9.1 Black Label Trowel Society

Description: Skilled trades sourcing - start with bricklaying or another trade that is difficult to find in your region. Advertise in foreign cities have tradespeople come out and do a paid test panel. Look for speed and skill. They would be hired to the firm and sub-contracted out to local construction firms.

Depends hugely on being able to get visas for skilled guys, government-business relationship. This depends on the quality expected in the region needing skilled people matching the quality of the migrating country.

The firm would need a cut of the wages or an added charge to account for the overhead costs, this may rule out some low paid trades.

Pros helps contractors avoid spending lots of time and money looking for skilled tradespeople. Often borders/lack of immigration bridges are the issue, a country/region may be desperate for skilled workers but not have an easy way of hiring them.

Cons job boards already do this. Guys could simply leave my service and hire direct depending on their work visa type. A local government may not recognize skills and or give the visas needed. Companies could abuse workers, try to not pay us or them. Language barriers can be an issue, misunderstandings could cause conflicts.

9.2 Battery Ship

Description: transporting electricity from one part of the world that can produce power cheaply to another that cannot. Powerlines may become more difficult in future to up-keep due to global warming (more storms, floods). The ship could be covered in solar panels and have huge batteries on board/be the battery in some physical way. The ships could dock and power a town/towns for a period of time.

This could also be used on rivers for hard-to-reach communities with lower electrical needs.

Pros connects producers to markets in a different way.

Cons: how much power does the ship use up moving from place to place? Does this kill profits? That math and power costs have to be worth it. There may be times when you can’t do this and the ship sits idle.

9.3 Green tech everywhere

Description: renting roofs of barns, industrial buildings etc to put a solar panel on, give them a percentage of the energy grid re-imbursements or charge them for power usage. Barn roofs, industrial parks, fields, abandoned lots, houses, apartment buildings etc.

This has been done in California, model works there and therefore could work in other regions.

attach small turbines to the down spouts of gutters in high precipitation towns/cities, they feed back into the grid of the house to supplement power.

The up-front costs must be carried by this firm, not the owner of the property. It has to be passive income for them to buy into this idea.

Pros takes the cost away from the homeowner, gives them passive income. Power demand is likely to increase in the future due to climate related heating and cooling costs and an increase in average wealth/population. This generates power where the power is needed, where people live.

Cons may already be being done in many places or the best markets. There may be strong competition in this field.

9.4 Ultimate human project

Description: Have a TV show where you test people on a variety of intelligence types. Put the contestants into a house during the show and make it difficult to live there (too hot, noisy, not enough space etc). Pick an animal and teach it something or simply train a dog each. Raise the most money for charity, racing using any kind of transportation, robot wars gauntlet, military games using paintball guns, paint knives, People each given a professional social worker that pretends to have a problem, contestant has to try to provide care, Build a home given all the same materials, judged by home inspectors, engineers. Farming, given land and told to farm something during the duration of the show, judged by farmers at the end. Creative writing, writing is judged by a published and awarded author. The stories will be animated afterwards for the viewers consumption. Art-locked in a room with a set amount of art materials (clay, canvas, paint, pencils). Given 8 hours, art professors judge afterwards. MMA fighting or another less injury prone martial art contest. Jeopardy style game. Debates live on a subject not known beforehand. Face your fears-get locked in a small room, let insects crawl on you, walk at heights, find your way through a pitch black house. (like fear factor). Cooking-like an ultimate chef show, tested by professional chefs. Sports-contestants play a variety of sports, points for each type/goals. Include a made-up sport that they have to be taught minutes before playing. Music-locked in a soundproof room with many instruments, have 8 hours to compose a song/musical piece. Judged by musicians afterward. Driving/racing-given various parking/driving tasks. Race on a track using pro go-carts. Parking a semi, tractor, limo or a bus. Forklift, grader, excavator obstacle course. Mechanics-given a junkyard of parts, contestants have to build some working machine. Tested by a mechanic or machinist afterward.

Pros interesting, people would watch and compete. It combines many other types of reality Tv shows into one. Superhuman type people (people who are good at everything) are intriguing for others to watch.

Cons high cost of different sets and experts. May have been tried before? Needs to be well funded and professionally executed, can’t be done on the cheap.

9.5 blow this up

Description: To supplement the cost of de-mining in countries with land mines, have a social media channel where you can pay to have certain (non-living) items blown up with the found ordinance. The advertising revenue and request revenue will help support a worthy cause.

Pros fun to watch and helps people who live near dangerous mine fields. The creativity comes from requests by people watching, you’re outsourcing the content creation.

Cons you run out of mines/ordinance to clear (also a pro), some places have land mines because of continuing conflicts, could be dangerous. This would take some advertising and social media dollars to gain momentum.

