Explore the full 2022 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 528 organizations whose efforts are reshaping their businesses, industries, and the broader culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact with their initiatives across 52 categories, including the most innovative media, design, and consumer goods companies.
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)—combined—make up one of the most diverse regions on the planet. Home to more than 100 countries and 2 billion people, it’s an active center of thought and resourcefulness among its inhabitants and businesses. This year’s list of the top 10 most innovative companies in the region includes everything from behemoth international giants to tiny startups with no more than a handful of employees. What they share are timely, original ideas, ambition, and impact.
In 2021, Germany-based Siemens enabled BioNTech to adapt its production facility in Marburg to begin churning out lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines in less than half the time expected. FirstCheck Africa, the Nigerian-based woman-led pre-seed fund is betting big and “ridiculously early” on women-led startups on the continent. Cake, an e-bike maker in Sweden, designed a quiet electric bike powered by solar energy and used by conservationists in Africa to sneak up on poachers. ICEYE, a Finnish company, uses eye-in-the-sky satellites to help monitor natural catastrophes down on planet Earth. A U.K.-based company has found a way to turn pollution into ink. A Kenyan company is using software to radically streamline Africa’s shipping industry. A German company is saving water (and the planet) by bringing modular vertical farming facilities closer to cities, and a Nigerian firm is disrupting the ride-hailing industry via its bus subscription service. Finally, two AI companies show how lifesaving and fun artificial intelligence can be. A U.K.-based firm’s AI is capable of “fact-checking” mammograms to make sure the tests were administered properly, and an Israeli company is using artificial intelligence to bring photographs to life—just like in Harry Potter.
1. Siemens
For being the brains behind vaccine production
