Every good business or invention starts with a problem someone lives with every day. If you’re looking for problems in the world that need solving, for a school project, an invention or your first business, you don’t need to start with a giant idea. You need a real problem, the people who have it, and a first step.
This page gives you more than 50 problems, sorted into everyday life, school and teen life, health, safety and community, and the planet. For each one you’ll see who has the problem and a prompt to start from. Many come with a real pitch by high school students who took that problem on in the Blue Ocean Student Entrepreneur Competition, so you can see what invention ideas for students look like once they become a plan.
At a glance
- More than 50 problems that still need better solutions, from everyday problems that need solutions to world problems that need solving.
- Five areas: everyday life, school and teen life, health, safety and community, and the environment and the world.
- How to pick one: choose a problem you’ve seen up close, then ask who struggles with it and who has given up on solving it.
- Real student examples: 36 pitches by high school teams from around the world, each with a video you can watch.
- Your next step: take your idea to the Blue Ocean Competition, which is free to enter.
What’s on this page
- How to use this list
- Everyday problems that need solutions
- Problems students face at school and in teen life
- Health problems that still need better solutions
- Safety and community problems
- Environmental problems and world problems that need solving
- Things that need to be invented (quick list)
- How to turn a problem into an idea
- Enter your idea in the Blue Ocean Competition
- FAQ
How to use this list
Read the list with one question in mind: which of these have I seen with my own eyes? Problems that need a solution are easier to work on when you know the people who have it. You can talk to them, watch how they cope and test your idea on them.
Next, look past the people who already buy a fix. Every problem has noncustomers: people who don’t buy anything in that market today. Some put up with what exists while they wait for something better. Some have looked at what’s available and turned it down, often because it costs too much or is too hard to use. Others have never been thought of as customers at all. Noncustomers are usually a much bigger group than the people already buying, and they’re where many of the best ideas come from.
Each problem below follows the same pattern:
- Who has it: the people living with the problem, including the noncustomers.
- Start here: a prompt to get your thinking going.
- Real pitch: where a team has already taken it on, the pitch name, school, country, award and video.
Use the real pitches as proof that students can work on serious problems. Then go after your own angle.
Everyday problems that need solutions
These are unsolved problems in daily life: small, common problems that almost everyone has met at home, in a shop or on the street. Small problems make great starting points because you can test your idea on people around you this week.
Food going off before you notice
Expiration dates are a guess. Many people throw away food that’s still good because they can’t tell, and keep food that has turned.
- Who has it: households, especially with milk, juice and sauces, and the brands that sell them.
- Start here: how could a container show what’s happening inside it, without a lab or an app?
- Real pitch: CapSure (Sydney Grammar School, Australia), Global 1st Place, 2025. The team cites a figure that 60% of consumers throw away food they think has expired when it hasn’t. Their answer is a bottle cap with a pH-sensitive ring that turns from green to yellow to red as milk, juice or sauce spoils, so you can see freshness instead of guessing from a printed date.
Kids skipping handwashing
Young children rush or skip handwashing, and parents spend a lot of energy reminding them.
- Who has it: children aged nine and under, and their parents.
- Start here: what would make a child want to keep washing their hands?
- Real pitch: Maji (Mira Costa High School, USA), Global 2nd Place, 2025. A bar of soap with a small collectible toy hidden inside. Children uncover it as they wash, which turns handwashing into something they want to keep doing.
Kids who stop brushing too soon
Dentists recommend two minutes of brushing. Most children stop long before that, so plaque stays behind.
- Who has it: children, frustrated parents, and families who’ve given up on novelty toothpastes that didn’t help.
- Start here: how could a child see when they’ve brushed long enough?
- Real pitch: ToothTint (Havergal College, Canada), Top 30, 2026. A dye-free toothpaste colored with red cabbage extract that changes from purple to pink as you brush, so children can see when they’ve brushed long enough.
Wet wipes blocking drains
Wet wipes contain plastic fibers, don’t break down in water and block sewers. Many also contain ingredients that irritate skin.
- Who has it: households, parents, travelers and gym-goers, plus the cities that pay to clear blocked pipes.
- Start here: what would a wipe need to do to disappear safely after use?
- Real pitch: MeltWipes (South Island School, Hong Kong), Top 30, 2026. A wipe made from a cloth that fully dissolves in hot water, with gentle ingredients instead of harsh chemicals, so it never reaches the sewer as a clump.
Potholes nobody reports
Potholes damage cars and cause crashes, yet most are never reported. Repairs often depend on someone happening to complain.
