Re:Are you going to change the world? (Really?)
by falsestprophet on Thursday September 20, 2007 @05:32PM
(#57614)
This is categorically false. I am working on three projects that will each do a lot of good with teams of engineering students. Like all students, none of us know a damn things about the real world.
One is an effective, inexpensive system to stop the spread of waste borne disease in the developing world. Another is a means that makes distributing complicated AIDS medications to illiterate populations practical. The last is an inexpensive system that can be deployed on the most primitive electrical grid that will curb the theft of electricity (which runs at 12% of all electricity sold in Algeria for example).
When distributed over our small teams, all of these projects combined require less work than a single engineering course.
Software is powerful. Engineers are powerful.
A mildly proficient and motivated 15 year-old can create an application worth $400M with little more than a case of [caffeine drink], a computer of some sort, and a handful of Google queries to self-learn various required bits of knowledge.
That same person can't just apply the same net amount of effort, from the same location, and make any lasting impact on improving society or the world in general.
You could also argue that many of the "best and brightest" minds are already doing things in various ways to improve the global standard of living. The rest of us are writing Javascript and begging for $5MMUSD :)