Coupon Texter

This idea only seems viable in a college town, but I believe it would excel there.  This service would allow users to sign up at no cost for coupons which would be sent via text to their cellphone.  Businesses would sign up for accounts which would allow them to send one message for free, but charge a flat rate per message after that.  These messages would include the type of deal and a coupon code for the deal.  This would allow businesses to deliver coupons to potential customers at times of unexpected low volume.  Since overhead costs are so low almost all coupon sales would be profit.

Grocery Delivery

Delivering groceries through the store itself wouldn't be possible because these stores make money when people come in to buy.  However, I believe I could operate a business that takes orders online and acts as a pickup service.  We'd charge a small % fee as well as a flat rate delivery fee.  The business would promise delivery by 5pm on any order placed by 1pm that day.  I believe the market for this business is there because people today have very little time but are becoming more and more conscious of the health problems with eating fast food.

Third World Wal-mart

Okay, maybe not a Wal-mart, but a super-store none the less.

I have a problem with the way we donate to other countries.  By giving people items we aren't helping them as much as we could be.  If you give someone a t-shirt they are the only ones who benefit from that shirt.  If however you sell them the shirt at the price of a job, then you've created value that can pass from person to person.

I believe that if rather than give articles to under privileged people we instead gave them tasks and paid them that we could vastly increase the scope of our donations.  We could build a store, paying workers in food collected as donations.  Next we'd hire day workers and pay them similarly.  Once the store makes money we could use that money to dig wells and build homes.  By bartering rather than giving we could make significant gains for the same cost. 

Tiny Houses

After seeing the small yellow house video in class I went on youtube and found something called a "tumble-weed" house which is even smaller.  It's designed on a trailer to get around building code and is typically about 100 sq ft.  Theses houses can be moved but aren't designed to be on the road for extended amounts of time.  The idea is to use space more efficiently and decide what you really need and what is just weighing you down.  I like the idea because owners say they have more freedom financially (because its significantly cheaper) and because its less work to maintain.  Additionally it seems like having such a small house would force people to go outside and do things rather than sitting around all day.

Foot Power

That's foot power not powder!

We underestimate the amount of energy that is expended walking around day after day.  I believe there are two ways we could harness some of the energy we lose from walking, in the shoe and in the floor.

If we put some mechanism in a person's shoe which outputted electricity when compressed this energy could be stored in a battery for emergency use.  This might be a problem however because the mechanism would need to be very small as would the battery.

Putting this same type of mechanism in the floor would eliminate the size restraint and allow for much larger amounts of power to be harnessed. This could be installed in businesses where there would be some upfront cost for installation but the return would be great enough to pay for the cost in some nominal amount of time.

Fingerprint Credit

I find plastic credit to be extremely out-dated.  It makes little sense to me that I need to carry a piece of plastic with me so that stores know what account to charge.  Instead I think we need to create a system that works in a similar way but with your fingerprint.  When you scan your fingerprint the system could read your print, and from the result recognize who you are.  At this point a screen would display payment options that have been linked to your print.  After you've selected your payment method you'd be prompted to enter a security pin and the transaction would be complete.  This would be far more secure than a credit card, and would eliminate the need for users to carry a card.

Interactive Advertising

I'd like to invent an advertising system which can identify the audience in the area and play appropriate ads for this group.  This would be ideal for airports or other large areas where the general audience is known but the specific groups within it are not.  Additionally this system could go a step further and communicate with the people watching the ad.  This would be particularly useful in airports when patrons are standing on moving sidewalks.  When the person gets on the moving sidewalk it will identify who the person is (age, gender, race, etc.) and play an ad of a person walking next to them (on a screen) which best advertises to that group.