There used to be a Meetup group for people who wanted to code on ecological projects (or other projects directed on making meaningful impacts). And I've seen ot

There used to be a Meetup group for people who wanted to code on ecological projects (or other projects directed on making meaningful impacts). And I've seen other events devoted to hacking on civic projects. (Just for example, Oakland has "City Camp Oakland.") My biggest problem was always finding an interesting data set to mess with. But that's one place to start: look for interesting new data sets being created, and then find a way to leverage them. (Some people make interesting APIs available -- e.g. Google, Hacker News, etc.) Maybe NASA has some data? You could also try prowling through GitHub to find inspiring problems (or projects that need help). If there's just no problems to solve, there's always...hardware hacking? Seriously -- you could try recreating some functionality you like in an entirely new form factor. (Voice-activated Alexa apps? Virtual reality headsets? Pebble watches?) Hope this helps.