North Billerica, MA, May 20, 2021
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.
Curriculum Associates’ innovative pandemic response was selected as an Honorable Mention in the Education category.
From its inception, Curriculum Associates has been on a mission to support students and teachers, and the pandemic has made the company’s work more vital than ever. Its world-class instructional and assessment materials have been pivotal in supporting learning in all its forms, aiding in schools’ transitions between remote, hybrid, and in-person learning. Curriculum Associates also provided free access to its digital i-Ready instruction program and created hundreds of free, downloadable reading and math activity packs in English and Spanish to support at-home learning for all K–8 students in the US during the pandemic. The company is leading the adoption of print and digital curriculum for nearly one-third of all K–8 students nationwide, serving more than 10 million students and 400,000 educators across the country.
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 and 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 (released
May 10) highlights, among others, a lifesaving bassinet; the world’s largest carbon sink, thanks to carbon-eating concrete; 3-D–printed schools; an at-home
COVID-19 testing kit; a mobile voting app; and the world’s cleanest milk.
“The past year has been challenging for us all, but it has been a privilege to play such a pivotal role in supporting students and educators through these unprecedented times,” said Rob Waldron, CEO of Curriculum Associates. “We’re honored to see the team’s groundbreaking efforts being recognized by Fast Company and look forward to continuing to support the students and educators we serve in new and innovative ways.”
“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.
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