Wouldn't it be something if the frantic term-sheet-chasing energy we have in StartupLand could be applied to the world's truly interesting problems?
There are people working on things like this (myself included) -- the problem is that many of the "real problems" out there, the ones that are really worth solving, don't have easy economic arguments. Dollars/euros/RMB are a rather unidimensional metric for value, and what the economy values and what humans value don't generally match up very well.
It's challenge enough getting potential investors to see the ROI in your webapp with well-known paths to monetization - try making a case for a project with social ROI, and very little economic return in any reasonable timeframe (by our short human attention span standards).
I would love to see (and be part of) a broader solution to this.
Wouldn't it be something if the frantic term-sheet-chasing energy we have in StartupLand could be applied to the world's truly interesting problems?
There are people working on things like this (myself included) -- the problem is that many of the "real problems" out there, the ones that are really worth solving, don't have easy economic arguments. Dollars/euros/RMB are a rather unidimensional metric for value, and what the economy values and what humans value don't generally match up very well.
It's challenge enough getting potential investors to see the ROI in your webapp with well-known paths to monetization - try making a case for a project with social ROI, and very little economic return in any reasonable timeframe (by our short human attention span standards).
I would love to see (and be part of) a broader solution to this.