Here are some items on my list. * Super high reliable, rock solid, operating systems for phones, laptops, etc. (Sad to say Apple is going down hill.) * High security phones, laptops, etc. that require little enough tech expertise the average consumer can use them. * A movement to pass more stringent privacy laws and outlaw mass surveilance, preferably a constitutional amendment. * Better mechanisms to catch cyber-criminals (not just defend against them). * Many bioinformatics software packages are kludgy prototypes written in scripting languages that should be rewritten in compiled languages with efficient algorithms. * Solving some really hard math problems. Take a look at anything that eats oodles of supercomputer time and you will find a numeric solution to something we can't solve analytically. * Data archival systems that will last hundreds of years without data loss.

I was a self taught programmer before I got a computer science degree. As a self taught programmer, I could always get the program to work, but my code was sloppy, inefficient, unprofessional, and badly written. With the computer science degree, I write far better code. If you are going to hire people without CS degrees, have someone with the proper background write a good set of style guidelines, do the code architecture, and conduct code reviews. Also encourage your non-degreed programmers to read "Code Complete", "Design Patterns", and a book on data structures and algorithms.