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

80 points by ups474773 ↗ HN
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.

67 comments

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jrumbut
Well you're facing a problem right now.

How do people with technical skills find the right place to apply them?

Or maybe where can someone go to find a problem that can help them learn, pre-vetted perhaps?

Where can people with small problems go to find help?

ssivark
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! :-)

paulbaumgart
I recommend interviewing people in your community. If you’re ok with working on a non-profit idea: the world is filled with local institutions that could use better digital technology.
llarsson
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.

squirrelicus
I know that was an example out of thin air and not to be taken literally, but I can just see the commercials a la Juicero or Morus or Waterseer. What you need is an overpriced device that makes doing laundry even more exhausting and time consuming because technology! Now when the laundry piles up, you'll feel daunted AND fat!
squirrelicus
The best advice I can give us to build something for pain you feel. Maybe it's edtech integrations or a part of your workflow or life that needs optimization.

If you build something for other people, you'll need user discovery and project management skills up the wazoo if you don't have a team with that expertise. And you're at risk of building Facebook for Cat Owners or something like that. Start with your own pain until you have more experience transforming user pain into something they'll pay for.

maccard
I just want to second this. The most satisfying work I've ever done, and the work I'm most proud of (that I speak of with interviewers etc) is work that scratched a real itch that I had.
lostlogin
Nearly all the most interesting start ups I’ve seen around me have done this. They identified something that was frustrating and clunky, then picked away at it until there was a useful alternative and then kept iterating.
theobeers
How about something to facilitate access to mental health services in your college/university community?
beautifulfreak
The great Pacific garbage patch is still out there. I like this passive solution (https://theoceancleanup.com/technology/). Maybe plastic taken from the ocean could be processed and incorporated into the plastic-removal mechanism to make it more effective. I think everyone would feel grateful if you even tried to solve that problem.
jacobwilliamroy
Don't get mixed up in that crowd op. theoceancleanup is mostly just a pr stunt. Some young kid got popular support for a bad idea and now he's doubling down on that bad idea for fear of being pilloried for wasting 6 years and millions of dollars on a dud.
throwawayjava
This sounds like a problem in your community: a large group of people every year trying, probably often failing, to find concrete ways to actually help out.

Go out and interview folks running non-profits, research labs, churches, health clinics, legal clinics, schools, anyone else who fits into your colleges definition of "community around us".

From those interviews, build a large list of project-sized problem/solution statments for future groups of students. Include skills needed, points of contact, possible adoption challenges, etc. Validate those project descriptions with the people you interview.

Identifying and describing problems that need to be solved and what it means to solve them is something lots of people build careers around

mLuby
Find ways to get college-age students involved in government (local, national, etc), especially voting.

Young people are a large, yet chronically underrepresented demographic. Just because it's true now doesn't mean it'll always be.

ben_jones
Adding to this, understand the difference between long term success and short term project success. The SAT, college, future big co employers, have taught all of us how to achieve ephemeral results that grant bonuses or other validations but do little to nothing to help the world we live in. When trying to improve youth voter turnout, think instead why the efforts made have failed so drastically despite tens of thousands of individuals going around with clip boards since the ‘70s...
telesilla
There was something very powerful that happened in Christchurch, New Zealand after the major quake in 2011, the Student Volunteer Army. I wonder if it's a good model, though sadly it may need to be triggered by disaster.

https://sva.org.nz/our-story/

dantheman
Only vote if you're actually willing to understand what the policies are and what is currently being done. Otherwise you end up having people vote based on superfluous surface level details -- e.g., I'd have a beer with them.
scottLobster
This. I'd say young people should focus on educating themselves about the various issues in an academic sense, particularly if they're in college.

Don't just read blogs, read studies and learn the statistics/background so you actually understand what they mean. Look up primary sources to get perspectives from people who have lived through whatever issue you're grappling with. Learn to write and how to think about the issue before jumping to forming an opinion, and know that the process may take years of work before you have an opinion worth hearing.

You have your whole life to fix problems if you want, take the time to get prepared first so you don't just make things worse.

From my own experience it's cringey to remember how easy it was to talk about "how willing I'd be to pay more in taxes for X" back when I was single and not paying any taxes. And I considered myself educated on the subject! Climate change is real after all, how can people not be willing to sacrifice for the greater good when the coastline is literally shrinking?!! :)

I blame most public school systems. They tend to reward very shallow reasoning for the first 12 or so years of a person's education, particularly in this age of standardized testing. So most students arrive in college thinking all problems are just as shallow.

pietroglyph
I’d say older people should focus on educating themselves about the various issues in an academic sense, particularly if they haven’t been exposed to the many new issues facing younger people that are often ignored by the many politicians catering to older groups.

Don’t just listen to cable news and partisan radio shows, read studies and learn the statistics/background so you actually understand what they mean. Look up primary sources to get perspectives from younger people who may face very different circumstances than you did at their age.

