Big ideas for how to build a better society in 2021
Imagine a society where everybody has access to quality education, to upskilling and retraining programs, where unemployment is at an all-time low. A world where technology has revolutionized healthcare to make it more affordable for everyone – or where food was more evenly distributed and manufactured more sustainably. A planet where climate change no longer posed such a looming threat to humans and to ecosystems.
It’s been over one year since COVID-19, the first panhuman event, began to transform the world as we knew it. For all the destruction it’s caused, the pandemic sparked a global reset. We were forced to press pause on old working practices and reinvent our ways of doing things. Cities ground to a halt, reducing emissions in the process, and an at-home lifestyle prompted us to reassess our habits and consumption. In some senses, the virus has set us on the path to a more equitable future, fast-forwarding positive changes in our behaviors and shifts in our priorities. Yet at the same time, COVID-19 also threw inequality into sharper focus than ever before. Economic inequality has been one of the worst side effects of the virus.
The course of history isn’t always predictable, but if the last year has shown us anything it’s that we can make big changes and come together to find new solutions to problems quicker than we might have thought. Amidst a global recession and health crisis, we’re at a crucial moment for human equity… we have an opportunity to ask ourselves: what do we want our world to look like, and what are we going to do about it?
Here are five big ideas XPRIZE is working on.
Education for everyone
February 11 marks the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, created by the UN and UNESCO to recognize the critical role that women and girls play in science and technology. Appreciation is important, but this is also a day to ask how we can improve things.
Currently, less than 30% of the world’s researchers are female, and in America, women comprise just 28% of the science and engineering workforce. The gender gap in STEM is a big issue, but it’s not the only issue in this area: there’s also a race gap. Black and Hispanic people are less likely to enter STEM careers than their white counterparts, and 40% of black students switch out of STEM majors before earning a degree.
Improving education to equip and encourage people from a wider range of backgrounds for careers in STEM is vital to correcting these figures. In turn, diversifying the next generation of people in STEM means the technology of the future will reflect the real needs of society too.
Genius is evenly distributed but access isn’t. Remote schooling also has a radical potential to give people living in remote areas better access to education, and to make education more affordable to a greater number of people. Yet there are frontiers we need to broach to see this happen, and tech can help: improved global WiFi access is a good example. Gifted people come from all walks of life, but we need to nurture those gifts equally if we want to build a fairer society.
Equal employment opportunities
Under-resourced communities in the US are up against many barriers when it comes to learning, mobility, and progress, from a widening skills gap to deteriorating job quality and the automation of traditional jobs. COVID-19 has only heightened this issue, both by putting people out of work and by bringing about a digital disruption that not every worker was prepared for.
President Biden’s major proposal, the American Rescue Plan, could create 7.5 million jobs this year, with another 2.5 million jobs in 2022, and if it’s passed, could extend unemployment benefits until September. This is a hugely positive step, but we also need to equip workers for the evolving job market.
Enter XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling, a competition asking teams to come up with solutions to the long term problem of training workers quickly and helping people find jobs they need. We’re currently testing - solutions in job centers in six cities across America – solutions that will start placing people faster.
When it comes to the automation of jobs, AI is undoubtedly part of the problem, but on the flip side, AI can also help us improve equal employment opportunities by eliminating bias. If we get it right, we can use AI for good – to stamp out racism, sexism, and ableism in hiring processes (for more on this, check out our read of the week). Overall, a goal for 2021 should be to keep asking: if AI is going to revolutionize employment, how can we ensure this has the best possible outcome for humans?
Healthcare to minimize inequality
COVID-19 has catalyzed a new healthcare landscape, as we have increasingly been forced to turn to telemedicine. However, not everyone has access to good healthcare or health insurance, and the virus itself has not affected communities equally across racial or geographical lines. Deaths have been higher among ethnic minorities, women and lower income households – those who are more likely to be frontline workers or to have to take public transportation.
With a vaccine on the horizon, a way out of the pandemic could be in sight, yet as wealthy nations have secured vaccines many developing nations will remain without. These poorer countries could be left ravaged by COVID-19, making gulfs of inequality even worse. As we navigate the path forwards, this should be at the forefront of all our minds.
Our goal at XPRIZE for 2021 is to help create a future where healthcare and the privileges that come with it are more evenly distributed. For COVID-19 that means cheap, fast, and effective wide-scale testing, which is why we launched XPRIZE Rapid COVID Testing. The Pandemic Response Challenge, meanwhile, is a four-month challenge that focuses on the development of data-driven AI systems to aid regional governments, communities, and organizations in minimizing harm when reopening their economies.
Outside of COVID-19, the numbers of people suffering from illnesses like depression and diabetes are rising. Yet the several semi-finalists in our AI XPRIZE are already out there creating technology working on these challenges. Aifred Health, from Canada, uses AI in diagnostics to treat depression. ZappMalaria, a team based in Israel, are using AI to eliminate malaria. And MachineGenes, from Australia, is using machine learning to treat diabetes patients. Equity in healthcare means that everyone should get a fair shot at leaving a healthy life.
Improving food distribution
An equitable future means a world where no one goes hungry. Yet despite the fact there is more than enough food produced to feed everyone on the planet, around 690 million people go hungry each day and 25% of the world’s population aren’t getting enough nutrients. By 2050, Earth’s population will be 9.7 billion – we need viable ways to feed this growing population, that are nutritious and affordable. That means drastically reducing food waste. That means consuming and producing healthier food. That means sustainable supply chains.
XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, our $15M Prize competition that will incentivize teams to produce chicken breast or fish fillet alternatives that replicate or outperform conventional chicken and fish in: access, animal welfare, nutrition and health, as well as taste and texture.
Key to the competition is creating a meat alternative that has minimum impact on the environment. Right now, the manufacture of high protein foods is making a devastating contribution to deforestation (see soybean growth in the Amazon, for instance), taking up a huge amount of water, or massively increasing our global emissions footprint. Equity in food isn’t just about putting food on the table, it’s about tackling another human equity challenge: climate.
Tackling climate change
The climate crisis affects all of us because the future of our planet hangs in the balance. But climate disasters do not strike equally. The unprecedented effects of climate change are disproportionately affecting developing countries, who cannot afford to deal with the fallout. According to the World Health Organization, by 2030 climate change is expected to contribute to approximately 250,000 additional deaths each year from malaria, diarrhea, heat stress and malnutrition. People who live in areas prone to forest fires or on coastlines hit by hurricanes also have their livelihoods destroyed by climate change.
Yet, climate is not just a geographical issue but a gendered one. As the UN notes, globally climate change impacts those reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods the most, as well as those who have the least capacity to respond to natural hazards. More of the time, this includes women, especially as the majority of the world’s poor are women. Yet, women are also often left out of decision-making processes around climate-related policy-making and implementation.”
At XPRIZE, we’re attacking the climate change crisis from as many angles as possible. Along with Feed the Next Billion, the $10 XPRIZE Rainforest incentivizes teams to create brand new ways to enhance our understanding of rainforest ecosystems – so that we protect these natural carbon sinks. But we can go even further, too – next step: carbon capture and removal as a way to reduce the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere and ocean. For more information, check out the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.