Ask HN: What are problems that enterprising college students could solve?

Hi HN, I'm looking for your help to brainstorm problems that need solutions. I'm in a program where we create teams and find challenges that the world or community around us is facing; however, many of us struggle to find realistic or 'not too broad' problems due to a lack of real-world experience. Based on your personal or anecdotal experience, what types of problems would you like to see a solution developed to? Are there places or websites to source ideas from? Thank you.

Scoping out the right problems is a highly non-trivial skill in itself. For example, a significant component of a PhD is learning to do this with regards to research projects (that is part of what it means to be an independent researcher). Typically, the only way to learn this is by calibrating one's experience with one's ability, and the scope of problems will evolve with the increase in both. It really helps to have a mentor to provide guidance along that path, and to help set/refine goals and to calibrate expectations and provide feedback. The reason I'm explaining all this is that it is very difficult to generically suggest "problems" without knowing your background/interests/orientation. (eg: Coming up with good student projects is an art unto itself; something that professors are expected to learn along the way)

So maybe provide some more information about yourself?

Appreciate the initiative; good luck! Maybe we should develop more of a culture of sharing "problems" openly (formulated constructively) so that others with a suitable background might take a crack at them! :-)

I haven't actually tried it but I've seen https://socialcoder.org mentioned before.

Take your "too broad" problems and break them down suck that at least a part might be doable within the allotted time frame.

People, especially young women, spend tons of time doing laundry around the world. Doing laundry in a time consuming and manual way keeps them from attending school, which makes them unable to rise out of poverty. This is a big issue.

Will you solve the issue of how time consuming it is for people to wash clothes by hand? No. But could you design, in a computer, a pedal-driven washing machine possible to make out of plastic? Yes. Build a prototype? Perhaps. Make instructions available? Maybe. Roughly estimate costs? Sure.

If done well, this could help fix a problem the world is facing. Or at least help create good ideas for others to work more on.

Don't limit yourselves.

How about something to facilitate access to mental health services in your college/university community?