You have a whole life of experience that can help and hinder; take the time to understand the changing world instead of clinging to the past so you don’t just make things worse.

From my own experience it’s disappointing to see older people ignore or stall on a variety of social issues that no longer affect them because they’re set. Even worse, some ignore or pooh-pooh serious long-term problems just because they’ll be dead when the ill-effects kick in.

I’m not sure what to blame for this selfishness and myopia, but it’s important to remember that “uninformed” is not just an adjective that applies to the young.

scottLobster
And? As someone in their early 30s I'd agree.

The discussion was what should college-age people be doing with their time. I'm simply pointing out that young people entering college typically have little academic knowledge and little real-world experience. So outliers aside, how are they fit to solve problems again? Most of them are white belts when it comes to adult life. That's not bad, just a statement of status.

Given that college provides years of uninterrupted access to scientific journals, never mind classes and a myriad of other education resources, I'd recommend that they maximize the opportunities in front of them and maybe work their way to to at least purple belt before setting out to save the world.

Also, I find it sad how eager you were to pigeon-hole me as some cable-TV-watching boomer who's refusing to change just because I pointed out there are economic nuances to the climate change argument. You sound like one of the victims of our shallow public education system I mentioned in my previous post.

solipsism
Learn to think, he says, and then he blames the school systems (instead of blaming the myriad fundamental problems that lead to screwed up school systems).
mLuby
That only works if everyone follows it, which they don't for a host of good and bad reasons.

Imagine 100 informed people understand the issue; 60 vote for it and 40 against. But 500 uninformed people like the celebrity who opposes the issue so the final vote is 60 to 540.

At this point, I'd be happy just to see that could-vote demographics are proportional to did-vote demographics. We're nowhere close, and it shows.

cgriswald
What is the value of a low could-vote:did-vote ratio in the absence of informed voters?

I can see why keeping this ratio high appeals to governments and politicians. It grants them more legitimacy, even if the votes are entirely uninformed. I also see why motivating particular demographics to vote appeals to certain candidates: voters in particular demographics tend to vote for particular candidates/causes/parties. But as an informed voter I'm better off if there are fewer uniformed voters, because my vote becomes more powerful. And as a citizen, I'm probably better off if the majority of voters are informed, even if they don't always vote in my personal best interests.

codingdave
You may mean well, but anyone who is discouraging our youth from voting will not get agreement from me. We have a large demographic of older voters who vote they same way they have been for decades, along partisan lines based on dated world views. (And I'm old, so I include myself in this.) We need the youth to vote.

Yes, educated votes are better than uneducated votes. So plan to vote, and plan to learn.

polimorphic
You should check out https://www.polimorphic.com -- its a civic media site we built for young people to be informed on what's actually happening in politics (votes, legislation, etc.). Plus we're working with a growing number of college politicial groups and other civic groups. Would be happy to elaborate more on it, if interested
AlexB138
The best help young, inexperienced, energetic folks can be is to follow someone who is aged, experienced, and lacking bandwidth. Romantic notions aside, young people are not particularly equipped to lead, and would do better to watch a leader work for a while instead of trying to dive in themselves.

Go find a group that actually has a mission and help them, rather than searching for a problem to solve. Plenty of animal shelters, churches, and soup kitchens would love a group of hands to help.

If your program specifically requires you to lead something, create a program to coordinate causeless volunteers with organizations that need them.

yumraj
You should do brainstorming sessions with your team where you diverge and then converge.

What I mean is:

1) get a white board/wall, post-its, and markers.

2) have everyone, independent of each other, write ideas on post-its and put on the wall. Don't judge ideas, just put them. Lots of them. Don't put your names on the ideas.

3) when you literally run out of steam, which could be a couple of hours later or even more, as a team start discarding ideas that don't make sense or work for your team.

4) you may have to do this a few times so that you get a feel for the process.

In the end you should have some really good ideas that you as a team have agreed upon.

Dowwie
Social media is in need of a major upgrade. A team of designers (as in user experience and information design) and programmers could work on new patterns for social media. You could use Hacker News as the test subject. Challenges you may consider:

    1. excessive influence of amateur opinions ( I'm not a doctor, but let me tell you what I think about treatment for acute renal failure -- this gets upvoted to the top )
    2. astroturfing (are praises within the comments section really just insiders shaping the narrative?)
    3. considerate, alternative points of view are buried at the bottom of the comments section
    4. moderator biases
you get the idea!
drewbt
Turn to the nearest problem that you see, that you have a strong drive to solve.

This world needs refining.

Everything in order at home? On your street? In your neighborhood? Your City? Your State? Your Country?

Here in Africa we have plenty of issues needing attention.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Development_Goals

Personally I was introduced to the poor standard of early childhood development in my city by a friend, and since then we have built 3 schools. Just in my immediate area, there are around 40 that need attention, and across the country of South Africa there must be thousands. The cost of a simple building to handle part of the problem is around $25k. Another problem we face is high unemployment, so we pay people from the community to help build the schools.