- Who has it: drivers, cyclists, and local road departments, especially in rural areas with little money for inspections.
- Start here: who drives past road damage every day without reporting it, and how could their trip report it for them?
- Real pitch: RoadWatch (Edison Academy Magnet School, USA), Top 30, 2026. The team cites a figure that over 80% of potholes and road problems go unreported. RoadWatch is an AI platform that spots potholes and road hazards in ordinary dashcam footage and sends severity-rated reports straight to the public works teams who fix roads, with a low-cost camera option for anyone without a dashcam.
Phones dying on the move
Your phone runs out when you’re away from an outlet. Power banks are bulky and solar chargers struggle indoors.
- Who has it: commuters, students and travelers.
- Start here: what do you already do all day that could produce a little power?
- Real pitch: VoltexKicks (Elsie MacGill Secondary School, Canada), Top 30, 2026. Shoes with a small generator in the sole that makes electricity as you walk and stores it in a removable battery, so you can charge your phone from the steps you already take.
Knowing when sunscreen has worn off
Sunscreen is invisible and so are UV rays, so there’s no signal when protection fades. By the time skin turns red, the damage has started.
- Who has it: families, outdoor athletes, sports teams and camps, and teens who forget to reapply.
- Start here: how could your skin “tell” you when it’s time to reapply?
- Real pitch: SUNCUE (Otay Ranch High School, USA), Top 30, 2026. A UV-reactive stamp you put on over sunscreen. It shows a visible sun design that fades as the protection wears off, telling you exactly when to reapply.
Small shops throwing away good food
Shop owners rely on printed dates and the sniff test. Unsure what’s safe, they often throw away food that was still good.
- Who has it: small grocery and dairy shops, worried parents and food banks.
- Start here: what if spoilage could be detected before you can smell it?
- Real pitch: Musca_Link (Xiamen International School, China), Top 30, 2026. A low-cost sensor, inspired by how a housefly senses food, that pairs with a phone and uses machine learning to detect the gases food gives off as it spoils.
Problems students face at school and in teen life
You know these problems better than any adult does, which gives you a head start. Teen life is full of social problems and small daily frustrations that the people building products have never felt themselves.
Losing the joy of reading
Many children love reading at eight and stop around nine, when reading starts to feel like a school task.
- Who has it: young readers, their parents and their teachers.
- Start here: what made you love (or stop loving) reading, and what would have kept you going?
- Real pitch: Storythm (Chadwick International, South Korea), Global 1st Place, 2026. The team cites Scholastic research showing 40% of eight-year-olds love reading, falling to 28% just a year later. Storythm is an AI system that works out each child’s reading strengths with a short test, then creates personalized activities for any book they choose, so reading feels like their own instead of a school task.
Youth sports injuries
Most youth sports injuries are preventable, but young athletes usually fix their form only after they get hurt. Few schools have an athletic trainer on hand.
- Who has it: young athletes, their coaches and their parents.
- Start here: how could an athlete get feedback while they’re moving, instead of after an injury?
- Real pitch: FitLight (Hanover Park High School, USA), Top 30, 2026. A smart insole that uses lights and vibration to correct an athlete’s form while they move, with an app that lets athletes and coaches track progress.
A first period with no supplies, or no confidence
A first period can be frightening, and the products available to first-time users have barely changed in decades. Many also create a lot of plastic waste.
- Who has it: young women at their first period, teen girls who avoid certain products, and eco-conscious buyers.
- Start here: what would make a first-time experience less intimidating?
- Real pitch: softlaunch (McNair Academic High School, USA), Top 30, 2026. A slimmer, reusable silicone applicator designed for first-time users, sold as a starter kit with cotton refills, which also cuts out plastic applicator waste.
Drink spiking
Drink spiking is a real risk at parties and nights out. Most existing products cover a drink rather than test it.
- Who has it: young adults, college students and solo travelers.
- Start here: how could someone check a drink quickly and discreetly before drinking it?
- Real pitch: Unspike (Centennial High School, USA), Top 30, 2026. A reusable straw with chemical layers inside that turn red if they detect common spiking drugs, warning you before you take a full sip.
Health problems that still need better solutions
Health problems can feel too big for a high school student. The teams below show they aren’t. Each one focused on a single moment where people get let down, and designed for it.
Infections spotted too late
You usually can’t tell a wound is infected until it’s red, swollen and painful. Testing for infection early is expensive and hard to reach.
- Who has it: people with everyday wounds, burns and diabetic ulcers, and communities without access to wound-care technology.
