As of October 2017, the world population is estimated to have reached 7.6 billion inhabitants. Moreover, world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion inhabitants by 2050. Therefore, from an entrepreneurial point of view, controlling overpopulation is one of the biggest challenge of the future thus a land of opportunities. Different ideas are emerging today like life on Mars or the concept of “Hyperloop”.
One of the biggest problems with overpopulation is traffic. In cities like Los Angeles, you may spend a whole day in your car just to get groceries. It is time-consuming and leads to global nervosity. To cope with traffic (in LA), Elon Musk – founder of SpaceX, PayPal, Tesla and more – has funded The Boring Company. The idea behind this company is simple: build tunnels under Los Angeles to build a “Hyperloop”, which is a mode of transport, built in a loop model with high-speed transportation. Even though this project is only at its prototype phase, it has already received approval from the government. This shows the importance of controlling transportation in urban cities like LA: entrepreneurs and business moguls invest in new concepts and ideas in the way of building a more sustainable environment.
Another popular idea when dealing with increasing world population is the colonization of Mars. Again, Elon Musk has founded in 2002 SpaceX, a space transport service to facilitate transport costs from Earth to Mars and help scientific research. Even though space research was in the past conceived by national governments programs, entrepreneurs like Elon Musk share their knowledge and capital to help research.
You will have noticed that two of my examples are companies founded by Elon Musk. In my opinion, Elon Musk has understood the challenges that humanity faces in the following years and so he is a true example to follow as a Sauder student at UBC.
However, these innovative ideas share a common problem that concerns the universality in “managing world population”. Thus, building a tunnel under Los Angeles or facilitating transportation to Mars is specific to wealthy people. Therefore, we must still look for alternatives that are accessible to everyone. Maybe that’s the real challenge we are facing in the liberal society that we live in. Building a sustainable environment for our future nations and in the same time limiting inequalities.
To conclude, this blog post underlines the new challenges that the next business leaders will face. If we mix our vast knowledge that we will acquire during our university years and the moral values implemented by our families, there are great challenges to be taken.
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