Its great that this contest is focused on positive applications of technology. This science fiction project from ASU is related: <a href="http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/</a> The goal was science fiction short stories that inspire and set an example for young minds. Much of science fiction is now dystopian. Each story highlights the potential good that science can do and creates a sense of wonder and longing to learn more and do good things with science and technology.
One central theme is that we have all of the technology we need to solve basic problems on the hardware, software side of things. What we are lacking is political will. Some of the stories tackle this topic: what would new tools look like that would help the political system and make it better?
Two that would be great to see for this hardware hackaday: distributed mesh network internet and hardware vaults that hold blockchain contracts of ownership for everything. Another cool one is the haptic feedback shirt. Looking forward to seeing how this contest plays out.