Your question reminds me of the article yesterday that suggested an "x prize for everything" [0]. I have heard many people say that the really hard part is the goal setting and determining which problems to solve, which you include in your question. Maybe the problem is that there is not a strong enough connection between the academic proof-of-concept ideas and the people who have the power to set the goals. In a perfect world, these proof-of-concept ideas would be the inspiration for an x-prize. The competition itself acts as a map forward which would generate a bunch of competition to tackle something, with a new industry established as the result. It seems the connection you are looking for isn't necessarily between the proof-of-concept ideas and the products, but rather the proof-of-concept ideas and the market-building-of-the-commons which benefits all participants. Once that exists, VC's can do their jobs to exploit the market.

[0](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5348677)