2026 Edison Awards Silver Winner | Water, Food & Agriculture — Consumer Food Innovations

Two of the world’s most beloved natural products are also two of its most fragile supply chains. Cocoa prices surged an extraordinary 136% between July 2022 and February 2024, reaching their highest levels in nearly 50 years, as extreme weather and disease tore through the West African farms that supply the world. Cotton, meanwhile, remains one of agriculture’s thirstiest crops, with research finding that growing it consumes roughly 198 cubic gigameters of water globally each year which is a footprint so significant that the draining of Central Asia’s Aral Sea stands as one of the starkest cautionary tales in modern agriculture. Both crops are essential to daily life across every continent. Both are increasingly vulnerable to a climate that no longer cooperates with traditional farming.

GALY, a Boston-based biomanufacturing company, is proposing something genuinely different: growing these products in tanks, not fields. Its Biocrafted Cocoa & Cotton platform was recognized as a 2026 Edison Awards Silver winner and Top 3 Finalist in the Water, Food & Agriculture category, selected from thousands of global submissions — and it represents one of the most ambitious applications yet of biomanufacturing to mainstream agricultural commodities.

From Seed Cell to Product, No Field Required

GALY’s biocrafting platform works by growing cocoa and cotton directly from seed cells in controlled tanks, skipping the months-long, weather-dependent cycle of planting, growing, and harvesting an entire plant just to use a fraction of it. According to GALY’s own Edison Awards submission, the result is production that is 250 times faster and 500 times more productive than conventional methods, while using 80% fewer resources — a figure that GALY attributes to dramatic reductions across energy, land, water, and emissions. Because the process happens inside a sealed, controlled environment, GALY’s biocrafted cocoa is also produced with zero pesticides, no heavy metals, and what the company describes as complete traceability from seed cell to finished product.

This is not a niche laboratory curiosity. GALY is part of a genuinely global wave of biomanufacturing innovation now targeting agricultural commodities once thought untouchable by this approach. Companies pursuing similar plant cell culture techniques for cocoa and other botanicals span Switzerland, Israel, and beyond, with firms like Zurich-based Food Brewer and Israeli startups Kokomodo and Celleste Bio all racing toward commercial-scale, biocrafted cocoa, while California Cultured has struck supply agreements with chocolate makers including Japan’s largest chocolate company, Meiji. The race is real, the geography is international, and the stakes — a more climate-resilient food system — could not be higher. GALY’s broader vision goes beyond cocoa, leveraging the same platform to reinvent cotton production and demonstrating how biomanufacturing can transform not just food, but some of the world’s most resource-intensive agricultural supply chains. 

Why Cocoa Needs a New Production Model

The fragility of conventional cocoa farming is not a future risk; it is today’s headline. Roughly 60–70% of the world’s cocoa is grown in just two West African countries, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and that concentration has made global chocolate supply acutely vulnerable to localized shocks. In 2024, Ghana’s Cocoa Board reported that 81% of the country’s crop had been affected by cacao swollen shoot virus, while independent climate analysis found that warming has already added roughly 40 additional days per year of extreme heat above cacao’s optimal growing temperature across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana’s cocoa belt. The resulting price volatility cuts in multiple directions: even as global prices spiked, West African farmers have historically captured only 40–50% of those gains, compared with as much as 90% for cocoa producers in South America — a structural inequity that biocrafted, geography-independent production could help address by decoupling cocoa supply from any single region’s harvest or weather.

Why Cotton Needs One Too

Cotton’s challenges are different in shape but comparable in scale. The crop occupies only about 2.5% of the world’s arable land yet accounts for an estimated 24% of the global insecticide market, according to industry water-footprint research, and supports the livelihoods of more than 250 million people worldwide while employing nearly 7% of all labor in developing countries, per WWF. In water-stressed regions, the stakes are stark: an estimated 97% of the water drawn from Pakistan’s Indus River goes toward growing crops like cotton. GALY’s platform offers a structurally different proposition — cotton produced without irrigation, pesticide runoff, or competition for arable land, and crucially, GALY notes that its biocrafted creations can be produced in any country of interest, enabling onshore textile production wherever a brand or government wants supply chain control rather than import dependency.