- Start here: how could a wound give an early warning, cheaply?
- Real pitch: ChromaCare (Vista Ridge High School, USA), North America 3rd Place, 2025. A low-cost, biodegradable bandage with fibers that change color from purple to blue when infection starts, giving an early warning without a lab test.
Skin cancer screening that misses darker skin
Skin cancer screening is slow, expensive and hard to get, and many screening apps are less accurate on darker skin.
- Who has it: people of color, rural families, people without insurance, and anyone facing long waits for a dermatologist.
- Start here: who gets left out of a health tool today, and why?
- Real pitch: Dermi (Carmel High School, USA), Global 2nd Place, 2026. The team cites screening apps reaching up to 85% accuracy on light skin but just 60% on dark skin. Dermi is an AI skin-check app trained across all skin tones, paired with a low-cost attachment that turns a smartphone into a dermatoscope.
Physio that stops halfway
Many patients stop physical therapy before they finish, mostly because of cost. At home, they do exercises wrong with no one to correct them.
- Who has it: patients who dropped out of physio, injured people without insurance, and office workers with back pain.
- Start here: how could someone get feedback on an exercise without a therapist in the room?
- Real pitch: PocketPhysio (Kings’ School Al Barsha, UAE), Middle East 2nd Place, 2026. The team cites a figure that 70% of patients prescribed physical therapy stop before finishing, mostly because of cost. PocketPhysio is an app that uses the phone camera and AI to check exercise form in real time at home, and sends progress reports to the patient’s therapist.
Dementia wandering
People living with dementia can wander from home or care facilities, sometimes with tragic results. Wearable trackers get taken off or fail.
- Who has it: people with dementia, their families and caregivers, and care homes.
- Start here: how could you keep someone safe without asking them to wear or remember anything?
- Real pitch: HavenLock (Horace Greeley, USA), Top 30, 2026. A camera unit for any door that recognizes when a person at risk tries to leave. It alerts caregivers with a text, then an AI voice call, then an automatic emergency call if no one responds.
Pacemaker batteries that need surgery to replace
Pacemaker batteries run out, which means repeat surgery every few years, with cost and infection risk each time.
- Who has it: pacemaker users, some of them fitted as teenagers, and people with other battery-powered implants.
- Start here: where else does a battery force people into an expensive or risky replacement?
- Real pitch: Cardia (Amity Regional High School, USA), North America 1st Place, 2026. The team points out that some patients get their first pacemaker at 15, which can mean six to eight surgeries in a lifetime. Cardia is a wireless system that powers low-energy implants with focused ultrasound and ambient radio waves, so a pacemaker would no longer need a battery that has to be surgically replaced.
Children’s fear during cancer treatment
Most children with cancer are cured, but treatment can leave deep fear and trauma. Hospitals are built to treat the disease, and the child’s experience often comes second.
- Who has it: children in treatment, their parents, and the clinicians caring for them.
- Start here: what would make a frightening process easier for a child to understand?
- Real pitch: OncoHarbor (HSE Lyceum, Russia), Europe 3rd Place, 2026. A digital platform prescribed alongside treatment, with a video guide to what to expect, a courage journal for the child and a hub for parents. Partners fund it so it’s free for families.
Safety and community problems
These are social problems and technology problems that affect whole communities: homes, streets, workplaces and beaches. Several teams below started from a problem they saw in their own city.
Unsecured firearms
Firearms left unlocked lead to preventable accidents. Many gun owners say they avoid locks because they worry about delayed access in an emergency.
- Who has it: households that keep firearms, and the children who live in them.
- Start here: what stops people from using a safety product they already know about?
- Real pitch: SafeLock (Valley Christian High School, USA), Global 3rd Place, 2025. The team cites a figure that 45% of gun owners say fear of delayed access in an emergency is their biggest barrier to buying a lock. SafeLock is a biometric trigger lock that opens for its owner in a fraction of a second, with an app that records who unlocked it, when and where.
Personal safety for women
Violence against women is common, and most safety tools only react after something has gone wrong.
- Who has it: women and survivors of violence, students walking home late, and travelers.
- Start here: how could a safety tool act early instead of after danger strikes?
- Real pitch: Aizen (Rudnyky ZZSO, Ukraine), Europe 1st Place, 2025. A smartwatch and AI app that tracks heart rate and stress, alerts trusted contacts and emergency services when something is wrong, records evidence and flags risky areas.
