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Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

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11–20 of 118 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#11
The one that you understand and have skills, knowledge, abilities, or relationships that you can apply.

I know that's kind of cliche but there are opportunities and/or places to help all over the place. It's a matter of finding the ones that you can a) get passionate about and b) be successful at. And this applies to startups, non-profits, or even that internal project.

Personally, I work to support Austin Disaster Relief Network - https://adrn.org/ - which is a group of ~150 churches in Central Texas that come together to help people during flood, fire, hurricane, and anything else. We are background checked and badged to cross the emergency tape and help the Red Cross, local PD, or whoever else is on the scene. The focus first is helping people immediately.. while their house is still on fire. And then help them get back on their feet.

While I have first aid training, my specific role is helping on the technology side. When something happens - like Hurricane Harvey - we can stand up a 25 person call center in under an hour. It's powered by Cisco phones plugged into a local Asterisk/FreePBX server connected to Twilio. (I'm a former Twilio employee but they're not involved.) In the field, ADRN uses simple web and mobile apps to collect victim info and issue gift cards. It's tied into geolocation services and person databases to reduce fraud. There are online/offline modes for when you're in the field where there is no connectivity. There are a ton of technical roles required!

And the underlying aspect of all of this is that we design, build, and deploy technology with the HOPE that it never gets used. If it's used, that means something horrible happened.

And btw, Harvey isn't over for people in the field. All help is appreciated - https://adrn.org/disaster-relief/hurricaneharvey/

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#12
I see two things:

1) making data and facts more available and easier usable for everyone. This includes good sources, polished data streams and - the most neglected thing I suppose - good UI for non-techs.

2) Decentralize applications, plug in interoperability. OStatus is a good example of this. We need to reduce datasilo hoarding monopolies. This also partly plays into 1)

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#13
There are probably huge strides that can be taken in healthcare, food, energy, transportation and finances. The challenge is that most of these industries are heavily regulated so you go in optimistic then get inundated with endless waves of bureaucracy, and end up making a new version of Twitter.

I'm personally fascinated with the transpiration industry. Everything from city bikes, to self driving cars, to hyper loop[1], to super sonic transport[2], to intergalactic transport[3].

[1] http://hyperloop-one.com

[2] http://boomsupersonic.com

[3] http://www.spacex.com/mars

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#15
post #12

I see two things: 1) making data and facts more available and easier usable for everyone. This includes good sources, polished data streams and - the most neglected thing I suppose - good UI for non-techs. 2) Decentralize applications, plug in interoperability. OStatus is a good example of this. We need to reduce datasilo hoarding monopolies. This also partly plays into 1)

Was going to post about more decentralized fundamentals on the Internet; identity, file storage, basic data, etc. But I'll piggyback and upvote this.

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#17
post #8
post #4

Homelessness induced by mental health challenges. I know this isn't exactly what you were asking, but this is an area in which creating engineering solutions can go a long way. As suggested - think geographically local. Improvements in the way our society handles these issues, proven to work on a local scale, can be adapted and replicated globally.

That's solved in every industrialized country besides America. It's an issue of political will. I think it's a great thing to work on, and desperately needed in the US, but it's not a question of how to implement it but rather the political change to implement it. Edit: it's not even, strictly speaking, nation-wide. Idaho for example, does a great job on this. California had most of its mental health facilities shut…

>>That's solved in every industrialized country besides America.

Whoa. That's an interesting unsubstantiated statistic. A quick (albeit unnecessary) Google search begs to differ: https://homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/

Re: Ask HN: What's an important problem that more people should work on?

#20
post #13

There are probably huge strides that can be taken in healthcare, food, energy, transportation and finances. The challenge is that most of these industries are heavily regulated so you go in optimistic then get inundated with endless waves of bureaucracy, and end up making a new version of Twitter. I'm personally fascinated with the transpiration industry. Everything from city bikes, to self driving cars, to hyper loo…

Definitely feels like SpaceX just ate Boom's lunch last night.
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