World Solve

Computer memory still requires a tradeoff between speed, which loses data when powered off, and permanent storage, which is comparatively slower. A technology that fully combines both properties remains a long-sought but unresolved goal in computer engineering.

As electric vehicle adoption grows, local power grids in many areas aren't yet built to handle the sudden, concentrated demand spikes from many vehicles charging simultaneously. Upgrading this infrastructure fast enough remains an unresolved challenge.

Many remote communities still lack consistent access to electricity because building traditional grid infrastructure to reach them is prohibitively expensive. Affordable, reliable off-grid alternatives remain incompletely developed and deployed at scale.

Storing renewable energy at the scale needed to fully support national power grids still requires battery technology that remains too expensive for widespread deployment. Closing this cost gap remains one of the biggest barriers to a fully renewable grid.

Solar lighting technology exists, but durability and cost issues have limited how widely and reliably it can be deployed in regions that need it most. Improving both affordability and long-term reliability remains an unresolved challenge.

Many developing countries need roads, power, and water systems but often can only afford them by taking on debt that becomes difficult to repay. Finding a fairer way to fund this development remains unresolved.

Economic and political power increasingly concentrates in fewer hands, while regulation struggles to keep pace with how quickly this happens. Left unchecked, this threatens both economic fairness and democratic balance.

Anti-corruption agencies themselves can become corrupted, and oversight bodies often lack real power to enforce accountability. Breaking this cycle requires structural solutions, not just stricter laws on paper.

Kids today are developing weight-related health problems that used to appear mostly in adults, and this trend is accelerating globally. Solving it needs more than individual willpower, it needs changes to food systems and environments.

For decades, computer chips got faster mainly by shrinking transistors, but they're now near the smallest physically possible size. Finding a new way to keep computing power growing is an open engineering problem.

Hospitals, power plants, and water systems increasingly run on connected computer systems that can be targeted remotely. A serious attack on any of these could cause harm far beyond the digital world.

Despite decades of research, battery capacity has improved far more slowly than the power demands of our devices. A real breakthrough here would change how we use and design nearly all portable technology.

Once powerful enough quantum computers exist, they may crack the encryption that currently protects banking, health records, and private communication. Most of the internet still isn't ready for that shift.

Fusion promises nearly limitless clean energy, but every experiment so far has needed more power to run than it generates. Cracking this would end the global energy crisis outright.

Small businesses in Haiti that adopt solar power still face frequent downtime because battery storage remains too expensive to bridge non-sunny periods, limiting productive use of electricity.

Build long-term evidence and mitigation systems for impacts of wind, solar, transmission, hydropower, and battery-mineral extraction on ecosystems.

Develop drainage, runway materials, power backup, communications, and financing approaches for airports essential to island connectivity and disaster response.

Develop practical methods to map water, sewer, power, gas, and telecom networks where records are incomplete and excavation is dangerous.

Develop rigorous methods to distinguish symbolic consultation from processes that genuinely alter budgets, policy, service delivery, and power relations.

Develop building, public-space, energy, health-alert, and worker-protection solutions for low-income neighborhoods facing extreme heat and intermittent power.