A Moment of Recognition, and a Taste of What’s Next

At the Edison Awards gala, GALY’s biocrafted chocolate was featured in a live tasting alongside a separate, cocoa-free confectionery innovation from Cargill and Voyage Foods — two very different paths toward the same goal of a more resilient chocolate supply. The verdict on GALY’s biocrafted chocolate from one live taster: “Divine.” It is a small word carrying real weight, since the central challenge for any alternative production method is whether the result actually performs at the quality bar professional chocolatiers demand.

GALY appears to be clearing that bar at increasing scale. In 2026, the company received Self-GRAS clearance and is moving into commercial-scale manufacturing, with chocolate products developed in close collaboration with leading Swiss partners — a meaningful signal given Switzerland’s standing in global chocolate craftsmanship. The company has also earned backing from a notably international roster of investors and partners, including Inditex, the Spanish parent company of Zara, H&M, alongside Sam Altman, John Doerr, and Breakthrough Energy, and previously took first place in the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award, often described as a leading prize for sustainability innovation in fashion.

Hope, Grown at Scale

What makes GALY’s recognition genuinely exciting is not just what it has already achieved with cocoa and cotton, but what the underlying platform implies for the future. A biocrafting system capable of producing two of the world’s most resource-intensive, climate-exposed commodities independent of land, weather, and harvest cycles is a system that could, in principle, extend to other crops facing similar pressures. For farming communities in West Africa contending with crop disease and volatile pricing, for cotton-growing regions wrestling with water scarcity, and for brands and governments anywhere seeking more secure, transparent supply chains, GALY’s biocrafted platform offers something increasingly rare in agriculture: a production model that does not have to wait for the climate to cooperate.

Learn more about GALY’s biocrafted platform at galy.co, and explore the full 2026 Edison Awards winners at edisonawards.com.

2026 Edison Awards Gold Winner | Water, Food & Agriculture — Pollutant & Waste Remediation

For decades, the chemical industry’s most useful invention has quietly become one of its most dangerous legacies. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known colloquially as “forever chemicals,” were engineered to be virtually indestructible, prized for their resistance to heat, water, and oil in everything from non-stick cookware to firefighting foam to water-repellent fabric. That same indestructibility is now one of the defining environmental crises of global water management. Today, 2.2 billion people worldwide still lack access to safely managed drinking water, according to UN-Water, and PFAS contamination is compounding that challenge across every region. Research surveying surface and groundwater across 20 Asian countries found PFAS detectable in roughly 3,000 sampled sites, with industrial activity in textile and automotive manufacturing identified as a major contributing source. Separate biomonitoring studies have found that serum PFOA and PFOS levels in China, Japan, and South Korea rank among the highest recorded globally. In Europe, a January 2026 study found that unchecked PFAS pollution could cost the EU approximately €440 billion by 2050, with the cost of treating already-polluted water alone exceeding €1 trillion. This is a genuinely global problem, with genuinely global stakes.

The technical reason PFAS have resisted cleanup for so long is also the reason most conventional treatment technologies have been unable to fully solve the problem.  The carbon-fluorine bond at the core of every PFAS molecule is among the strongest in organic chemistry, which is precisely why conventional treatment methods like activated carbon filtration and ion exchange cannot destroy it. They can only capture it, transferring the contamination from water into a filter medium that must then be disposed of, often through incineration, which may reintroduce PFAS-related emissions into the environment.  FUST Lab Co., Ltd., a South Korean water technology company, set out to solve the problem at its root. Their answer, CAVITOX, won Gold at the 2026 Edison Awards in the Pollutant & Waste Remediation subcategory of Water, Food & Agriculture — and it represents one of the most genuinely novel approaches to PFAS treatment to reach commercial readiness.

The Difference Between Removing and Destroying

The distinction at the heart of CAVITOX’s innovation is simple to state and enormous in consequence: most water treatment technology removes contaminants. CAVITOX destroys them.

The system works by concentrating high-power ultrasonic energy into a precisely defined focal zone within the water itself. That focused energy generates microbubble cavitation, a phenomenon in which microscopic bubbles form, grow, and then collapse with extraordinary violence on a molecular timescale. According to FUST Lab’s technical specifications, that collapse generates localized conditions exceeding 2,000 bar of pressure and 1,000°C of temperature, instantaneously producing highly reactive hydroxyl radicals with roughly 2,000 times the oxidation power of ozone. It is within that fleeting, extreme microenvironment that the carbon-fluorine bond, the very thing that makes PFAS “forever chemicals,” finally breaks down, decomposing the pollutant through mineralization rather than transferring it somewhere else. 

