Behind the scenes of Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech 2025

For the past five years, Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards have celebrated technological breakthroughs that are changing the way we work and live. This year’s awards include 137 honors for innovations impacting everything from applied AI to telecommunications to agriculture.

Arriving at that cadre of winners from a pool of 1,200 applicants requires many hours of work sifting through applications, scrutinizing projects, and deciding which achievements rank at the top. Here is a peek into how our small army of editorial staffers make it happen.

Methodology

Our team of editors and writers assessed each application based on factors such as:

• Relevancy: What pressing problem does the technology solve?
• Ingenuity: How novel is the technology?
• Progress and potential: In what ways has the technology already proven itself? Is it positioned for long-term viability and scalability?
• Impact: What kind of impact—from economic to cultural—might the technology have over the next five years?

Each winner is chosen after multiple rounds of evaluation and conversation between judges about its performance on the above criteria, a monthslong process.

“With Next Big Things in Tech, our aim is to honor projects based not only on what they’ve already achieved but where they’re poised to go,” says Fast Company global technology editor Harry McCracken. “Whether honorees are still in the lab or already on the market, they’re driving progress in tangible ways on an array of fronts.”

Meet the team

Judges
Adam Bluestein, Morgan Clendaniel, Yasmin Gagne, Connie Lin, Maia McCann, Harry McCracken, Steven Melendez, Chris Morris, Jared Newman, Alex Pasternack, Rob Pegoraro, Adele Peters, Ross Rubin, Mark Sullivan, Marty Swant, Max Ufberg, Mark Wilson

Coordinator
Shealon Calkins

Design/Photo
Jeanne Graves, Anne Latini, Daniel Salo, Mike Schnaidt, Amy Wong

Development 
Bryan Cuellar, Heda Hokschirr, Cayleigh Parrish

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