Ideas That Drive You

"Blue sky" by kwc909 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The goal of this activity is to further develop an idea or area of study that you may like to work on in the future. Different people are motivated by different forces. The creators of Apple, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, together created Apple computers but many would argue that they attacked the task from different angles. Steve Jobs approached the task top-down imagining the thing that people would use and then wanted to know how he could create that. Steve Wozniak approached the task bottom-up and focused on a technically sound creation before the form was imagined.

How you might approach this task

You may approach this activity any way that you like. If you are technically focused you may wish to start with an area or technology that fascinates you, and then try to work out the different areas that this might fit or the problems that this technology may best be suited towards solving. Alternatively, you may wish to start with a problem, such as conservation of habitats, resources et cetera. Pick something that really motivates you to find a solution. If you start with the problem, then your task will be to consider what IoT technologies are best suited to address this problem.

Either way, it would be helpful to start by following and reading the following links:

• https://50breakthroughs.org/
• https://www.gatesfoundation.org/
• https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html
• https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/entrepreneurship

Note that your idea does not have to be humanitarian in nature, the links provided above are really convenience because they are well described and worthwhile problems to invest your energy in. There is no reason why you couldn't or wouldn't suggest a problem, solved by the IoT which is just handy, desirable or marketable.

Can the IoT help in any of these areas? What motivates you? To complete this short course, we really want nothing more than to stoke the fire for your learning journey. We are looking for no more than 500 words in total covering:

• Something about who you are and why you want to study IT and the IoT
• Your innovative idea for the IoT
  • If you really struggle with the point above, then just write about the knowledge domains you would like to learn more about. Are there any that you would like to sharpen?
• What would you like to do with a further qualification?

Try to use writing as a tool to sharpen your thinking. By committing your thoughts to paper, or a word processor, you will hopefully be able to see and address flaws in your ideas/thinking.

Having trouble getting started

The most likely block is that you are wanting the perfect idea and the perfect phrasing to come together in your mind before you commit words to paper. In my view, this is a mistake. You are best off getting something down on paper, even if you discard, or have to heavily edit it later.

This advice is pretty common, but Tim Ferriss covers all the common approaches here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65U5byDZ55M You can ignore the bit about getting a professional writer or proofreader for your work, see below. For my tips on writing well, check out Writing. If you want a good book, I always recommend the Elements of Style by Strunk and White https://www.amazon.com.au/Elements-Style-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X which is less than $1 as an e-book online.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good

While we want you to challenge yourself, please be mindful that we aren't expecting fully-fledged commercially viable or humanitarian grant quality applications. The real goal is for you to consider some ideas/areas that might motivate you to want to pursue something meaningful in this area.