A safe, comfortable day at the beach
On busy city beaches, belongings get stolen, there are few comfortable places to lie down, and litter piles up.
- Who has it: beachgoers and tourists, and also hikers, campers and festival-goers.
- Start here: what do people carry to the beach, and what could one item do instead of three?
- Real pitch: The Tide Bed (The British School of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), South America 1st Place, 2025. A beach sarong with a built-in pillow and hidden pockets for valuables or rubbish, which folds into a tote bag.
Motorcycle rider safety
In many countries motorcycles carry people to work and deliveries to doors, yet most riders have no safety technology. Blind-spot systems are designed for cars.
- Who has it: delivery riders, commuters and small business owners who ride.
- Start here: what device does the rider already carry that could make them safer?
- Real pitch: MotoSaaS (Thailand), Asia and Oceania 1st Place, 2026. A low-cost app that turns the phone a rider already has mounted on the handlebars into a blind-spot warning system, using the camera and computer vision with no extra hardware.
Workers in extreme heat
Heat at work causes injuries and deaths. Heat-checking equipment is usually one device for a whole site, costly or too complex to give every worker.
- Who has it: construction, delivery and outdoor workers, and the supervisors responsible for them.
- Start here: how could every worker know their own risk, at a price a site can afford?
- Real pitch: HeatCue (Queens International School, Qatar), Middle East 1st Place, 2026. A low-cost skin patch with two color indicators, one for body heat and one for sweat, that show each worker whether they’re safe, at risk or in danger.
Firefighters who can’t see
Inside a burning building, smoke can leave firefighters with almost no visibility, and vital information is spread across separate devices and radio channels.
- Who has it: firefighters, the people they rescue, and incident commanders outside.
- Start here: what information do people in an emergency need, and how could it reach them in one place?
- Real pitch: Aegis-SL (Flower Mound High School, USA), North America 3rd Place, 2026. A helmet attachment that combines thermal imaging, radar, gas sensors and AI to help firefighters see through smoke, map the building and find people, with a live dashboard for the commander outside.
Homes lost to wildfire embers
Most homes lost in wildfires catch fire from wind-blown embers landing on the roof, often before the flames arrive.
- Who has it: homeowners in wildfire zones, and the companies that insure them.
- Start here: where does damage actually start, and what could stop it at that exact point?
- Real pitch: PYROSHIELD (Edison Academy, USA), Top 30, 2026. An AI-guided rooftop system that scans for embers, predicts where they’ll land and pushes them away with bursts of compressed air, running off-grid.
Estimated electricity bills
Many households pay estimated electricity bills, waste power without knowing it, and face fire risks from faulty wiring. Smart devices that need the internet stop working when it drops.
- Who has it: households, small businesses and landlords.
- Start here: how could a family see what they’re really using, even without reliable internet?
- Real pitch: NexGrid (St Albert The Great School, Nigeria), Africa 1st Place, 2026. A smart switch installed in the home’s fuse box that shows real-time electricity costs on your phone, cuts power to faulty sockets to prevent fires, and falls back to SMS when the internet is down.
Environmental problems and world problems that need solving
Lists of the top 10 problems in the world usually include climate change, water, food and health. Those can feel too big to touch. Every one of them, though, is made of smaller problems that a student team can work on, like a farm that uses too much water or a market where plastic is worth nothing. These are the problems in the world that need solving at a size you can start on.
Concrete that cracks
Cracks weaken concrete, and repairs only happen after the damage is done. Buildings and bridges age faster and cost more to maintain.
- Who has it: builders, the owners of roads, bridges and buildings, and remote communities where repairs are hard.
- Start here: what would it look like for a material to repair itself?
- Real pitch: Accumulus by Cracked Labs (Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA), Global 3rd Place, 2026. A concrete additive with bacterial spores sealed in tiny capsules. When a crack opens, the capsules break and the bacteria fill the crack with calcium carbonate (the mineral in limestone), so the concrete repairs itself.
Plastic that loses its value before recycling
Plastic has to arrive clean and dry to be worth anything. In rural areas collection doesn’t reach people, so dirty plastic gets dumped or burned.
- Who has it: rural communities and recycling cooperatives.
- Start here: where in a waste chain does something lose its value, and could that step move closer to the people throwing it away?
- Real pitch: ENZILOOP (ORT Argentina), Latin America 1st Place, 2026. A small system run by local recycling cooperatives that sorts plastic, washes it with biodegradable detergents, dries it and bales it, so it keeps its value and can be sold.
Single-use plastic
Cheap plastic products don’t break down, and the alternatives are often heavy, fragile or expensive.
