The 26th annual SXSW Innovation Awards Ceremony is where it all comes together!

This long-standing tradition celebrates some of the most exciting innovations at SXSW. The ceremony and receptions provide for a full evening of fun, food, drinks and networking.

Prior to the Innovation Awards Ceremony, explore the work of the top finalist projects in each of the 11 categories “hands-on” at the Innovation Awards Showcase on Saturday, March 8 at Griffin Hall in the JW Marriott.

Then join us on the evening of Monday, March 10 as we announce the winners in each category at the Innovation Awards Ceremony hosted by three-time Grammy nominee SaulPaul.

This ceremony will also recognize Mark Cuban, who is this year’s SXSW Hall of Fame inductee, as well as the five SXSW Community Service Award winners for 2025.

Reception starts at 6 pm with light food and drink. Awards ceremony begins promptly at 6:30 pm.

Finalists for the 2025 SXSW Innovation Awards are as follows:

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
-- Wandercraft’s Self-Balancing Exoskeleton (New York, NY)
-- Breakout Learning: AI-Powered Small-Group Discussions (Dallas, TX)
-- AI Unlocking Food Allergy Freedom (Long Beach, CA)
-- Newton: AI for the Physical World (Palo Alto, CA)
-- CMR-M1: The First AI-Powered Movie Camera (Madrid, Spain and San Francisco, CA)

AUDIO EXPERIENCE
-- alphabeats - Master your Mind. Master your Performance (Laguna Beach, CA)
-- "I SEE MUSIC!" by Synegram.com (Clermont-Ferrand, France)
-- Multichannel Sound Over Headphones (Ilmenau, Thuringia, Germany)
-- Neural DSP: Nano Cortex (Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland)
-- Holography Records: "Polytempo Music" Interactive 3D Album (Alameda, CA)

COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT
-- Innovating to Make Abortion Affordable (New York, NY)
-- "SolarSPELL digital libraries (Tempe, AZ)
-- Share@MealConnect (Chicago, IL)
-- TIAA – Paper Right (New York, NY)
-- Ruth: Your Digital Guardian (Hillsborough, NJ)

CONNECTION & COMMUNICATION
-- Switch-Lit (Portland, OR and Utrecht, Netherlands)
-- HeyGen's Interactive Avatars (Los Angeles, CA)
-- Crowd Compass: Stay Connected, Stay Safe (Spokane, WA)
-- GRIEF SUCKS by Experience Camps (Westport, CT)
-- 855-HOW-TO-QUIT-(OPIOIDS) (Chicago, IL)

HEALTH & BIOTECH
-- TRAUMAGEL by Cresilon (Brooklyn, NY)
-- Virtual Incision - Pioneering miniRAS (Lincoln, NE)
-- PherDal Fertility Kit (Dixon, IL)
-- BetterWay: Blood Testing Reimagined (Austin, TX)
-- Signia Active Pro IX Hearing Aids (Iselin, NJ)

INTERFACE DESIGN
-- XR-Objects Augmented Object Intelligence (Seattle, WA)
-- GOES: Outdoor Health and Safety Guide (Redwood City, CA)
-- Bedtime AI Storymaker (Madrid, Spain and Los Angeles, CA)
-- Engineering the World’s First Smart Lipstick (São José dos Pinhais, Paraná, Brazil)
-- Posha: Your family's private robot chef (San Francisco, CA)

PRODUCT DESIGN
-- The Daylight Computer (San Francisco, CA)
-- Sentante - Teleoperated Surgical Robot for Endovascular Interventions (Kaunas, Lithuania)
-- Quantinuum’s H Series Quantum Computer (Broomfield, CO)
-- Pioneering Drone Swarms in Agriculture (Richmond, TX)
-- 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)
-- Flow (Pittsburgh, PA)
-- Smell like Home (Irvine, CA)
-- SMART Wearable Thermoregulatory Device (Cambridge, MA and Calistoga, CA)

SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS
-- Uluu (Perth, Australia)
-- Liquidplant™ by von Holzhausen (West Hollywood, CA)
-- Low-Light Indoor Bifacial Solar Cel (Scott Valley, CA)
-- Dimensional Energy– Creating Fuels and Products From CO₂ (Ithaca, NY)
-- Voodin Biodegradable Wind Turbine Blades (Lichtenfels, Hesse, Germany)

URBAN EXPERIENCE
-- Sustainable 3D-Printed Homes by Azure (Los Angeles, CA)
-- BOLT: democratizing access to e-biking (Brooklyn, NY)
-- Animal Alerts (Shefayim, Israel)
-- Skyline Match AI: GPS-Free Geolocation (Cambridge, MA)
-- From Smart Campus to Real Smart Cities (Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil)

WTF (WHAT THE FUTURE)
-- Space Trash Signs (Chicago, IL)
-- SWEAR Security (Boise, ID)
-- SOLAMENT™︎ (Tokyo, Japan)
-- Dynex: Quantum Computing for Anyone, Anywhere (Vaduz, Liechtenstein)
-- The Halo – Lucid Dreaming Wearable Device by Prophetic (New York, NY)