For five years, Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards have recognized companies and organizations addressing the world’s most intractable problems through technology, science, design, finance, education, and philanthropy. Our WCI coverage is an annual celebration of human ingenuity and passion, one of our most optimistic features every year. So it seems fitting that we announce a new class of honorees just as we begin to recover, slowly but steadily, from the ravages of COVID-19, a health crisis that has thus far killed more than 3 million people worldwide, forced the closure of countless businesses, exposed the inabilities of many governments to protect their citizens, and revealed fundamental inequities across societies.
In the absence of a bold and united government response, we saw companies and organizations mobilize to manufacture masks and ventilators, and to distribute personal protective equipment to essential workers and food to hungry families. Today, as we announce a new class of World Changing Ideas winners, we are undoubtedly at an inflection point: The U.S. is now vaccinating roughly 3 million people every day, and more than half a billion people have been vaccinated across the globe (though distribution has been far from equitable). Deaths and hospitalizations are declining around the world: The vaccines, developed in record time on multiple continents thanks to breakthrough technologies, are proving more effective than anyone dared hope.
The contrast we’ve watched play out during the pandemic—a deadly catastrophe brought on by human failure versus the amazing power of human ingenuity to correct course—offers hope for other grave challenges the global community faces. Billions of people around the world still live in poverty and hunger; according to a report from the RAND Corp., $50 trillion worth of American wealth has shifted from the bottom 90% to the top 1% since 1975. The Earth is warming at an increasing rate, leading to new weather patterns that are creating superstorms, which wreak havoc season after season. The recent blizzard that knocked out power for millions of Texans, causing dozens of people to freeze to death in their own homes, is just the latest example.
Innovators continue to work feverishly on solutions to these problems and so many others. Breakthroughs are happening all the time: The prices of both solar energy and batteries have dropped 89% in the past decade. A national protest movement this past year shifted the conversation on race in this country. We just landed a rover on Mars.
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
