You don’t need to be an experienced entrepreneur or an expert in anything wild in order to create something impactful that will make the world a better place. Sometimes, the greatest innovative ideas come from those who aren’t experts and who don’t know what is and what isn’t supposedly possible, and those who have the courage to try things out anyway.
Roger Bannister, for example, was the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. Many had tried it before him, but since no one had succeeded, it was deemed physically impossible to do it. Roger refused to let such beliefs stop him, though, and so he broke the record. The funny thing is that soon after several others managed to do it as well, showing that the only thing holding us back is ourselves and our beliefs.
At Moonshot Pirates, we continuously put efforts into breaking the limits we set ourselves, and always with amazing results. Our pirates blow our minds time and again, coming up with incredible solutions to the world’s problems that are not only radical and innovative but also feasible and truly impactful.
Here are nine Moonshot ideas developed by our pirates that have great potential for creating a better tomorrow.
4 Power Women Fighting Agricultural Poverty
Terra Shift is an all-girls team of budding engineers aiming at improving the quality of life for everyone around the globe by creating environmentally-friendly innovations that will tackle social injustice. They’re currently working on developing a low-cost, environmentally-friendly, and mechanical solution that will help fight agricultural poverty by providing farmers with a more efficient and less labor-intensive method of tending to their crops. Their goal is to help farmers protect the Earth.
SDGs: #1 No Poverty, #2 Zero Hunger
Cows Against Climate Change
Mission Methan is a project by five Austrians between the ages of 13 and 18. Together they’re working towards collecting methane gas in cattle barns in order to produce fertilizer for farmers. Each day approximately 132 to 264 gallons of greenhouse gases are produced by farm animals. This is a major issue, but also a huge opportunity for fertilizer production.
SDGs: #13 Climate Action, #15 Life on Land
Revolutionizers of Online School
INTERNATS tackles the global issue of our outdated school system, hardly designed for the modern-day student and still inaccessible for many. The international team of six pirates has designed a powerful platform that would solve the issues of online education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, students worldwide had to adapt to online school. The team members of INTERNATS were affected as well and saw a huge need to upgrade the methods of online school. Their project is truly a bottom-up solution to a longstanding problem.
SDGs: #10 Reduced Inequality, #4 Quality Education
Technologies: Artificial Intelligence, Networks and Computing Systems
Un-Stigmatizing Mental Illnesses
Sidetracked was created by three young women passionate about mental health. Their current project is creating an exhibition about mental illnesses to try and abolish the stigma around this topic. Their goal is to shed a light on mental sickness instead of hiding it. They plan to transform the exhibition project into a social start-up in order to reach more people with their vision.
SDGs: #3 Good Health and Well-being, #10 Reduced Inequalities
Free Drinkable Water Funded by Salt
Hydrosare has created a sustainable system for how to turn salt water into drinkable water; but not only that, they’ve also created a financially sustainable system that allows them to distribute the water for free, simply by selling the side-product of the drinking water production: Salt. Their plan is to start rolling out their program in coastal areas of Africa and from thereon spread to other areas in need. Their ultimate goal is to make water a free and accessible resource for everyone.
SDGs: #6 Clean Water and Sanitation, #3 Good Health and Well-being
Empowering SMBs in times of COVID-19
Bummel sees great unfairness in the online marketplace. Local retail is struggling due to the COVID crisis, while big e-commerce corporations are thriving. Therefore, the two young visionaries of Bummel are building a local marketplace solely for Small and Medium-sized businesses to make SMBs more competitive. Their smart network will allow thousands of local online shops to connect to and support each other. Initiatives like this can help counterbalance giants like Amazon.
SDGs: #12 Responsible Consumption and Production, #8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
A Gamified Recycling System
Recyclon is on a mission to create a recycling system that’s sustainable and motivating. By rewarding its users for their recycled products, they hope to advance recycling on a global scale. The idea is that users will be able to collect Recycoins by recycling plastic in special recycling stations – Recyclon Stations. The Recycoins are then transferred with a QR-code directly to the virtual purse/account of the user’s smartphone. For a specific amount of Recycoins, users can choose their reward (e.g. Amazon gift cards, cinema coupons, PayPal vouchers, etc.). With such a system, waste could be reduced immensely.
SDGs: #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, #13 Climate Action
Technologies: Networks and Computing Systems, Robotics
Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover
SCHIACH is fighting against the massive food waste taking place all the time. In Austria, for example, 5% of the harvest is left in the field every year, simply because the produce doesn’t look perfect. With a 1 tonne harvest, that’s 50 kg. That’s a lot of food that could have been sold and consumed! SCHIACH’s solution is a platform where farmers can create advertisements and sell fruit and vegetables that would otherwise remain in the fields directly to consumers.
SDGs: #12 Responsible Consumption and Production
Taking Back the Desert
Cloud Green‘s vision is to turn our deserts into green landscapes. With the help of solar panels and cloud seeding, their aim is to generate green electricity for the world’s population while turning the Sahara into a green oasis for people to settle in. This would slow down global warming, solve the global hunger for sustainable energy, and create a home for the additional 2 billion people predicted to join the global population by 2050.
SDGs: #7 Affordable and Clean Energy, #13 Climate Action
Technologies: Digital biology & biotech
Let’s start your idea with impact
Mindblowing projects and this is only a small selection. You can explore many equally as cool projects like those described above here. If these pirates aren’t changemakers, then who are?
Are you between 15 to 19 and want to start working on your own moonshot idea? Check out our upcoming Bootcamps and Challenges to get the support you need.
