SXSW always seeks to showcase the most forward-thinking new ideas, and 2025’s Innovation Awards finalists perfectly highlights that goal. The 55 finalists we reveal today provide a glimpse of the future in 11 different categories ranging from Artificial Intelligence to Health & Biotech to Community Empowerment.
"Margrethe Vestager, the 2024 Hall of Fame recipient, was on a podcast after last year's event. She talked about seeing the SXSW Innovation Awards ceremony and being so blown away by how many of the Finalists were using technology to improve people's lives in substantial and meaningful ways. And seeing these Finalists restored her faith in what the tech industry can be,” said Hugh Forrest, President and Chief Programming Officer. “Echoing her sentiments, I'm so proud that this year’s SXSW Innovation Awards finalists highlight so many products and projects that make a positive impact on society."
Category winners, plus additional honors will be revealed at the 26th annual SXSW Innovation Awards Ceremony on the evening of Monday, March 10. Finalists were chosen by a jury of industry judges from the hundreds of entries received by SXSW in the fall of 2024.
In advance of the Awards Ceremony, these 55 projects will be available for SXSW attendees to interact with at the Innovation Awards Finalist Showcase. The Showcase will take place Saturday, March 8, from 2pm-5pm in Griffin Hall at the JW Marriott Downtown Austin. The Finalist Showcase offers SXSW registrants a first look up close at the most exciting and impactful tech developments from a diverse set of companies from around the globe. Attendees also get the chance to place their vote for the People’s Choice Award.
Hosted by 3x Grammy nominee SaulPaul, the 2025 SXSW Hall of Fame inductee Mark Cuban and the Community Service Awards recipients will also be honored during the SXSW Innovation Awards Ceremony on Monday, March 10 at 6pm. A SXSW badge is required to attend both the Finalist Showcase and Awards Ceremony.
Browse categories and links below to learn more about the 2025 SXSW Innovation Awards finalists.
Artificial Intelligence
- Wandercraft’s Self-Balancing Exoskeleton (New York, NY)
- AI-Powered Small-Group Discussions (Dallas, Texas, USA)
- AI Unlocking Food Allergy Freedom (Long Beach, CA, US)
- Newton: AI for the Physical World (Palo Alto, CA, USA)
- CMR-M1: The First AI-Powered Movie Camera (Madrid, Spain and Los Angeles, CA)
Audio Experience
- alphabeats - Music-Driven Neurofeedback (Laguna Beach, CA, USA)
- A New Way To See/Understand/Create Music (Clermont-Ferrand, France)
- Multichannel Sound Over Headphones (Ilmenau, Thuringia, Germany)
- Neural DSP: Nano Cortex (Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland)
- Polytempo Music - Interactive 3D Album (Alameda, California, USA)
Community Empowerment
- Innovating to Make Abortion Affordable (New York, NY, USA)
- SolarSPELL digital libraries (Tempe, AZ)
- Share@MealConnect (Chicago, Illinois, USA)
- TIAA – Paper Right (New York, NY, USA)
- Ruth: Our Digital Guardian (Hillsborough, NJ, USA)
Connection and Communication
- Switch-Lit (Portland, Oregon, USA)
- HeyGen's Interactive Avatars for Expressive Video (Los Angeles, CA, United States)
- Crowd Compass: Stay Connected, Stay Safe (Spokane, Washington, USA)
- GRIEF SUCKS by Experience Camps (Westport, CT, USA)
- 855-HOW-TO-QUIT-(OPIOIDS) (Chicago, IL, US)
Health & Biotech
- Prevent Death from Blood Loss (Brooklyn, NY USA)
- Virtual Incision - Pioneering miniRAS (Lincoln, NE, USA)
- PherDal Fertility Kit (Dixon, IL USA)
- BetterWay: Blood Testing Reimagined (Austin, TX, USA)
- Signia Active Pro IX Hearing Aids (Iselin, NJ, USA)
Interface Design
- XR-Objects Augmented Object Intelligence (Seattle, WA, USA)
- GOES: Outdoor Health & First Aid Kit (Redwood City, CA, USA)
- Bedtime AI Storymaker (Madrid, Spain and Los Angeles, CA, USA)
- Engineering the world’s first Smart Lips (São José dos Pinhais, Paraná, Brazil)
- Posha (San Mateo, California, USA)
Product Design
- The Daylight DC-1 (San Francisco, CA, USA)
- Sentante - Teleoperated Surgical Robot (San Francisco, CA, USA)
- Quantinuum’s H Series Quantum Computer (Broomfield, CO, USA)
- Pioneering Drone Swarms in Agriculture (Richmond, TX, USA)
- Scantinel Single-Chip FMCW LiDAR Module (Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany)
Student Innovation
- Theater of Future Puppetry (Hsinchu, Taiwan)
- GismoPower’s Mobile Solar Carport "MEGA" (Sarasota, FL, USA)
- Flow (Pittsburgh, PA, US)
- Smell like Home (Irvine, CA, US)
- SMART Wearable Thermoregulatory Device (Cambridge, MA, US)
Sustainability Solutions
- Uluu (Perth, Western Australia, Australia)
- Liquidplant™ by von Holzhausen (West Hollywood, CA, USA)
- Low-Light Indoor Bifacial Solar Cell (Scott Valley, CA, USA)
- Creating fuels and products from waste CO₂ (Ithaca, NY, USA)
- Voodin Biodegradable Wind Turbine Blades (Lichtenfels, Hesse, Germany)
Urban Experience
- Sustainable 3D-Printed homes by Azure (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
- BOLT: democratizing access to e-biking (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
- Animal Alerts (Shefayim, Israel)
- Skyline Match AI: GPS-Free Geolocation (Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States)
- From Smart Campus to Real Smart Cities (Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil)
WTF (What the Future)
- Space Trash Signs (Chicago, IL, US)
- SWEAR Security (Boise, ID, USA)
- SOLAMENT™︎ (Tokyo, Japan)
- Dynex: Quantum Computing for Anyone, Anywhere (Vaduz, Liechtenstein)
- The Halo – Lucid Dreaming Wearable Device by Prophetic (San Francisco, California, USA)
Congratulations to all of the finalists! Don’t forget to register for SXSW 2025 to celebrate these incredible innovators with us in Austin, TX. See you in March!
