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MIT’s Technology Review magazine announced the 2010 TR50, the first annual list of the 50 most innovative companies in the world. Spanning energy, computing, the Web, biomedicine, and materials, each company on the list has been evaluated based on its business model, strategies for deploying and scaling up its technologies, and the likelihood of success. Each company in the 2010 TR50 has excelled not only at inventing technology but also at using it to transform how we live and work.
“In choosing the TR50, we picked companies with this year’s most important inventions and breakthroughs. But we also selected companies that are successfully growing businesses and markets around innovative new products,” said Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of Technology Review. “The TR50 list is our selection of companies that show the most impressive innovation in commercializing new technologies.”
The companies along with their innovations that resulted their selection to the list are:
Public Energy Companies
- A123 Systems – Using novel nanomaterials for batteries
- American Superconductor – Superconducting cables carry more electricity
- First Solar – Pioneering innovative thin-film solar panels
- GE – Building the smart grid
- Nissan – Bringing electric vehicles to the masses
- Suntech – Making solar power more affordable
Private Energy Companies
- 1366 Technologies – Cutting the cost of solar power
- Amyris – Developing next generation biofuels
- Coskata – Making ethanol from garbage
- eSolar – Generating large-scale, low-cost electricity
- Joule Biotechnologies – Making biofuels from sunlight
- Synthetic Genomics – Making fuel from algae
- Tesla Motors – Putting high-performance electric cars on the road
Public Web Companies
- Adobe – Rich content for mobile
- Akamai – Optimizing the Internet
- Google – Chrome OS, an operating system designed to run Web applications
- IBM – Packaging cloud services for clients
Private Web Companies
- Hulu – Bringing premium TV content to the Web
- Obopay – Bringing payment services to phones
- StreamBase – Dealing with high volumes of real-time data
- Twitter – Setting the standard for real-time communication
- Ushahidi – Open-source humanitarianism
- Yelp – Speaking out about local businesses
- Zynga – Selling virtual goods for social games
Public Materials Companies
- Applied Materials – Saving solar costs with large-scale manufacturing
- DuPont – New types of biofuel similar to gasoline
- Prime View International – Supplies low-energy displays for every major e-reader
Private Materials Companies
- Novomer – Sustainable plastics made from carbon dioxide
- Serious Materials – Making greener building materials
- Solyndra – Novel solar-panel design captures more energy
Public Biomedicine Companies
- Alnylam – Targeting RNA to treat diseases
- AthenaHealth – Electronic health records in the cloud
- GlaxoSmithKline – Tackling the diseases of aging
- Illumina – The fastest-growing genomics company
- Medtronic – Stimulating the brain
- Nanosphere – Diagnostic tests for personalized medicine
Private Biomedicine Companies
- BIND Biosciences – Improving drug delivery
- Complete Genomics – Sequencing human genomes to order
- Fate Therapeutics – Screening drugs with stem cells
- Fluidigm – Flexible microfluidics
- Pacific Biosciences – Accurate sequencing in real time
Public Computing Companies
- Amazon.com – Leading the new wave of e-readers
- Apple – Building “the best’ computers
- HTC – Hunting for the iPhone killer
- Infinera – Tiny components for ultrafast optical networks
- Intel – Pushing silicon further
- iRobot – Bringing robots to the masses
Private Computing Companies
- Luxtera – Transmitting data faster
- Plastic Logic – A novel e-reader
- Tilera – Multiplying multicore chips
“As varied as the companies in the TR50 collection are, they all demonstrate the power and potential of innovative thinking for a better tomorrow. We will be increasing our coverage around how businesses are creating and adapting to new technologies,’ said Pontin. “This is the first of several new business intelligence offerings by Technology Review.’
Source
Technology Review’s 50 Most Innovative Companies