World Solve

Future progress on human development and planetary health depends on solving security forces acting with impunity. Conventional approaches have proven insufficient. The required intervention must integrate community knowledge, data and appropriate technology while remaining affordable, privacy-preserving and operable with minimal external support. Strong solutions will articulate measurable impact metrics, risk mitigation strategies, and a plan for sustained operation by local actors after the pilot phase.

Addressing tenure security remaining missing is critical for achieving the 2030 Agenda. Current efforts fall short in scale, speed and equity, leaving the most vulnerable behind. Any viable solution must function in low-resource settings with limited specialists, transport, laboratory capacity and broadband. Proposals should specify quantifiable biological, social or environmental outcomes, openly discuss potential risks, and present a realistic pathway for long-term maintenance and local ownership beyond short research pilots.

High-input systems can maintain yields while depleting soil, aquifers, pollinators, and biodiversity. The challenge is measuring ecological debt before it becomes a food-security crisis. The solution must work with limited capital, intermittent services, and local maintenance capacity. The research opportunity is to define measurable success criteria, test the approach in realistic settings, identify failure modes, and create a pathway from prototype to accountable deployment.

Warming, acidification, migration, and food-web changes may make historical fishing quotas unreliable. Management systems must adapt quickly while protecting food security and the livelihoods of small-scale fishers. The solution must work with limited capital, intermittent services, and local maintenance capacity. The research opportunity is to define measurable success criteria, test the approach in realistic settings, identify failure modes, and create a pathway from prototype to accountable deployment.

Entry systems that require intentional amnesia create barriers for people with strong purpose or cognitive differences. The challenge is designing security that does not depend on temporary memory erasure.

Garments that expand or shrink according to measured self-assurance can reinforce insecurity and create practical discomfort. The challenge is allowing adaptive fit without linking physical dimensions to emotional state scores.

If facial appearance can be altered continuously through filters or implants, both social recognition and security systems lose stable anchors. The problem is maintaining trustworthy identity verification and human connection without requiring permanent biometric locks that themselves create new risks.

States and institutions may need registries of deployed AI models, their data sources, risk levels, and accountability owners. The challenge is building disclosure rules that support safety without exposing legitimate security or privacy risks. This becomes particularly difficult during fiscal austerity, because public institutions must remain fair, resilient, and accountable while adapting to new risks.

States and institutions may need registries of deployed AI models, their data sources, risk levels, and accountability owners. The challenge is building disclosure rules that support safety without exposing legitimate security or privacy risks. This becomes particularly difficult under climate migration pressure, because public institutions must remain fair, resilient, and accountable while adapting to new risks.

Border systems may increasingly use risk scoring, biometric checks, and predictive screening. The unresolved problem is ensuring security tools do not become opaque instruments of arbitrary exclusion or rights violations. The challenge is especially acute in informal settlements, where legacy systems, coordination failures, and weak oversight can magnify harm.

Synthetic biology and AI-assisted design may create biological capabilities that are both socially valuable and potentially dangerous. The unresolved problem is building oversight that reduces misuse risk while keeping legitimate research open and productive. The challenge is especially acute in informal settlements, where legacy systems, coordination failures, and weak oversight can magnify harm.

Future quantum networks will need coexistence with conventional fiber, satellites, and noisy metropolitan infrastructure. A major unresolved problem is developing practical repeaters, interfaces, standards, and operational security for real-world deployment. The solution must work with limited capital, intermittent services, and local maintenance capacity. The research opportunity is to define measurable success criteria, test the approach in realistic settings, identify failure modes, and create a pathway from prototype to accountable deployment.

Attackers can automatically test massive numbers of previously leaked username and password combinations across many websites to find accounts where the same credentials still work. Reducing the effectiveness of this widespread technique remains an unresolved security challenge.

Some financial institutions still use voice recognition as an authentication method, but increasingly realistic AI voice cloning threatens to undermine this security layer. Strengthening these systems against synthetic voice attacks remains an active, unresolved challenge.

Attackers can sometimes obtain or forge digital certificates that make malicious software appear legitimately signed and safe to install. Strengthening the verification processes behind these certificates remains an unresolved security challenge.

Verifying that voting machine software hasn't been secretly altered requires specialized technical audits that aren't consistently performed everywhere elections take place. Making this verification standard and accessible remains an unresolved election security challenge.

Employees or attackers can sometimes use carefully crafted prompts to trick AI systems integrated into company tools into revealing sensitive internal information they weren't meant to share. Fully closing this security gap remains an unresolved AI safety challenge.

Employee behavior remains one of the most common causes of security breaches, yet many small businesses lack the resources for regular, effective cybersecurity training. Scaling affordable, effective training globally remains an unresolved practical challenge.

Networks of compromised devices, often unknowing to their owners, can be rented out cheaply on illicit markets for attacks like large-scale website disruptions. Dismantling these persistent botnet infrastructures remains an ongoing cybersecurity challenge.

Data can sometimes leave an organization through informal channels or unauthorized access long before any official breach is detected. Faster, more reliable internal leak detection remains an unresolved cybersecurity challenge.