Whether they are trying to reduce global warming, improve food distribution, or even revolutionize "communication protocols" [1], what are startups that you, the Hacker News reader think will change the world, or are currently changing the world? I encourage you to put your own startup if you think it will change the world.<p>[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/yo-this-app-isnt-so-dumb-1407714995
I think that crowd-sourcing startups are revolutionizing the way we live. Companies such as Uber and Airbnb have taken advantage of all of us being connected and willing to share our resources and time servicing others for profit.<p>That being said, I see new business opportunities in making sense of exorbitant amounts of data. This can help push further research in areas you have mentioned and obviously many others as well.
Off the top of my head:<p>Reaction Housing <a href="http://www.reactionhousing.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reactionhousing.com/</a><p>Watsi <a href="https://watsi.org/" rel="nofollow">https://watsi.org/</a><p>Soylent <a href="http://www.soylent.me/" rel="nofollow">http://www.soylent.me/</a>
Internet: crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, crowd-anything that challenges traditional top-down and institutional choke points.<p>Energy: General Fusion, Helion, and other alternative fusion startups exploring other idea... I feel that the tokamak eats <i>all</i> official R&D funding in this area (and boy can it eat funding). Also a whole gaggle of energy storage startups... grid-scale storage is the missing piece to make renewables really work.<p>Space: SpaceX, Firefly Space, Blue Origin (debatable whether it's a "startup" or Bezos' pricey side project), Sierra Nevada (not quite a startup but doing new things), etc. (Might even throw in Orbital Sciences, which is a "startup" by average age of aerospace company standards).<p>Biomedical: Immunity Project, anything in SENS / life extension.<p>Overlaps quite a bit with old Leary's ideas about priorities...<p><a href="http://www.futureconscience.com/smi2le-the-futurism-of-timothy-leary/" rel="nofollow">http://www.futureconscience.com/smi2le-the-futurism-of-timot...</a><p>Guy was a bit nuts, but the good kind of crazy.