World Solve

Medicines used on Earth lose potency rapidly on orbit, endangering astronauts on long multi-year Mars missions. Developing radiation-shielded drug formulations and long-shelf-life stabilizing active compounds is required.

In major agricultural and industrial manufacturing regions across East and South Asia, overuse of antibiotics in livestock and unmonitored factory discharge have accelerated the proliferation of drug-resistant pathogens, threatening global healthcare systems.

Despite international treaties, millions of metric tons of toxic e-waste are illegally imported into East and Southeast Asian informal processing hubs, contaminating local ecosystems and harming workers' health.

Divergent definitions of 'sustainable investments' across regional stock exchanges allow carbon-intensive industries to access green bond financing without verified emissions reductions.

Thermal and reverse-osmosis desalination across West Asian coastal regions consumes immense fossil fuel resources and discharges hypersaline brine back into marine ecosystems, harming coral reefs.

Poor supply chain oversight allows fake antibiotics, malaria medications, and life-saving drugs to enter rural retail markets, leading to treatment failures and drug resistance.

Foreign pharmaceutical companies patent compounds derived from traditional Asian herbal knowledge without benefit-sharing agreements with native communities.

Some medications carry a risk of gradual liver damage that often goes undetected until routine screening or symptoms reveal significant harm has already occurred. More sensitive, earlier detection methods remain an unmet need.

Current prostate cancer screening can miss dangerous cancers or flag ones that would never have caused harm, leading to unnecessary treatment in some cases and missed cancers in others. A more precise screening method remains an unmet need.

This rare but severe condition can develop rapidly after childbirth, and delays in recognition and treatment can have dangerous consequences for both mother and baby. Faster, more reliable detection and treatment protocols remain an urgent unmet need.

Preeclampsia can develop suddenly and seriously endanger both mother and baby, and current screening still misses many cases until symptoms are already severe. Earlier, more accurate prediction could prevent serious harm.

Many new parents experience postpartum depression that goes undiagnosed or untreated for months, affecting both their wellbeing and their infant's early development. Faster detection and more accessible treatment remain unmet needs.

Food allergies have been rising for reasons researchers still can't fully explain, and existing treatments mostly manage symptoms after exposure rather than removing the risk entirely. A true prevention or cure remains elusive.

Once a law passes, fixing unforeseen negative consequences can take years of political negotiation, even when the harm is clear and widely acknowledged. Faster correction mechanisms remain rare in most legal systems.

Mistakes in identity documents, tax records, or benefit eligibility can take months or years to fix, causing real harm in the meantime. A faster, more citizen-friendly correction process remains missing in most bureaucracies.

AI models built in one country are used and can cause harm worldwide, yet no institution has the mandate to set or enforce shared rules. This leaves a fast-moving technology essentially ungoverned at the international level.

New technologies have always displaced some jobs while creating others, but there's no agreed threshold for how much short-term harm is an acceptable cost of long-term progress.

Antibiotics are widely used in livestock farming to prevent disease and promote growth, contributing significantly to antibiotic resistance in humans. Reducing this use without harming farmers' livelihoods remains a persistent unresolved challenge.

Some slow-growing cancers are unlikely to ever threaten a patient's life, yet current diagnostics often can't tell them apart from dangerous ones. This leads to both overtreatment and, at times, dangerous undertreatment.

Fertilizer runoff from farms feeds harmful algae blooms in nearby lakes, damaging drinking water and local ecosystems. Preventing this at the source remains cheaper than treating it after the fact, but adoption is still limited.