Lack of access to quality education, skills and funding are the challenges we face.

A lot of research still needs to be done on extent of the problem. I have been dreaming of an app that maps all of these ECD centers and rates them on various metrics, like quality of education, building, and nutrition. An app that would allow professionals who would like to give their time a list of options of places that need their help. Like crowd funding, but for skills. An app to allow the greater community to see, engage and solve the most pressing problems around us, all over the world.

Also and app like Uber or Airbnb, but for artisans and skilled contractors, with similar rating systems.

There are many crowd funding sites, but it’s time to go deeper and actively seek out and solve issues.

https://www.designindaba.com/tags/joe-slovo-west-community-p...

whalesalad
A scheduling application for the gig economy. People who are independent hairdressers, dog walkers, etc... and need an easy booking/billing/CRM tool.

My wife is using a tool for booking meetings at the moment and it’s not the right tool for the job. It doesn’t seem like the right tool exists for this type of person.

arslnjmn
One idea would be to start by looking at technological trends in your country. If they persist, what problems would lend themselves to easier solutions? Examples:

1. Smartphone penetration is increasing. This can help with improving access to education when there's a dearth of content in your local language on YouTube, Coursera, edX etc. You can build a platform for teachers to easily create videos / content in your local language and upload them on YouTube.

2. Mobile adoption is on the rise. This can help with infrastructure planning by collaborating with telecom providers and analyzing anonymized data. You can create a tool for planners / ministries to visualize and analyze these datasets.

3. A significant proportion of people use feature phones. You can create a news delivery service or something similar to bring to them what's easily available on the web and would be useful.

devwastaken
May not be possible, but a mobile app to scan UPC codes on cleaner products that then gets the products individual chemicals and their percentage through it's safety data sheet.

It's probably more of a problem of not being able to automate collection of the data sheets.

bdcravens
Graduate college without debt. Find ways to disrupt the college culture to accomplish this.
nitishvashistha
Do you feel ISAs (income share agreements) are a good way to do that? Or do you think there should be other better ways?
maccard
I'm not in the US, but my feeling is no. Either get a scholarship to a prestigious university, or go to an in-state college and work to minimise the debt, even if it's flipping burgers. Doing that is the difference between graduating with 10k in debt and 200k in debt.
bdcravens
I think it begins with a cultural change: where you go, how you spend your time and money, how you approach education. An ISA is just a different form of debt (and sometimes debt can be leveraged well, but usually it's a default for the lazy)
mooreds
Heya, great to know that you're interested.

A couple of things:

* Contact your local city or state and see. Colorado has a hackathon: https://gocode.colorado.gov/ See if your local state has something.

* Code for America is another organization with a finger on the pulse of what needs to be done: https://www.codeforamerica.org/

* If you are focusing on a particular technology, reach out to your local meetups around that technology and post a message like you did here.

* Finally, don't get wrapped up in infrastructure or setup. Use something like Heroku: https://www.heroku.com/, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, or Transposit: https://www.transposit.com/ (full disclosure, I work for them) to make sure you can focus on the business problem, not the intricacies of EC2 or ALB configuration. Seen too many good ideas crater on that bikeshedding.

kart23
Ask your friends about their problems and solve those. Do stuff that you know best, for example, is registering for classes at your school hard and is there space for a better interface? Or maybe your school is socially dead and students want a way to connect with students .
PopeDotNinja
Are you in an area with homeless people? In my neighborhood, there's a homeless guy named Mike. His wheelchair has been stolen 4 times in the last two months, and he can't walk without it. I was thinking it'd be cool if there was a municipal registration system for wheelchairs, like there are for bikes, that would work for homeless people. Just an idea. No clue how practical it'd be!
hartator
I first read “musical” registration system. Left me wondering for a bit.
PopeDotNinja
Since, my comment got a few upvotes, here's a pic I took of him a few days ago.

https://imgur.com/a/T1Ijqgj

For context, Mike effectively can't walk. He can lean on a wall and sort of push himself along for a bit. But imagine "crawling" along a way, having to take a break every 10 or 20 feet, and then getting blocked by coming up to a window that you can't lean on. And then imagine someone stealing your wheelchair. Talk about messed up.

Arete314159
Facebook, which has eaten the world, started in college dorm rooms. I'd love to see a not-for-profit social media option that emphasized connecting people to join up in the real world, to solve real problems, rather than encouraging addictive behavior. You could start with a social network for your college only or your city only and work from there.
overcast
The problem is that most people only care about themselves, and are not interested in solving real problems. That's why Facebook/Instagram/any other platform prioritizing self promotion are massive.
andys627
Join a non profit working on something you believe in
edoo
More abstractly speaking I'd say nearly every problem relating to humans is the general inability to understand exponents. Any constant growth rate is an exponential one and if the doubling rate is on a short enough time span to significantly increase resource pressures then you have a problem. That pattern is the world over. The solution would be a clever way of mass teaching people the consequences of exponents.