Solve for X: Celebrating moonshot thinking—join us and declare your X!

Last week we hosted our 2013 Solve for X event, where we gathered 50 experienced entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists from around the world, who are taking on moonshots—proposals that address a huge problem, suggest a radical solution that could work, and use some form of breakthrough technology to make it happen.

We heard 18 technology moonshot proposals, which you can watch on SolveforX.com. Make sure to catch Danielle Fong, whose creativity, courage and persistence shine through as she describes her potentially game changing idea for renewable energy storage. Take a look at Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson describing their new asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources—exactly the kind of moonshot thinking that Solve for X was created to celebrate. Watch Flaminia Catteruccia suggest an ingenious shift in our approach to stopping the spread of Malaria, and check out Keith Black’s proposal to diagnose Alzheimer's 20 years before any symptoms appear using a test that could be included in a routine eye exam.

Supporting innovators in process, as they take risks and dream big

One of the reasons we created Solve for X was to provide a collaborative forum to celebrate and help innovators who are in the process of attempting to bring radically innovative solutions to reality—attempting moonshots. Moonshots aim to make something 10x better, not just 10 percent. We need many more of us to take on and support moonshots if we are to solve the seemingly intractable problems we face in the world. To do that, we need to better celebrate the audacity of the attempt itself—at the start and in process. Today we celebrate our greatest and most famous innovators after their success—especially those who overcame extreme hurdles and intense skepticism on their path to taking moonshots that solved huge problems. We don’t advocate for stopping this practice in any way—but we must also get better at supporting courageous innovators and their teams who take substantial risks to change the status quo as they begin and while they’re acting—without the security of knowing if the moonshot will work. (For more, read Astro’s piece on moonshot thinking today in Wired.)

SolveForX.com

Today we’re launching some updated features on SolveForX.com, a forum to encourage and amplify moonshot thinking and collaboration. We invite innovators everywhere to use SolveForX.com to promote and support one another, and we encourage everyone to join in, bring your passion and ingenuity, and think big.

• Submit moonshots: Whether it’s an early idea, something you’re already working on, a proposal you’d like to see others work on, or a moonshot idea from someone else that you’d like to promote, we’d like to hear from you—please submit those moonshot videos. Read more about what qualifies as a moonshot.
  
• Join and declare your X: We’ve added community areas and we hope you will join and create a profile declaring your X. Your “X” is something you are passionate about working on or solving in the world like learning access or robotics or climate change or raising happy kids. You can watch, share and rate moonshots. Search to find moonshot proposals that match your interests and join the innovation conversation.
  
• Check out even more moonshot ideas: Several new partners have joined Solve for X to amplify moonshot ideas, including X PRIZE, GE FOCUS FORWARD, TED, MIT Technology Review, Singularity University, and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination. Talks from their events and programs that are aligned with the moonshot ethos (huge problem, radical solution, breakthrough technology) are now cross-linked and hosted on SolveforX.com. Some of our favorites are The Invisible Bicycle Helmet, The Music Man, Solar Roadways, Bio-Integrated Electronics, Simple Designs, Slingshot and Gulf Oil Cleanup X PRIZE Winning Team Vor-Tek. Take a moment to watch them!

Our vision for Solve for X is that it becomes a forum where technology-based moonshot thinking is practiced, celebrated and amplified by all of us. We invite you to come collaborate with us at www.SolveforX.com.