- Who has it: shoppers who feel guilty buying plastic, and people who stopped buying a product because it felt wasteful.
- Start here: which plastic product could be replaced with a local, natural material?
- Real pitch: PoTo (Concordia International School Hanoi, Vietnam), People’s Choice Award, 2026. Bamboo plant pots handmade by local artisans. Each pot has a QR code linking it to a real bamboo tree, and a companion app sends watering reminders.
Cassava waste
Peels and stems from cassava processing are burned or dumped, while plastic food packaging fills streets and waterways.
- Who has it: food vendors, restaurants and caterers, and the communities living with the waste.
- Start here: what does your region throw away that could become something useful?
- Real pitch: Koriva (Miketery International School, Nigeria), Africa 3rd Place, 2026. Food packaging made from cassava peels, stems and citrus by-products that breaks down in a few months, replacing plastic takeaway packaging.
Farm water use
Farming uses most of the world’s fresh water, and the products that help soil hold water are often synthetic or expensive.
- Who has it: small farmers, larger landowners, and households with gardens.
- Start here: what local waste could help soil hold more water?
- Real pitch: Jal Sanchay (Jayshree Periwal International School, India), Asia and Oceania 2nd Place, 2026. A biodegradable gel made from orange peels, banana peels and sugarcane waste. It soaks up many times its weight in water and releases it slowly to plant roots.
Dead soil
Damaged soil threatens food supplies. Synthetic fertilizer boosts harvests for a while but harms the life in the soil, so farmers need more of it each year.
- Who has it: small and medium farms.
- Start here: what would farmers need to see before they’d try something new?
- Real pitch: AgriPods (Williams P. Clements High School, USA), Top 30, 2026. Biodegradable capsules filled with microbes chosen for each crop. Placed near the roots, they release when soil conditions are right and help bring the soil back to life.
Period-product waste
Many period products are mostly plastic and take centuries to break down. Some also cause discomfort.
- Who has it: women and girls, including those who avoid products because of cost or culture.
- Start here: which everyday products create waste most people never think about?
- Real pitch: PUI pads (Greensprings School Lekki, Nigeria), Africa 1st Place, 2025. A biodegradable pad with a replaceable, compostable insert, sold with test strips that help users check their health.
Not enough protein
Many people don’t get enough protein, and affordable, good-quality options can be hard to find.
- Who has it: families on tight budgets, children, vegans, athletes and people recovering from illness.
- Start here: what traditional local food could solve a modern problem?
- Real pitch: SattuFusion (The Shri Ram School, Moulsari, India), Asia 1st Place, 2025. A tasteless, vegan, gluten-free protein powder made from sattu, a traditional roasted flour, that can be added to everyday food.
Online shopping returns
Shoppers can’t try things online, so many products get sent back, adding cost and emissions.
- Who has it: online shoppers, people who prefer stores but can’t easily reach them, and older people with limited mobility.
- Start here: what do people miss about shopping in person, and how could they get it at home?
- Real pitch: ARShelf (Takapuna Grammar School, New Zealand), Oceania 1st Place, 2025. A virtual store you browse with a free recycled-cardboard headset. You walk real shelves, try products on and buy, all from home, so fewer orders get sent back.
Fish that spoils without showing it
Fish can build up toxins while still looking and smelling fresh. Lab tests take days, and small sellers can’t afford them.
- Who has it: fish distributors, transport companies, restaurants and caterers.
- Start here: where does a slow test cause waste or harm, and what would a fast one change?
- Real pitch: Hist-Alert (Sinav College High School, Turkey), Europe 2nd Place, 2026. A reusable, low-cost sensor that checks fish for toxins in seconds and sends the result to an app, where each batch gets a QR code for tracing.
Things that need to be invented (quick list)
Looking for inventions that need to be made? Here are 20 things that should be invented, or improved, sized for a student to start on. Some of these have early solutions, but they’re expensive, hard to use or not made for the people who need them most. That’s where a blue ocean idea starts, so pick one and make it yours.
- A way for students to swap textbooks and calculators they no longer need.
- A school bag that spreads weight so it doesn’t hurt your back.
- A way to stop losing one earbud.
- A water bottle that shows how much you’ve drunk today.
- An umbrella that stays the right way out in strong wind.
- A simple way for small local shops to take orders online.
- A tool that helps students practice presenting in a second language.
- Packaging that’s easy to open for people with weak hands.
- A way for neighbors to share tools they rarely use.
