1.Solve real problems
Łukasz Młodyszewski, Nightly
Silicon Valley has recently seen a rise in popularity of an app for… collecting dog poop. If you don’t want to collect your dog’s poop, mark its location and someone else will come to clean it up. Sounds like a stupid idea? And yet someone came up with it and probably got some nice financing from investors. When looking at start-ups, we can see that many of them solve problems that seem insignificant. Singularity University shows that you don’t have to go this route. You can create something that really changes people’s lives and at the same time make money off of it.
We were told that if we can improve the lives of several million people in the world, then the project will become a business on its own. We’ve met a lot of inspiring people who do great things. For example, one lecturer had a company which works on extending human life. Someone else was involved in analysing DNA.
I gradually became infected with this way of thinking—focusing on creating solutions that can solve global problems, and suppressing the skeptical approach that is so characteristic of Poland, telling us “it’s impossible, we will fail”. After some time, I became accustomed to thinking about “great” things.
My skepticism was really holding me back in what I do. Since thanks to Nightly we are able to help people sleep well, we are able to help a huge number of people and turn it into a business. Just give it a try. Over the last three years, we have devoted a lot of time, energy, and money to doing research that verifies that our app works. The results show that Nightly allows you to fall asleep faster and reduces the number of awakenings at night. The enormity of the work that we had to put into it makes me realize that it was good to have the courage to execute bold undertakings.
2.Think large
Paweł Jarmołkowicz, Harimata
When I was going to SU, at Harimata we were at the stage of testing the prototype of our solution for early detection of autism in children. At that time, I was thinking mainly about the everyday operational activities at the company: how to get financing for serious clinical trials that cost a lot of money? How to develop the product? How to acquire the right people when it’s difficult for a small start-up to compete with large IT companies? We weren’t thinking about conquering the world then. Our plans involved entering the European markets.
But at SU they brainwash you and teach you how to think exponentially about your technology, product, and the scale of reaching your customers.
Peter Diamandis often appeared in class. Every second sentence of his contained the words “abundant” and “exponential”. Peter used a whole set of similar words and repeated them over and over like a preacher. During the programme, we were tasked with developing a product that could actually change the lives of 1 billion people. That’s not a trivial task. Identifying the problem that is so big in scale and the market on which the solution will be placed is a challenge in and of itself. It’s not enough to say “hunger in Africa”. These must be topics in which we feel competent and can be fulfilled using our skills. At all times we were reminded that our thinking must be amped up to 10 to the power of 9. If you listen to something like that for a long time, then at some point you begin to believe that it is possible.
3.Use a variety of knowledge
Łukasz: The strength of the programme was definitely a multidisciplinary approach to learning, which at first glance seems quite inaccessible. Thanks to classes in various fields such as biology, biochemistry, physics, programming, astronomy or even building rockets, we could broaden our horizons and meet people that we wouldn’t normally get to know. And it’s not that after biology classes we had to change career paths and start dealing with biology professionally. We could see how scientists work, how they think and consider what we can get out of it for ourselves and our business idea.
4.Use global contacts
Paweł: For me, one of the strongest points of SU are the people. My group consisted of approximately 80 people from all continents. Each of them has a fantastic story, deals with something really interesting and has contacts with other amazing people. The NASA base in which the accelerator is located is in a remote location. The nearest store is a half-hour walk away. For three months all of us sat in this one place. This creates really strong bonds. The greatest value of my stay at SU is the relations established with the other programme participants and with the organizers. Now I can get in touch with them at any moment and ask for help.
If I were to change something about my stay, I would pay even more attention to the people I met there.
5.Make your dreams come true
Paweł: I found one more thing valuable. Namely, I fulfiled my childhood dreams—I lived at a NASA base for three months.
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Would you like to fulfil your dreams? If you have an idea of how to solve global problems with technology and want to work on it at Singularity University, take part in the Global Impact Challenge. Recruitment for the Polish edition of the competition is open until 6 May.
More information about the competition and who the organizers are looking for can be found here: Jowita Michalska “Technology can save the world” .
Details and application for are at the SU website
InnovateCEE is a media partner of the competition