From a cleaner freight train to an automated beehive, a way to recycle fabric, and other bold, new technologies, the 5th annual awards honor the products, concepts, companies, policies, and designs that are pursuing innovation for the good of society and the planet.
Vermont Business Magazine The winners of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today, honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice, or economic inequality.
QOR360 is changing the way the world sits. The Vermont-based startup, which creates active chairs with its patented RedRocker™ technology, received an honorable mention in the Wellness category of the Fast Company awards.
Founded by a trauma surgeon and designed with principles from various bodywork practices in mind, the Ariel avoids the damage done by passive sitting by making sitting active and dynamic; a departure from the norm in our increasingly sedentary society. The Ariel chair embodies everything the father-son duo have learned about active sitting over the last five years and upends the very idea of what a chair is, and what sitting can be.
Now in its fifth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 33 winners, more than 400 finalists, and more than 800 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, AI & Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 4,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, and more. Plus, several new categories were added, including Pandemic Response, Urban Design, and Architecture. The 2021 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Brazil to Denmark to Vietnam.
Showcasing some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies tackling exigent global challenges, Fast Company’s Summer 2021 issue (on newsstands May 10) highlights, among others, a lifesaving bassinet; the world’s largest carbon sink, thanks to carbon-eating concrete; 3D-printed schools; an at-home COVID-19 testing kit; a mobile voting app; and the world’s cleanest milk.
QOR360’s founder and CEO, Dr. Turner Osler, said, “We started this chair project when I had a career shift from surgery to a more sedentary role as a research epidemiologist. I knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing back pain caused by the over-padded office chairs. So I set out to find a solution. We’ve seen an increase in interest in the last year since people started working from home and looking for a solution to keep their backs and cores engaged, and to make a change from their dining room table chairs. We believe active sitting is the future, and we are so honored to be recognized by Fast Company for our work.”
The Ariel is the only entry in the FastCo competition that was expressly created to improve public health and yet went on to be recognized not only for innovation, but for design as well. As Dr. Osler observed, "It's not helpful to invent a chair that improves peoples' health if it's so ugly no one wants to be seen sitting on it. So, creating a beautiful chair had to be a part of this public health initiative."
“There is no question our society and planet are facing deeply troubling times. So, it’s important to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, impact, design, scalability, and passion to solve these problems,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have discovered some of the most groundbreaking projects that have launched since the start of 2020.”
About the World Changing Ideas Awards: World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With the goals of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.
About QOR360: QOR360 is located in Burlington, Vermont. Founded in 2016 by Dr. Turner Osler to change the way the world sits, QOR360 has introduced active sitting to the public through its patented Red Rocker™ Technology: an eccentric bi-cylinder, a shape that is central to QOR360's ergonomic, healthy, and active seating products. Learn more at QOR360.com.
Source: May 4, 2021 — QOR360 Burlington