9.6 Crop pipeline

Description: could pipelines be used to transport other things? Like crops put into water or plastic balls (think marble in a tube or on steel tracks). Multi-use pipelines do exist but are more expensive than standard ones. The multi use is likely natural gas and oil.

These pipelines would follow existing routes of oil and gas lines to keep costs down, or follow existing roadways or highways. The cost has to be lower than the future expected cost of self driving trucks. It’s possible these pipelines would only be worth the cost for following routes not easily accessed by road, already served by rail. These pipelines have to be able to work on steep grades, poor soil conditions, rough obstacle filled terrain that make road and rail expensive.

Pros there is a demand for movement of goods in places hard to reach by rail and road. With climate change making some land newly favourable for farming, access to these areas may be needed. Infrastructure improvements are used as a political tool, governments could be sold on this idea.

Cons expensive research and development. Will the products being shipped be worth the cost of building a line?

9.7 Indestructible House

Description: make a house as disaster proof as you can. Forest Fire: use no combustible materials, concrete, steel. The only thing that is combustible is furniture inside. Rot, termites, mold: use sprays that inhibit this growth on concrete. Tornado/Hurricane: the roof is cemented to the walls, iron shutters and doors that can be bolted shut. The house is meant to stand firm in the event of high winds. It could also be rounded at the corners to avoid wind damage. Flood: the design has to be able to handle a large volume of standing water in the basement for 30 days. A pump system gas powered (in the attic) that can pump out the basement. If the soil around the foundation erodes the house should stay solid even if the house moves position. Earthquake: the concrete and rebar walls and floors are meant to handle an earthquake without collapsing. Snow/rain/ice: steep roof so no build-up and heavy-duty eavestroughs. Torch-on style so no leaks. The windows can handle snow drifts leaning against them. Nuclear War/accident/pandemic: the basement is designed to be easily closed off to make it a fallout shelter. Comes with basic emergency equipment. Power/Gas Outages-a wood burning stove (or multiple) will be installed in a central location to be used for supplementary heat or primary heat if needed. The key here is guarantees and insurance. If you could prove the worth using real cash values, you have a product to sell. Could come with included maintenance package to ensure warranty not voided.

could you design a home that could be intact if the bank below it eroded or the ice it was on melted? Floating container home? Home with a barge base that could float and be towed to a different location if needed. Could be used on floodplain. A house connected by chain to deep piles, it floats in place during a flood.

The design has to simple yet durable, designed with the construction workers in mind to keep processes efficient and hourly labour costs down. The most basic version of this should be built using a minimum of different trades (carpenter, cement finisher, electrician, plumbling/HVAC).

The houses can’t look strange, they have to look similar at a glance to a standard house design you would see in the region. If it’s too odd looking, it won’t sell.

This could be sold to local governments in the event a disaster destroys part of the town, these could be part of the re-build.

Pros disasters are becoming more not less common and the locations less predictable. People are more fear driven now. Guaranteeing a house well beyond a typical home warranty and reducing insurance costs adds value long term. Can be sold as primary homes and/or turnkey rental units.

Cons people with money for a house aren’t necessarily paranoid or looking to live in the same place for awhile. People flip properties instead of buying and holding. The people who need this most (living on floodplains etc) can’t likely afford a new house or are renting. If the cost is too high relative to other builds in the area, people won’t buy it.

9.8 better movements

Description: wearable technology that teaches you to move better, used for rehab, walking, posture, martial arts, sports, speed and accuracy training. You would need a mirror and a screen to assist you and that you can see what you’re doing wrong and what the tech wants you to do.

This would be tight fitting pants and long sleeve shirt with sensors in them. It may need to include socks, gloves and a turtleneck style shirt. The clothes need to be tasteful enough that you could wear them in public, to a gym, on a run etc.

Pros: people want better movements, better health outcomes. Athletes will try almost anything to get an edge over their competition. Being taught how to move better and prompted when you don’t is helpful for long term health.

Cons: not exciting, may be very hard to design this technology. Who gets to decide what is proper form and what isn’t? This may already exist in some form.

9.9 fat cat food dish

Description: a food dispensing dish that will close or reduce the amount of food dispensed depending on the weight of the pet at the feeder. There is a pad the animal steps on that is programmed to allow or not the animal to eat based on its weight. This can also keep dogs and pests out of cat food. Programmable to include the weights of different pets.

The scale has to be very accurate so the pets can’t easily trick it.

Pros: people love pets and want them to eat healthy. Can be used for when owners are away to ration food for pets that don’t usually self ration (dogs). People lead busy lives, this reduces one more task and avoids pets trying to wake owners to get fed.

Cons: pets may find a way to trick this, putting toys on the scale, tricking other pets to step on it while they eat.