Brainstorm: 14
Thursday, 18 June 2015
By. Francis Pedraza
“Your very own Manhattan Project.”
— If you had 10 geniuses in a room with unlimited resources…
10 geniuses in a room, what problem should they solve?
If you could have 10 geniuses, living or dead, work on a problem together, who would they be and what problem would you have them solve? (Manhattan Project style)
The purpose of this exercise is to remove the constraints we normally associate with talent and cost, that normally prevent us from thinking about “the big problems”. The 20th century pioneered a new model for solving problems. The Manhattan project, the Apollo missions (and the Space program), and the Human Genome Project — were all successful at achieving their aims. These large and expensive projects aggregated some of the world’s most talented individuals, and gave them the resources and sense of urgency necessary to achieve an important mission. Could this model work in the 21st century? If so, what problems would we set out to solve?

