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 w

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