Write a compelling application that is significantly better than what is already available. People complain that the GIMP is not as good as Photoshop, and that

Write a compelling application that is significantly better than what is already available. People complain that the GIMP is not as good as Photoshop, and that Libre Office is okay, but Word and Excel are better. If you were to write (or contribute to) alternative apps and make them superior to the established leaders, that would be a start. Look at Fabrice Bellard's body of work at bellard.org. He wrote QEMU, FFMPEG and TCC, applications that are in wide use today (the first two, anyway), and he's a hero to many of us. Or, simply write a compelling game like Minecraft or Pokemon Go. (For extra credit, write it in a language that deserves more attention, like Scheme or Oberon-07.)