--- title: Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 25 description: Digital surveillance and the U.S. spy deficit, plus why non-elite colleges only seem to hire professors from elite schools, and more. canonical: https://time.com/3721802/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-25/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-25T17:01:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:05:24.925Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas og:description: Digital surveillance and the U.S. spy deficit, plus why non-elite colleges only seem to hire professors from elite schools, and more og:url: https://time.com/3721802/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-25/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas twitter:description: Digital surveillance and the U.S. spy deficit, plus why non-elite colleges only seem to hire professors from elite schools, and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 25 by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 25, 2015 5:01 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 25, 2015 5:01 PM CUT **1\.** [**The U.S. wants to hack your phone because it doesn’t have the real spies it needs.**](http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/02/23/the-fbi-was-for-encryption-before-it-was-against-it/ "undefined") By Patrick G. Eddington at Reuters **2\.** [**Eight universities account for half of all history professors in the U.S. How did that happen?**](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/02/university%5Fhiring%5Fif%5Fyou%5Fdidn%5Ft%5Fget%5Fyour%5Fph%5Fd%5Fat%5Fan%5Felite%5Funiversity%5Fgood.single.html "undefined") By Joel Warner and Aaron Clauset in Slate **3\.** [**Bill Gates is investing in low-tech impact entrepreneurs in India.**](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243160 "undefined") By David Bank in Entrepreneur **4\.** [**“Liquid biopsy” can detect cancer from a few drops of blood.**](http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534991/liquid-biopsy/ "undefined") By Michael Standaert in MIT Technology Review **5\.** [**Let’s build the infrastructure to make microfinance institutions into true innovation hubs.**](https://medium.com/a-stellar-journey/connect-the-microfinance-dots-8ebb718298b9 "undefined") By Jessica Collier in Medium  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ "undefined") _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3721802/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-25/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3721802/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-25/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 25","datePublished":"2015-02-25T17:01:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:24.925Z","description":"Digital surveillance and the U.S. spy deficit, plus why non-elite colleges only seem to hire professors from elite schools, and more.","url":"https://time.com/3721802/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-25/","keywords":["Innovation","Apple","Google","College","DNA","India","al-Qaeda","Cancer","Infrastructure","Bill Gates","Higher Education","Surveillance","Android","Harvard","ISIS","FBI","Diversity","intelligence","CIA","entrepreneurship","University","spies","Venture Capital","blood"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3721802/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-february-25/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 25"}}]}] ```