50+ Global Issues Makers Can Solve

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab—along with USAID’s Global Development Lab, The Lemelson Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation, Dalberg Global Development Advisors, The Good Company and OMG—has put together a list of challenges primed for Makers to solve. They call these “Top 50 Game-Changing Technologies for Defeating Global Poverty.” These are summarized in a 20-page list, and then fully explored in the full 600-page report. They shared this list “because the problems we all seek to address require urgent action,” and they invite the problem-solvers of the world (you, dear readers!) to “begin the conversation.”

The top challenge?

The single most needed breakthrough is a cost-effective, energy-efficient method for desalinating water. “Water will be the defining problem of the next 50 years,” [Shashi] Buluswar [director of LIGTT, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies] said. “It’s probably the single most important thing that needs to be solved.”

The researchers analyzed each on its “Difficulty of deployment”: (Simple / Feasible / Complex / Challenging/ Extremely Challenging) vs. “Likely time to market” (from “Potential quick wins” to “The most difficult challenges: very complex technologies and daunting deployment hurdles.”) In another matrix, they arrange the challenges by commercial potential, in terms of how attractive these would be for industrialized and emerging markets. They are also categorized into nine areas:

1. Global health
2. Food security and agricultural development
3. Education
4. Human rights
5. Gender equity
6. Water
7. Access to electricity
8. Digital inclusion
9. Resilience against climate change and environmental damage

Take a look at how you can help save the world—especially the bolded items that have Makers’ names written all over them! (But really, I could have bolded the whole list.)

Add a comment below if there’s a challenge you would have added to this list that you don’t see!

1. Energy-efficient desalination
2. Vaccine for HIV/AIDS.
3. Vaccine for Malaria.
4. Vaccine for TB.
5. Smart electronic textbooks
6. Biometric ID systems
7. Affordable smartphones
8. New generation of homes for the poor
9. New fertilizer production systems
10. Utility-in-a-box for solar mini-grids
11. Short-course TB treatment
12. Microbicides for HIV / HPV
13. Long-lasting antiretroviral for HIV
14. PrEP antiretrovirals for HIV prevention
15. Complete cure for malaria
16. Long-lasting chemical mosquito repellent
17. Non-chemical spatial mosquito repellent/attractant
18. Clinic-in-a-box
19. Oxygen concentrator
20. Automated multiplex immunoassays
21. Point-of-care nucleic acid diagnostics
22. Fully integrated diagnostic panels
23. Off-grid vaccine refrigerator
24. Thermo-stabilizing mechanism for vaccines
25. Nutrient-dense infant weaning foods
26. Off-grid refrigerator for households and farmers
27. Low-cost refrigerated vehicle
28. Precision agriculture systems for irrigation and fertilizer
29. Low-cost shallow water drilling system
30. Solar-powered irrigation pumps
31. Herbicides for weeds
32. Low-cost tilling machine
33. Alternative to liquid nitrogen for preserving animal semen
34. High-nutrient animal fodder
35. Portable toolkit of extension workers and veterinarians
36. Spatial on-farm pest repellent
37. New seed varieties tolerant to drought and heat
38. Wearable cameras
39. Low-cost aerial vehicles for imagery
40. DNA-based rape kit
41. Wireless broadband technologies
42. IoT for low-income populations
43. Sustainable aquaculture systems
44. Affordable homes resilient to extreme climate events
45. Retrofit filter for vehicle exhaust
46. Distributed sensors for environmental toxins
47. Low-cost PV minigrid installation
48. New generation of low-cost, energy efficient appliances
49. New bulk storage technologies
50. Mini-grid management solutions
51. Low-cost family transport