The results are striking. Independent reporting on the technology cites CAVITOX achieving PFAS degradation rates of up to 99%, a figure also confirmed by the CES Innovation Awards judging panel that separately honored the technology in 2026. Critically, the system accomplishes this without ozone, hydrogen peroxide, or any other chemical additive — a meaningful departure from traditional Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP), which typically require continuous chemical dosing, generate residual byproducts, and demand significant pre-treatment infrastructure.

Why “Chemical-Free” Changes the Economics, Not Just the Chemistry

In an industry where operational cost is often the deciding factor between a technology that stays in the lab and one that scales into industrial deployment, CAVITOX’s chemical-free design is not a sustainability footnote — it is the foundation of its commercial viability.

Conventional AOP systems require continuous reagent supply chains, careful chemical dosing control, and disposal protocols for the secondary byproducts those chemicals generate. Each of those requirements adds operating cost and operational complexity. By eliminating chemical inputs entirely, CAVITOX is designed for continuous, inline operation that integrates into existing treatment infrastructure with what FUST Lab describes as minimal modification or a modular configuration that scales from small laboratory and pilot installations to full industrial wastewater facilities. The system also sidesteps a less visible but significant environmental cost of conventional treatment: the incineration of PFAS-laden sludge and spent filter media, a disposal pathway that contributes to significant CO₂ and air pollutant emissions. CAVITOX significantly reduces that downstream burden by destroying contaminants before they become waste requiring disposal. 

A Regulatory Clock That Is Already Ticking Everywhere

The timing of CAVITOX’s emergence is not incidental — it is a direct response to a regulatory and public health reckoning that is accelerating across every major economy simultaneously, with the Asia-Pacific region moving as decisively as anywhere else. PFAS compounds are linked to cancer, immune system damage, reproductive harm, and developmental effects. South Korea, where FUST Lab is based, already regulates PFOA, PFOS, and even PFHxS in drinking water, while neighboring Japan has gone further still: under its Chemical Substances Control Law, 138 PFAS compounds were designated Class I Specified Chemical Substances and prohibited from manufacture, import, and use, effective January 2025. Taiwan plans to enforce stricter PFAS limits in drinking water by July 2027, and China, Japan, and South Korea have each adopted restrictions aligned with the Stockholm Convention, an international treaty targeting persistent organic pollutants. The Asia-Pacific PFAS chemicals market itself, valued at $14.26 billion in 2024, is projected to reach $24 billion by 2034 as the region’s manufacturers navigate this tightening landscape — a clear signal that demand for genuine PFAS solutions, not just safer alternatives, is set to grow substantially.

That regulatory pressure is mirrored, not isolated, in Europe and North America. The European Chemicals Agency is finalizing a sweeping universal PFAS restriction proposal expected by the end of 2026, and FUST Lab has stated its intent to enter the European market with CAVITOX ahead of new perfluorinated compound regulations slated to take effect that same year. In the U.S., the EPA designated PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law in response to widespread contamination findings. Taken together, the picture across Asia, Europe, and North America is the same: a multi-trillion-dollar global liability, a tightening web of national bans arriving on overlapping timelines, and an industrial sector with genuinely few proven, scalable solutions for true PFAS destruction rather than mere containment.

FUST Lab has already begun translating that opportunity into traction at home. The company won the Grand Prize at South Korea’s 2024 Water Industry Startup Challenge, hosted by the National Water Industry Cluster under the Ministry of Environment, recognizing its microbubble ultrasonic AOP technology as a leading solution for decomposing both PFAS and pharmaceutical wastewater contaminants.

A Platform Built to Scale

What distinguishes CAVITOX from a compelling laboratory result is its design for real-world deployment across radically different scales. The system’s modular architecture allows the same core focused-ultrasonic technology to be configured for a university research lab, a pharmaceutical manufacturing wastewater stream, or a full-scale municipal treatment facility — without re-engineering the underlying process. That scalability matters enormously in an industry where pilot-stage technologies frequently struggle to bridge the gap into industrial deployment.

