Update: We’ve extended the deadline to December 17, 2021, so you have another week to decide to enter the awards. Submit your project here! If you’re on the fence, here are some reasons to apply—and some tips on what we’re looking for when we judge the entries.
Fast Company is looking for the best products, concepts, companies, policies, and designs that pursue innovation for good for its World Changing Ideas Awards, now in their sixth year. We want to honor clean technology, innovative corporate initiatives, brave new designs for cities and buildings, creative works that help drive change, the ways companies are responding to the pandemic, and so much more.
The winners will be featured in the May 2022 issue of Fast Company and online on Fastcompany.com. Among the honorees for 2021 were a prototype for a 105-story wooden skyscraper with a zero-carbon footprint, a library of banned journalism hidden in Minecraft, a system that continuously monitors the environment for disease-carrying animals before they cause outbreaks, and many more. We’ll also be naming an all-around general excellence winner and a world-changing company of the year for anyone who submits multiple entries that show a record of innovation. To get a sense of what we’re looking for read about all of last year’s winners here.
We’ve added even more categories this year: One for solutions involving work and the work place, and new awards for projects finding innovative ways to fight climate change, solve water issues, and help prevent loss of biodiversity. And we’re continuing to look for people working on responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, as it continues in its second year. We also now have extra categories for companies of different sizes and different ages, so we can be sure we’re honoring both innovative startups and big organizations with a long-term record of success.
Entries will be judged based on their their impact, innovation, creativity, and scalability by Fast Company editors. We’re looking for big corporate initiatives and small, grassroots projects—and everything in between.
The winners of our awards are seen by millions of people, and our hope is we can support the growth of positive social innovation by showcasing the best examples—whether from a major corporation or a small nonprofit—to the business community, and that our finalists receive more exposure and a chance to scale even further. We’ll be accepting entries until December 10, 2021, but if you apply before November 13, there’s a discount, and even bigger discount if you apply before October 22. We look forward to reading your entries. Apply here.
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
