[koberstein]

May I add to the list of hard problems that make a difference:

- Local / sustainable food systems

I have been working on an application for the past year involving connecting local producers with local customers. It is a different kind of application than typical e-commerce because it revolves around a scheduling component so that farmers can drop off food at the food hub and customers can pick it up their or have it delivered.

There are many others working on similar systems such as http://openfoodfoundation.org/project/open-food-network

There are hundreds of these 'food hubs' in the United States ( definition: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/foodhubs ).

As far as I observed, each food hub seems to operate quite differently thus making it difficult to facilitate each food hub's needs in one application. There doesn't seem to be a "market leader" software. This is a very grass roots sector and I suspect many food hubs are operating using excel spreadsheets or homebrew solutions.

Anyways, there is a lot of opportunity to make a big difference in the world around you. It has been a very rewarding and challenging thing for me to be involved in. Let me tell you, UI for farmers is quite difficult! :)