As ever-more aspects of our personal and professional lives go virtual, there’s boundless opportunity for technologists to rethink how we communicate with each other. At the same time, content creators are getting powerful new tools for producing Hollywood-quality media without a Hollywood budget. These Experiences winners and honorable mentions in Fast Company’s inaugural Next Big Things in Tech awards cover both types of innovations and are transforming homes, workplaces, cars, a
If you’ve been following the news in 2021, you can be forgiven for harboring deep skepticism about the technology industry’s use of artificial intelligence and big data—which, in worst-case scenarios, poses a threat a threat to everything from our privacy to public health. But all the news is not bad. These products, services, and technologies leverage AI and data to address an array of very real problems, including bias at work, online fraud, and the challenge of keeping vo
With the planet in crisis, some of the most impactful technological advancements today are focused on lessening humanity’s impact on the planet. The Sustainability winners of Fast Company’s inaugural Next Big Things in Tech awards are creating batteries that can power a renewable future. They’re reducing food waste (or turning it into fertilizer), making our appliances more efficient, and recycling everything from wood scraps and shingles to lithium-ion batteries. See a full
As the past few years have demonstrated, the world of finance is ripe for disruption. And it’s not just cryptocurrencies that are upending this space. Among the winners of Fast Company‘s inaugural Next Big Things in Tech awards are companies that are finding new ways to eliminate age-old problems, such as Zest AI, which is tackling discrimination in lending. Others are taking on decidedly more 21st-century problems, like Mastercard, which is layering on protections for credit card
As you might guess, health-technology innovations relating to the COVID-19 pandemic are well represented among the winners of Fast Company’s first Next Big Things in Tech awards. But the winners and honorable mentions span a gamut of issues related to medical challenges, including a new device that makes dialysis less of a burden, tools for keeping people out of the hospital, and even a way for people with paralysis to control computers through brain waves. See a full list of Next Big Thi
This article is about one of the honorees of Fast Company’s first Next Big Things in Tech awards. Read about all the winners here. In January 2020, CRISPR startup Sherlock Biosciences was in the middle of working on CRISPR-based tests that could deliver lab quality testing at home for common illnesses like flu or sexually transmitted infections like chlamydia or gonorrhea. When COVID-19 struck, the company quickly got to work on a lab test for it. Within two months, the company submitted
Thanks to innovations in the cloud, the machines that we rely on every day are getting smarter. Increasingly, machines can “feel” the world around them thanks to a combination of sensors and cameras, then interpret that data using artificial intelligence, including computer vision. Today, our cars can detect poor road conditions and gather data that helps cities determine where to make repairs. Robots and automation make factory floors run more efficiently. The companies behind the
This article is about one of the honorees of Fast Company’s first Next Big Things in Tech awards. Read about all the winners here. When cardiologist Uma Valeti left a job as a medical school professor to launch a startup attempting to grow meat from cells in bioreactors in 2015, it was the biggest risk of his professional life. “Nearly everyone I spoke to said, Don’t do this,” he says. Most people who were paying attention thought that the idea wasn’t feasible;
This article is about one of the honorees of Fast Company’s first Next Big Things in Tech awards. Read about all the winners here. On a Sunday afternoon in Seoul in October, the K-pop sensation BTS took to the stage in front of hundreds of millions of fans for their latest show, Permission to Dance Onstage. But the audience that turned up to watch the seven sing and dance wasn’t in the stadium where the group was performing. They were in their homes, in dozens of countries around t
Quantum computing has been a science project for a long time. But in 2021 the technology is beginning to reach beyond the capabilities of classical supercomputers. That’s mainly because science is getting better at controlling and harnessing the atomic-scale qubits that are the basic units of logic in quantum processors. Research breakthroughs in this area at MIT and Harvard form the basis for a new Boston-based quantum startup called QuEra Computing, which is emerging from stealth with $