World Solve

As machine learning enters welfare, policing, housing, tax, and licensing systems, bias can become harder to detect and contest. The open problem is creating enforceable standards for fairness, appeals, and independent review across all public-sector uses of automated decision-making. The challenge is especially acute in informal settlements, where legacy systems, coordination failures, and weak oversight can magnify harm.

As AI systems become embedded in education, employment, finance, healthcare, and government, people may technically retain choices while practical options are shaped by invisible optimization systems. A useful solution must preserve meaningful consent, contestability, and human responsibility. 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.

Future states will need identity systems that work for migrants, displaced people, informal workers, and citizens missing formal paperwork. The challenge is building identity infrastructure that expands access without becoming a surveillance or exclusion tool. The challenge is especially acute in informal settlements, where legacy systems, coordination failures, and weak oversight can magnify harm.

Future infrastructure will increasingly rely on systems capable of making decisions without immediate human supervision. The unresolved problem is creating architectures that can prove what they did, explain uncertainty, fail safely, and remain controllable during abnormal conditions. The solution must produce useful coordination and accountability while minimizing collection of sensitive personal and behavioral data. 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.

Future infrastructure will increasingly rely on systems capable of making decisions without immediate human supervision. The unresolved problem is creating architectures that can prove what they did, explain uncertainty, fail safely, and remain controllable during abnormal conditions. The design must remain functional when standards, trade routes, data access, and diplomatic cooperation are unreliable. 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.

Future infrastructure will increasingly rely on systems capable of making decisions without immediate human supervision. The unresolved problem is creating architectures that can prove what they did, explain uncertainty, fail safely, and remain controllable during abnormal conditions. 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.

Governments will increasingly rely on automated systems to allocate benefits, flag risks, prioritize inspections, and recommend enforcement. The unresolved problem is creating governance structures that make these systems transparent, contestable, and accountable without disabling public service delivery. The challenge is especially acute in informal settlements, where legacy systems, coordination failures, and weak oversight can magnify harm.

Curb demand changes by hour and street, but regulations are often static and enforcement is inconsistent. Auctions, reservation systems, and fairness constraints could improve throughput while protecting accessibility and local commerce. The opportunity is intentionally human-scale: a cooperative, clinic, workshop, school, or municipal team could pilot it within one locality and measure outcomes before expanding. Mathematical modeling can help with preserve uncertainty, incentives, or resource constraints; entrepreneurship can turn a reliable workflow into a viable service.

Digitization can preserve technique while also enabling unauthorized imitation or commercial appropriation. Consent-aware archives, provenance systems, and community licensing models could protect both cultural continuity and creator income. The opportunity is intentionally human-scale: a cooperative, clinic, workshop, school, or municipal team could pilot it within one locality and measure outcomes before expanding. Mathematical modeling can help with coordinate uncertainty, incentives, or resource constraints; entrepreneurship can turn a reliable workflow into a viable service.

Despite recognition of its importance, reliable methods for incentive-compatible mechanisms for global public goods financing are still lacking. Progress is hindered by incomplete mechanistic knowledge, high capital and operational barriers, and the absence of deployment models suited to the contexts of greatest need.

Current approaches to affordable diagnostics and treatments for the leading causes of maternal mortality either underperform under variable field conditions or generate externalities that undermine long-term sustainability and equity. Closing the gap requires coordinated advances in science, systems design and enabling institutions.

South Africa's electrical grid loses a significant share of generated power to transmission and distribution inefficiencies, a problem compounded by underinvestment in grid modernization relative to new generation capacity.

Achieving methods for restoring the health of soils degraded by salinization and contamination at meaningful scale demands simultaneous progress in fundamental research, engineering integration and socio-technical systems that work for low- and middle-income settings. Existing efforts remain fragmented relative to the magnitude of the challenge.

Overfishing has collapsed several near-shore fish stocks critical to coastal livelihoods in Chile, and existing quota systems are poorly enforced due to limited monitoring of small-scale fishing fleets.

Achieving mechanisms for rapid, transparent and equitable allocation of climate loss and damage finance at meaningful scale demands simultaneous progress in fundamental research, engineering integration and socio-technical systems that work for low- and middle-income settings. Existing efforts remain fragmented relative to the magnitude of the challenge.

Current approaches to solutions for providing safe and accessible public transport in rapidly growing secondary cities either underperform under variable field conditions or generate externalities that undermine long-term sustainability and equity. Closing the gap requires coordinated advances in science, systems design and enabling institutions.

The absence of robust, context-adapted solutions for institutional arrangements that accelerate the adoption of proven public health interventions creates cascading risks across interconnected human and natural systems. Key missing elements include durable performance, low lifetime cost, and governance arrangements capable of sustaining impact beyond pilot stages.

Achieving community-scale renewable microgrids resilient to extreme weather isolation at meaningful scale demands simultaneous progress in fundamental research, engineering integration and socio-technical systems that work for low- and middle-income settings. Existing efforts remain fragmented relative to the magnitude of the challenge.

The absence of robust, context-adapted solutions for governance frameworks ensuring that advances in longevity science benefit all socioeconomic groups creates cascading risks across interconnected human and natural systems. Key missing elements include durable performance, low lifetime cost, and governance arrangements capable of sustaining impact beyond pilot stages.

The absence of robust, context-adapted solutions for technologies enabling precise and low-impact application of agricultural inputs creates cascading risks across interconnected human and natural systems. Key missing elements include durable performance, low lifetime cost, and governance arrangements capable of sustaining impact beyond pilot stages.