Solve For X, Google's Attempt At 'Moonshot Thinking,' Finally Opens To The Rest Of Us (VIDEO)

Google's latest offering has more to do with science fiction than search.

The web giant announced the launch of a new forum called Solve for X that is dedicated to probing "technology moonshots." These are efforts, according to Google, that "take on global-scale problems, define radical solutions to those problems, and involve some form of breakthrough technology that could actually make them happen."

"Moonshots live in the gray area between audacious projects and pure science fiction; they are 10x improvement, not 10%. That's partly what makes them so exciting," Google wrote in a blog post announcing the Solve for X "experiment."

A technology moonshot could be an innovation that makes plants more productive, improves access to fresh water, or takes images of the mind's eye. "Moonshots can come from anywhere--people of all ages and places, companies, academia, inspired experts, enthusiastic newcomers, and often from accidental discoveries," Google notes.

Solve for X now exists online (See: WeSolveforX.com, which launched on Monday), but it originated offline as a three-day event for a select group of fifty people co-hosted last week by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt at the dreamy CordeValle Resort in San Martin, California.

The Solve for X gathering, a "forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork," sounds more than a little like the annual TED conference that attracts Silicon Valley technorati and focuses on "ideas worth spreading," albeit Google's is even more exclusive (so about that "spirit of openness...").

TED posts TED Talks from its invitation-only conference on the web, and the videos feature speakers ranging from street artist JR to Anthony Atala, a researcher exploring ways to print and grow organs.Google's Solve for X is also posting Solve for X Talks (yes, they're also called "Talks") from its invitation-only event on the web, and the videos feature speakers ranging from novelist Neal Stephenson to InCube Labs CEO Mir Imran, who is exploring ways to improve drug therapy delivery.

The content of the lectures must satisfy three critera: "Does it highlight a huge problem?", "Is there a concrete solution that could make a radical impact?" and "Does it explain breakthrough science and technology that could enable this solution?"

Nearly a week after its intimate gathering in San Martin, Google has now invited the world at large to learn more about Solve for X and "join the conversation on our website and our Google+ page."

Google says Solve for X is open to featuring your moonshot thinking, too, but don't expect it to be as easy as uploading a video to YouTube. See the steps required to submit your own video on Google+ by checking out the "Engage" page on the Solve for X site.

Comments

[chickenflu4]

11:54 PM on 02/09/2012

another failed product in making. google should invest more in "real product" and less on ad and graphics!

[Sarastro]

12:22 AM on 02/08/2012

It's not that we don't have solutions for many big problems; it's that we don't have the political will to use them. There are many examples. Single payer health care for everybody to control costs and improve outcomes, stop medical bill bankruptcies and preventable deaths. The Solar Roadway to decentralize power distribution, eliminate dependence on foreign oil and domestic coal and bring everyone broadband Internet while reducing unnecessary transportation deaths. Mandatory national service for two years between high school and college to enfranchise youth in their country. Requiring conversion/replacement of old nuclear reactors to use Thorium-based design with low pressure operation and passive shutdown in power failures. Breeder reactors to 'burn' existing stores of spent nuclear fuel. These are ideas that require no scientific breakthroughs - just the will.

[iLdoRight]

01:49 PM on 02/08/2012

If we started to think like that what would we do with all the people who get their power from what they can loot out of the corrupt system we now have ?

[Sarastro]

10:51 PM on 02/16/2012

Looters need to be arrested and justice served.

[Kiratdeep Singh]

05:03 PM on 02/07/2012

So like TED.com

[alishanzaidi]

03:30 PM on 02/07/2012

Mir Imran who spoke at the Google conference about the intercranial drug delivery system he is working on, is one of the most amazing innovators of our times. Having done some studies on him, I happen to know that he has over 200 ground-breaking patented innovations to his name, of which more than a dozen have already become products and are now widely in use by the medical profession. His inventions have benefited millions of patients throughout the world. He is the man to watch this century.

A. Zaidi

[Louis Sipher]

12:14 PM on 02/07/2012

Who gets the IP? There already are science and engineering groups working together world wide. They also get funding to do it. Universities encourage marketing, R&D and other disciplines to build companies. The generated IP is needed to start a company and create jobs. I am not sure that I understand the true intentions of this product.

Don't be evil.

[jeremie diaz]

04:03 AM on 02/07/2012

theres Ted.com... google indeed wants to control everything.. but I like the cause..

[ProgressivesWin]

12:42 AM on 02/07/2012

Yay global braintrust! Believe it or not, there are some VERY smart people around the world who are not predatory towards the human race. We could sure use their ideas now...especially in the US political system.
The internet has made it possible to finally think with both sides of the global brain. Let's step it up!