In 2020, the #FCWorldChangingIdeas Awards seem more vital than ever. After receiving nearly 3,000 entries, these are the 26 winners and hundreds of finalists.
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General Excellence Vulcan II A giant 3D printer that can extrude the walls of a house in just 24 hours Company of the Year Devices and projects to improve global health From a new implant to keep babies’ hearts healthy, to fighting malaria, to advancing the careers of underrepresented people in …
Icon—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—has built a 3D printer so large it can print the walls of a house in 24 hours. Later this year, in a remote part of Southern Mexico, 50 families will move into the world’s first 3D-printed community. And on the outskirts of Austin, …
Abbott’s range of entries to Fast Company’s 2o20 World Changing Ideas Awards made it our selection for World Changing Company of the Year. While the company is currently a major player in helping ramp up the testing capacity for COVID-19, its entries included doing work on fighting malaria, …
Planned Parenthood’s sex ed chatbot wasn’t getting enough questions, then a YouTube campaign called Roo High School—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—helped spread the word. When Planned Parenthood launched its Roo chatbot in January 2019, it wanted to provide a way to …
Carbon Lighthouse’s CLUES system—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Award—allows buildings to make automatic, real-time changes to save energy, by up to 30% on average. Stopping climate change is the number-one mission of Carbon Lighthouse, an energy efficiency company that helps …
Food Rescue Hero—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is connecting Pittsburgh’s hungry to healthy produce. The goal is to move into 100 cities by 2030. And now it’s offering rides to people as well as food. Since 2015, 412 Food Rescue has been redirecting excess food to …
Aguahoja—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—rethinks the paradigm of recycling. Recycling plastic hasn’t been successful so far: Of the billions of tons of the material that have been produced since 1950 from fossil fuels, less than 10% has been recycled. A project from MIT …
EVRYTHNG—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—wants to give every consumer good a digital identity, so both consumers and businesses know where an item comes from and where it’s going. Nowadays, when every person has a Facebook or LinkedIn profile that can serve as an online …
The company—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—made waves in 2015 when it set a very high floor for the pay of all its workers. As it expands to a Boise office, it’s offering employees there the same deal, despite the lower cost of living. In 2015, Dan Price, the CEO of the …
#GiveAShit For Science—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—wants you to be a citizen scientist helping research gut health issues. It just requires a picture of your #2. If it’s been a few years since you took a bio or chem class and you’re not a researcher yourself, you may …
The USee Vision Kit—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—helps aid workers in the developing world accurately fit people with glasses. In community centers and schools across Africa, Kevin White sets up tents and helps people in need access eyeglasses instantly. After an …
The company—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—helps its clients like Chipotle, Disney, and Walmart offer free or reduced higher education to their employees, reducing turnover and helping career advancement. Typically, the narrative is that you have to go to college to get …
Heliogen—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—uses solar power to create the extreme temperatures needed to make steel or cement, which usually produce enormous amounts of emissions. On the edge of the Mojave Desert in Lancaster, California, hundreds of mirrors beam sunlight …
Inventia Rastrum—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—uses the technology of an inkjet printer to create lifelike human cell structures so biologists can see how drugs work on real cells. Since the invention of 3D printing, we’ve seen the possibilities for the technology …
By enabling farms to sell bulk orders of misshapen or excess produce to high-volume corporate clients, Full Harvest—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is hoping to cut prices and increase sustainability. We buy romaine “hearts” at the grocery store because, well, they look …
Scanwell Health—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is helping to enable a switch to telehealth that’s not only doctor consultation, but testing as well. And it couldn’t be coming at a more important moment. If it gets approval from the FDA, a new test will make it possible …
Invest Your Values—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is a digital tool that informs employees if their company’s 401ks are loaded with things such as gun or fossil fuel stocks and then helps them place their money in more worthwhile causes. The mutual fund—essentially a …
After the release of the Oscar-winning film about a domestic worker, its production company designed a campaign—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—to make sure people know how they could offer political and financial support. Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar-winning film Roma was more …
After an amendment passed in Florida to restore voting rights to convicted felons, the governor signed a law saying they still had to pay often-onerous court fees. Free the Vote’s Florida Voting Rights campaign—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is fighting the law. In 2018, …
SoCCs—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—let communities decide what tasks they need done (like tree planting or child tutoring) and then find ways to reward the people who take the time to do them. In communities from India to Africa to Washington, D.C., doing something …
Common Roosevelt—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is building housing where several units share kitchens and common spaces. Affordable housing is notoriously expensive to build: In California, for example, a single subsidized apartment costs around $450,000 per unit (in …
The RN Advocate kit—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—focuses on giving nurses clear instructions on how to perform the procedures and patients clear explanations of what’s happening to them. When a sexual assault survivor goes to an emergency room to get a rape kit, they …
They’re called “empty miles” and they help add millions of tons of emissions to trucking’s emissions footprint. Convoy—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—has an app to help truckers always make sure they have something to haul. Shipping products—produce, electronics, …
The OACIS cooling platform—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—doesn’t use any toxic refrigerants to cool the air. Just one degree of latitude north of the Equator, Singapore is hot and muggy at the best of times. In the summer months, it consistently reaches highs of 90 …
The ability to keep food and medicines fresh is a time-saver and a lifesaver. Youmma—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is a fridge that can run in places that don’t yet have electricity. The electric grid is growing in sub-Saharan Africa, but more than half a billion people …
Every time a seller on its platform ships a package to a buyer, Etsy—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—invests in renewable energy projects around the world. Now it wants to show others how it does it. Etsy, the global marketplace for crafters, doesn’t control how its …
After the U.S., Brazil is the number-two country for meat consumption, but many people are increasingly concerned about health and sustainability. Fazenda Futuro—a winner of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards—is addressing that demand. When it comes to plant-based meats, Fazenda Futuro …
