Edison said on innovation in technology that – big problems correspond to even bigger opportunities. Referring a famous Canadian Ice Hockey player, Wayne Gretzky, who had scored many hits in his time, “the trick is not to skate where the puck is, but to skate where the puck is going.” Today, technology performs a major role in solving a wide range of problems. It may be building a business or solving social problems and in this way, it can impact business all over the world. Here are the major challenges that can be solved by technology.
Carbon appropriation
Rising of global temperature is a major threat for everyone. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions cannot alone sufficient to check an increase in global temperatures. Removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere can anyway help to reduce the temperature. But, it would be really expensive. Currently, many startups are searching for ways of recycling carbon dioxide into products, like synthetic fuels, carbon fiber, polymers, and concrete. It may somehow helpful, but we require the cheapest way to completely store the billions of tons of carbon dioxide and as a result, we might successfully pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Grid-scale energy storage
Different renewable energy sources like wind and solar are becoming discounted and governments in different countries are deploying them widely. But they fail to generate electricity when the sun’s not shining or wind isn’t blowing. Still, then, some countries are trying to generate some amount of energy by which they can deviate from secure sources like coal and natural gas. The cost of building enough batteries is too much to provide backup to total networks for the days when renewable generation standards would be excessive. Many scientists and startups are trying to build up cheaper forms of grid-scale storage that can persist for longer periods, including flow batteries or tanks of molten salt. However, we urgently need a cheaper and more competent way to store vast amounts of electricity.
Universal flu vaccine
Pandemic flu is a rare worldwide spread deadly disease. It is caused by a virus and spreads all over the world. People with lack of immunity get affected by this new influenza. In the 1918 pandemic of H1N1 flu about 50 million people died and in the 1957-’58 around a million people died in pandemics. More recently, half a million died in a 2009 return of H1N1. The decrease in death tolls is due to the milder strains. We should not take this disease casually as these viruses may reproduce too quickly for any tailor-made vaccine to effectively fight it. Therefore, a common flu vaccine that confined not only against the relatively less harmful variants rather against a catastrophic once-in-a-century epidemic is a critical public health challenge.
Ocean clean-up
There are a large number of tiny pieces of plastic, called “micro-plastics” are now floating all over the world’s oceans. The major source of this waste is bags or straws which have been broken up over time. It’s deadly for birds, fish, and humans. According to researchers, the effects on both human health and the environment will be intense, and it may take centuries to clean up the hundreds of millions of tons of plastic from the oceans which have been accumulated over the decades. As pollution is widespread, it’s difficult to clean up. When there are prototype methods for undertaking the massive oceanic garbage patches, we are helpless in cleaning coasts, seas, and waterways.
Dementia treatment
Dementia or Alzheimer’s is getting quite common worldwide. Above one in 10 Americans at the age of 65 suffer from Alzheimer’s. And around a third of those are of 85 years old or more than that. Till the date, Alzheimer’s has not been understood completely, as definite diagnoses can be done only after death, and even then, doctors show the distinction between Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. With advances in neuroscience and genetics are providing more insight. That understanding is offering clues to slow or even shut down the disturbing effects of the condition.
Energy-efficient desalination
The quantity of salt water on earth is about 50 times as there is fresh water. The increase in the world’s population and climate change increase droughts and the call for fresh water is going to develop more. Israel is getting most of its household water from the sea by making the world’s biggest reverse-osmosis desalination facilities. But this method requires too much energy to be practical worldwide. New types of membranes, electrochemical techniques may be valuable to make salty water useful for irrigation. Similarly, the use of adaptation technologies to create drinking water from the ocean ought to be the main concern.
Embodied AI
A video of Atlas, showing the jumping up steps of robot like a commando, designed by Boston Dynamics, swept the internet. This came only two years after AlphaGo challenged the world’s best Go player. Atlas can’t play Go (it is embodied, but not intelligent), and AlphaGo can’t run (it’s intelligent, in its own way, but lacks a body). So what happens if you put AlphaGo’s mind in Atlas’s body? According to so many researchers, real artificial intelligence may depend on a skill to share internal computational processes to actual things in the physical world. Additionally, an AI would obtain that ability by learning to work together with the physical world as people and animals do.
Secure driverless car
Till the date, independent vehicles have been used for millions of miles on public roads. Pilot programs for release and taxi services are in progress in places like the suburbs of Phoenix. But driverless cars have not been ready to capture roads in common. They are not working properly in disordered traffic, and in weather conditions like snow and fog. If they can be finished consistently safe, they might let an extensive reimagining of transportation. Traffic jams might be abolished, and cities could be altered as parking lots and these may give way to new developments. Especially, if self-driving cars extensively deployed, are likely to eradicate most of the 1.25 million yearly deaths caused by traffic accidents.
Earthquake prediction
Earthquake is one of the devastating natural calamities in which over 100,000 people died in the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami—prompted by one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded and it had killed around a quarter of a million people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and elsewhere. We are able to predict hurricanes days much in advance, but we are helpless in predicting earthquakes. Predicting earthquakes with some self-assurance would let the planners discover some long-lasting solutions. Even a few hours’ before a warning can help people to leave unsafe areas, and millions of lives can be saved.
Brain decoding
Our brains stay deep obscurity to neuroscientists. All the things we think and remember, and all our movements, must in some way be coded in the billions of neurons in our heads. Here everyone wants to know that code. There are so many unknowns and puzzles in perceptive, by which our brains store and exchange our thoughts. Breaking in that code may lead to mental disorders like schizophrenia and autism. It might allow us to pick up direct boundaries which communicate straight from our brains to computers, or even to other people. This is life-changing progress for people who are paralyzed by injury or degenerative disease.
