What an odd coincidence? I had a similar idea yesterday. Except, I think your solution should be more general; A site that lets anyone pay to talk to an expert on any topic. The user should post their question and the experts compete to be selected; it is important that only the experts that care about the question are selected. Kind of like uber for conversations. I don't think it should be a TaskRabbit clone. The experts only provide information; they don't do the work.
For example, I want to talk to someone about selecting an alibaba manufacturer for a specific niche. I also want to talk to someone about how to get products into retails stores. And so on.
There are many related services. For example, you can have translators connect people. I think there is also a need for translators for people with poorly formed ideas; the translators would communicate with the experts who don't want to deal with those people directly.
However, it's quite hard to get that kind of product off the ground. Easier to start with a niche and work our way out to broader subjects.
We actually started with ReactHelp.com, then went wider to HTML,CSS and JS. And now, we have Ruby, Python & Java experts as well, so it's going in the direction of more subjects.
There is a thisamericanlife show (Crime Pays) about cops paying kids to give up (or avoid) a life of crime. It is quite amazing how little it takes to prevent someone from costing society $40K a year in jail.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/555/t...
Previously, Martin Shkreli shorted drug companies and tried to convince regulators to blocked their pending drugs. I wonder if he is shorting the drug stocks again but this time he is using a new technique to destabilize the market.
So the steps would be:
1. Short stocks in a vital niche market
2. Buy an inexpensive producer of an important product, jack up prices to cause outrage and a strong government response
3. Wait for the market to sell off stocks in the niche market
As for perfect SAT test scores equating to a right to get into Harvard... It is pretty clear that SAT scores are not always indicative of merit. When I was a Harvard senior I tutored another Harvard senior in high school algebra. She mentioned she got a perfect SAT score because her elite high school had a really good test prep program. There are many stories of people paying others to take the test, or people taking the test and sharing the questions with others, or people spending a lot of money or time to get a good score. In a way, that high score doesn't show that some students are more worthy to get in as much as it shows that affirmative action students need more affirmative action if the cycle of poverty is to be broken.
If you strongly feel that affirmative action is wrong then the best way to end it is to end racial segregation in housing and K-12 education. When colleges see that all kids are getting the same opportunities they will end their programs to correct for that societal flaw. It seems very shortsighted to think that displacing affirmative action students is the best way to improve our society or that not getting into Harvard will take something from you that you deserve or need.
I went to harvard. In freshman orientation, we were told that harvard doesn't "admit" mistakes. But obviously they do; a small percentage of students are mentally ill for example. My freshman roommate was one of them.
Another interesting orientation tip mentioned was that harvard accepts the top 10% of high school students but 90% of them won't be in the top 10% at harvard. The take away is that students need to stop their obsession with ranking and figure out how to be successful anyway.
They are definitely "Harvard Type" students (and not just in terms of wealth) but I think 30% or so of the Harvard students don't fit that stereotype and I don't see why Ma wouldn't have done well. Harvard classes aren't any different from classes at any other good school. I understand the obsession with going to Harvard (it is a fashion statement) but you aren't missing anything. Having Harvard on your resume will move it to the top of the pile but you still need to be impressive and few schools teach that or any of the things that Jack mentioned in the interview.
I would love to see a puzzle solving game like Clark (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dPVseD0Va8). I think the puzzles should be community-defined in some easy to create format (json, xml, etc) if possible.
At the end of the story, they mentioned that local Haitian organizations were building lots of homes. It was also mentioned that there is lots of money still unspent. It seems that the Red Cross (or the US Gov) just needs to fund those organizations with a proven track record.
Sometimes I think news organizations are (unintentionally) exacerbating the root cause of these problems. They report on incompetence but don't report on how the public can fix it. I don't think the Red Cross will fix it without public pressure. It leaves the audience with a sense of helplessness that leads to cynicism and apathy. It would be better to end the story with suggestions on how the average citizen can fix these issues.
Obviously trust, connectivity, infrastructure, etc are the major issues for investing in the 3rd world.
It is very easy and tempting for a local to take your investment and run off. It helps to live there, get to know the workers, build a relationship etc. It is better to find a ngo or local company that is already recognized and running successfully and help them with their mission.
