Fast Company’s annual World Changing Ideas Awards honor the businesses and organizations that are developing creative solutions to the most pressing issues of our time.
This year, we saw hundreds of projects tackling issues like energy, healthcare, and climate change. We have honorees working to make school cafeterias more sustainable, to bring EV chargers to urban neighborhoods, and to transform L.A. bus shelters so they’re safer and more protective. We have projects using AI to eliminate counterfeit drugs, to help people appeal insurance denials, and to streamline energy-efficient home upgrades. And there are a number of innovative solutions for our recycling infrastructure—from an online platform that makes it easy for businesses to sell their recyclable waste, to plastic-eating microbes that can clean up garbage, to technology that uses enzymes to break down textiles and turn them into new products.
And those are just a few of the 100 winning projects. (You can read more about our methodology for determining honorees.) The overarching takeaway is that, yes, the world right now feels very bleak. But read through the winners, and you’ll be inspired by the countless people devoting their lives to making the world more accessible, equitable, and sustainable for everyone—regardless of what the federal government is doing.
