The builder's path
For: Apartment buyers in New South Wales can't check a building's record of serious defects before they buy.
“The true creator is necessity, which is the mother of our invention.”
Routes to a solution
Each route is a different kind of journey, with real people and organisations to contact at each step, starting with those in New South Wales.
Step 1
Join an incubator or startup mission
They connect you to schemes and officials.
Y Combinator's free course and co-founder matching.
Accelerator for tech nonprofits.
Network of civic tech groups in many countries; find the one near the problem.
Step 2
Win a seed grant
Prove the idea works with a small, funded prototype.
Funds bold ideas in global health and humanitarian work.
Let the people a free tool helps fund its maintainer directly.
Grants for open source that makes the internet better.
Funds open source solutions from emerging economies.
Step 3
Pilot with a public body
A district, city or department tries it with real people.
Network of civic tech groups in many countries; find the one near the problem.
Ideas, sources and tools for this problem, from first interviews to funding.
The regulator's pages on defects, orders and research.
Partnered on the defects research and represents strata managers who hold the records.
Represents apartment owners dealing with defects.
Starter prompt
Built from this problem's brief. Paste it into Claude or any AI assistant.
Help me design and build a first working prototype for this problem in New South Wales, Australia. Problem: Apartment buyers in New South Wales can't check a building's record of serious defects before they buy. Who it hurts: People buying units in apartment buildings completed in the last few years, and the owners' corporations who inherit the repair bills. The moment it hurts: Making an offer on a unit, before learning about waterproofing failures and rising insurance costs in the building. What people do today: Buyers rely on strata reports and inspections arranged at short notice; defect disputes sit in owners' corporation records and with the regulator. Why it is still unsolved: Defect information is spread across strata records, builders and the regulator, and research is published as totals, not per building. What solved looks like: Before buying, a person looks up an address and sees whether serious defects have been reported for that building, what type, whether they were fixed, and the effect on levies and insurance, drawn from owners' corporations that opt in and from regulator orders. Where: New South Wales, Australia First, list what you would need to learn from the people affected before building, as interview questions. Then propose the simplest version that would help, the screens or messages it needs, and the data it would use. Keep it cheap to run, accessible, and respectful of people's privacy. Flag anything you are unsure about instead of guessing.
Talk to the people who live it before you build.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ
Get a working version in front of people fast.
Using AI is not cheating. Every tool carries the work of the people who made it, and using it well is how knowledge has always moved forward. The thinking, the care for the people who live the problem, and the judgement are still yours.
“The Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
Open data that fits this problem.
“You cannot step twice into the same river.”
Tools matched to what this problem needs.
“Let a person lift themselves up by their own self.”
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं
uddhared ātmanātmānaṃ
Ship it responsibly, and find help and funding.
“Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”
δός μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω
Kit written for this problem from its brief; every link was checked. Links go to each provider's own site. Zetema is not paid for any listing.