they have even less money for educational software that they have for teacher’s supplies, which is so bad you’ll find teachers having to pay for supplies for their class. It’s nice to suggest the idea, but it’s not currently a sustainable business for deeper educational material due to support costs and the low ability of the customer to pay in the first place.
Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta
>attention span is short,
Fix that first. Because without that, education only serve to create decoys/rubber stamps/plants.
My startup is working on solutions to crop failure scenarios such as from a nuclear war. Unfortunately we calculate there are probable outcomes where the only reasonable course of action is for one selected group to actually consume parts of the population in order to survive a nuclear winter. And so we’re building an automated system to take a newly deceased human being and create as many wholesome and nutritious me…
My startup is working on solutions to crop failure scenarios such as from a nuclear war. Unfortunately we calculate there are probable outcomes where the only reasonable course of action is for one selected group to actually consume parts of the population in order to survive a nuclear winter. And so we’re building an automated system to take a newly deceased human being and create as many wholesome and nutritious me…
This story would be more believable if you mentioned being funded by a16z.
Efficient extraction of metals (and materials that can be broken down to useful precursors) from landfills and 'e-waste'. My PhD supervisor worked for years before he retired, on, among other things, magnetic separation using inhomogeneous magnetic fields. It would be a great pity if such work were forgotten.
What is stopping such projects from scaling? Are the economics not there yet?
Agriculture. Especially the maintenance such as watering large fields, and surveillance where electricity and internet connection might be scarce. There are a lot of challenges, especially in typical fields in South Europe, where large and automated tractors aren't an option.
Educational games. Hear me out. The way we teach us basically how we did it 500 years ago. This is stupid, boring and not scalable. We dont have enough teachers, attention span is short, education is costly. So we need something that scales, is fun and involves all types of media plus gamifies education. Think Skyrim or GTA meets MS Encarta
Short attention span is in large part because of computers, phones, etc. So putting ed games on them doesn't seem to address the core problem. Our solution has been a no screen time policy. Education is strictly non-digital and a lot of real world, hands on learning and dialogue with real people. And our kid has loved books since infancy. Does it have to be so strict? I'm not sure, but I do know that our society is i…
I agree. Screens are the problem, not the solution.