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Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

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Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#461
post #36

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

You're thinking on the right path, but I'd suggest going wider than videogames.

I built a math program in Newark that worked stunningly well because it took the level assessment/lessons/testing from Khan and gamified it.

Not gamification in the electronic badge/"you did it!!!"/points sense, but contests between kids, with teams rooting each other on and parents helping run the show.

Education needs genuine praise and involvement to inspire children to put in the necessary effort. But videogaming the experience is a solution in search of a problem. We need less isolation and more coaching.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#463
It seems to me the problem is we are losing all the knowledge of the 'old generation'. This problem is wider than just in the tech industry. What we need is a tech that can capture the knowledge of Elders and individuals before it is lost. And also be able to access it in some way to answer questions and solve problems without having to analyse each person's contribution individually.

Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?

#464

Secretaries. The corporation of the mid-20th Century was run by an army of secretaries. They allowed for an important kind of flexibility. They've been replaced by software, which is more rigid, and which does harm because of its lack of flexibility. Software engineers tend to over-estimate the productivity gains that come from software, while underestimating how much we lose to the rigidness of software (which is of…

Chief of Staff, Founder's Office seem to be just a new name for secretaries at tech companies. Not sure how this gets solved for businesses that are losing out to automation (such as the hospitals example).
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