Technology start-ups innovating to transform society

The Technology Pioneers 2012 are drawn from the fields of information technology and new media, energy and environment, and life sciences and health, where they are active in a variety of areas, illustrating their broad cumulative impact. Their diverse activities include drip irrigation on small farms; high-precision greenhouse-gas measurement; providing financial services to under-served, rural populations; developing photosynthetic biofuels; and molecular diagnostics.

"One particular aspect to highlight this year is the large number of companies that are focusing on having a social impact, such as providing health or financial services to under-served populations, while revolutionising the business paradigms in their industries," said Oliver Schwab, director and head of the WEF's Technology Pioneers. "This year's companies showcase the diversity in which innovative technology can be deployed to benefit business and society."

The selected companies are (in alphabetical order):

1366 Technologies, Altobridge, Appirio, Attero Recycling, Biocartis, CloudFlare, Diagnostics For All, DoubleVerify, Driptech, Dropbox, EcoMotors International, Electro Power Systems, Financial Inclusion Network and Operations, First Energy, Joule Unlimited, Kickstarter, Lending Club, Living PlanIT, Mocana, Palantir Technologies, Picarro, Protean Electric, Solazyme, Tabula Digita and Tethys BioScience.

Last year, Flexoresearch Group became the first-ever Thai company included on the WEF's list of Technology Pioneers. Founded by Paijit Sangchai, a former Siam Cement Group executive, Flexoresearch has developed a series of novel blended enzymes that recover pulp from paper types previously difficult or impossible to recycle, such as the laminated paper used in sticker-backing liners and milk cartons.

Since 2000, WEF has recognised the work of young companies who hold the promise of significantly transforming the way business and society operate. More than 400 innovative companies from five continents have been selected as Technology Pioneers. Approximately 60 per cent of them are still independent and 20 per cent have been acquired by industry leaders. Previous Technology Pioneers include Monitise (2006), Mozilla Corporation (2007), Nanosolar (2007), Gridpoint (2008), Mint.com (2009), BloomEnergy (2010), Takadu (2011) and NetQin (2011).

The identification of the Technology Pioneer companies is the result of a rigorous selection process for which the WEF received hundreds of applications from around the world, which were evaluated by over 50 global technology experts. The selection committee includes leading academics, journalists, technologists and venture capitalists.