- School shoes or uniforms that adjust as students grow.
- A way to find a quiet place to study near you.
- A bike light that turns on by itself when it gets dark.
- An alarm that wakes one person without waking the whole room.
- A way for students to find volunteering that fits their schedule.
- A charging cable that doesn’t fray where it meets the plug.
- A way to keep a plant watered for two weeks with no one home.
- A way for friends or roommates to keep track of shared costs without anyone playing accountant.
- A way for lost water bottles, jackets and calculators to find their way back to their owners.
- A medicine reminder that works for grandparents who don’t use a smartphone.
- A safe way for students on the same route to share the trip to school.
How to turn a problem into an idea
A problem only becomes a strong idea when you design a solution that stands out from the crowd. Here’s a simple path from problem to pitch. For a deeper guide, read our posts on identifying entrepreneurial opportunities and turning an idea into a real product.
- Talk to people who have the problem. Ask what they do about it today, what annoys them, and what they’ve given up on. You’ll learn more from five real conversations than from hours of searching online.
- Find the noncustomers. Look for the people who don’t use any existing solution: those who put up with what’s there, those who’ve rejected it, and those nobody has ever thought of as customers. What do they have in common?
- Design something different. Use the four actions to rethink what’s on offer. Ask what you can eliminate that the industry takes for granted, what you can reduce well below the industry’s standard, what you can raise well above it, and what you can create that the industry has never offered. The goal is value innovation, which Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, professors of strategy at INSEAD and the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, describe as the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost, creating a leap in value for both buyers and the company.
- Test a simple version. Make a sketch, a mock-up or a quick prototype and show it to the people from step one. Their reactions tell you what to keep and what to change.
- Pitch it. Explain the problem, who has it, your idea and why it stands out, in a few minutes. Our guide on how to pitch a business idea walks you through it.
The real pitches on this page all follow some version of this path. That’s how invention ideas for students turn into blue ocean business ideas that stand out in the marketplace. For more starting points, browse our small business ideas for teens, passion project ideas and senior project ideas, or read the stories of teen entrepreneurs who took their ideas further.
Enter your idea in the Blue Ocean Competition
Once you’ve picked a problem and developed your idea, the Blue Ocean Student Entrepreneur Competition is the place to pitch it. It’s the largest and most prestigious virtual pitch competition for high school students around the world, with more than 23,000 students from 173 countries taking part in 2026.
- Free to enter for high school students anywhere in the world.
- Compete alone or in a team of up to five.
- Pitch by video in three to five minutes.
- Get ready with free tools: the official pitch template and the Blue Ocean Mini-Course help you develop your idea and your pitch.
Every team on this page started with a problem they’d noticed. You can too.
FAQ
What are some examples of problems that need solutions?
Everyday examples include food going to waste because nobody can tell when it’s spoiled, potholes that never get reported, phones dying away from an outlet, and children who stop brushing their teeth too soon. Bigger examples include farms using too much water and plastic that’s too dirty to recycle. Unsolved problems in daily life are often the best place to start because you can test ideas on the people around you.
What are some easy problems to solve as a student?
Start with problems you see every day at school or at home: a phone that dies when you’re out, a younger sibling who won’t brush long enough, or sunscreen that wears off without you noticing. Easy doesn’t mean unimportant. A small problem lets you talk to real users and test a simple version quickly.
What things still need to be invented?
Plenty: a way to stop losing one earbud, packaging that people with weak hands can open, a bike light that turns on by itself, an alarm that wakes only one person. See the quick list above for 20 things that need to be invented, sized for students.
What are the biggest problems in the world right now?
Big global challenges include climate change, access to clean water, food security, health care and pollution. Each of these breaks down into smaller problems that students can work on, like farm water use, damaged soil, single-use plastic or infections spotted too late.
How do I know if a problem is worth solving?
Talk to the people who have it. If they spend time or money working around it, complain about it, or have given up on the options available, the problem is real. It’s even more promising if many people don’t use any existing solution at all.
Can I enter the Blue Ocean Competition with an invention idea?
Yes. The competition looks for business ideas that stand out from the crowd, and many winning pitches are inventions. You don’t need a working product or a running business to enter, though testing your idea with real people helps.
Every problem on this page is waiting for someone to take it on. Pick the one you care about most, develop your idea and pitch it.
The largest and most prestigious virtual pitch competition for high school students around the world
Pitch your blue ocean idea
Register free and we’ll send you the Blue Ocean Mini-Course and the official pitch template.
The next blue ocean is yours to create. 🌊
