There are now hundreds of these intensive courses around the world, most of which seem to end with a group project on which 2-5 newbie coders will work something in the order of 100 hours each. Usually they result in a toy project whose only purpose is being part of someone's beginner portfolio. I suspect a lot of people on these courses would be interested in doing something socially valuable if there was a convenient, easy-to-access db of projects that the bootcamp could direct them to.
Relatedly, I'm 3.5 weeks away from starting such a project in a data science bootcamp, and would be interested to hear about it if anyone has projects they think would roughly fit the amount of time available.
I think this is a great idea; I've had similar thoughts. Here are a few repositories of research questions that might work (or could spark further ideas)! These lists aren't mine, but I have read through them and some listed projects seem like they would be a good fit.
https://airtable.com/shrNps2rJwQxR0PVS/tblNiyct4d9v7A7zY/viwTqALKVCLLfePeC?blocks=hide
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MsNpJBzv5YhdfNHc9/a-central-directory-for-open-research-questions