FUST Lab has also been deliberate about building global reach early. The company maintains demonstration facilities not only in Korea, but in Tsukuba, Japan and Frankfurt, Germany — positioning CAVITOX for adoption across some of the world’s most heavily PFAS-regulated markets. That international footprint, paired with recognition from both the Edison Awards and the CES Innovation Awards in the same year, signals a technology that has moved decisively past proof-of-concept and into commercial readiness.

A Future Where Forever Doesn’t Have to Mean Forever

The name “forever chemicals” was never meant to be optimistic; it was a description of failure, a tacit acknowledgment that humanity had created a class of compounds the natural world, and our existing technology, could not break down. CAVITOX offers something genuinely different: a credible, scalable answer to a problem that has cost economies billions and put the health of hundreds of millions of people at risk.

For the water utility operator navigating Korea, Japan, or Taiwan’s tightening discharge standards, for the European industrial manufacturer facing a 2027 compliance deadline, and for anyone, anywhere, wondering what is actually in their tap water, FUST Lab’s CAVITOX represents something rare in environmental technology: not an incremental improvement on containment, but a fundamental shift toward destruction. The Edison Awards Gold recognition reflects exactly that — not a clever idea, but a market-ready innovation tackling one of the defining environmental health challenges of our time, with the rigor and scalability to make “forever” finally mean something less permanent.

Learn more about CAVITOX and FUST Lab’s full technology platform at fustlab.com, and explore the full 2026 Edison Awards winners at edisonawards.com.

What does it mean to innovate culturally? Not just to build a better gadget, but to change how people watch, learn, explore, and connect… and to make sure more people can do all of those things at all. This year’s Edison Award honorees answer that question from a dozen different directions. Some arrive in your living room. Some are worn on your face. Some run entirely offline in a village without Wi-Fi. What they share is a conviction that technology’s highest purpose is not to impress, but to include.

How We Watch and Play

The relationship between a fan and the thing they love is changing at every level.

Samsung’s Vision AI Companion reframes what a television is actually for. Rather than simply retrieving content on demand, the platform is designed to let viewers actively explore and be inspired by what they watch — turning passive screen time into something closer to a guided conversation between a viewer and their interests. It is a subtle but meaningful shift: the TV is no longer a window, it’s a collaborator.

The NBA took a parallel approach to the live game itself. Its Immersive Technology suite has reimagined the basketball experience through new production partnerships and digital executions designed to make the game feel more personal and communal — whether you’re courtside in an arena or watching from a phone in another time zone entirely.

The most quietly profound entry in this space may be K League’s AI Voice Relay. Built for South Korean football stadiums, it is the first AI-powered live audio commentary system designed specifically for fans who are blind or visually impaired by using real-time camera tracking data to narrate every touch, sprint, and goal in vivid detail. Visually impaired fans could already buy a ticket and take a seat. What they couldn’t do, until now, was fully experience the match. That distinction (between presence and participation)  is exactly the kind of gap that cultural innovation exists to close.

How We See and Move Through the World

The screen has been leaving the living room for years. In 2026, it’s moving closer — to the bridge of your nose, to the wall of a transit station, to the air around you.

The global smart glasses market, valued at $2.46 billion in 2025, is projected to reach $14.38 billion by 2033 at a 24.2% compound annual growth rate, driven by a wave of products finally mature enough for everyday wear. XREAL’s One Series AR Glasses have been leading that charge: the company is barely eight years old and has already sold nearly one million pairs, quietly becoming the global AR market leader while tech giants including Meta, Apple, and Samsung pour billions into the same race.

Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute brings a different vision of how augmented reality reaches people. NeoVision AR transforms transparent public displays into intelligent spatial companions that are capable of voice-driven, contactless navigation across airports, tourist destinations, and smart city infrastructure. It is AR as public utility rather than personal device, built for the spaces people move through rather than the devices they carry.

The Institute for Information Industry’s AI Edge-XR Fusion Sphere takes that logic into live experience. A generative AI system driven by human motion and voice, it creates multimedia environments in real time at exhibitions and educational events — making the visitor not just an audience but an author of what they see.

How We Learn and Who Gets Access

This is where cultural innovation shows its full range, from hands-on kits for curious kids to survival gear for people without a home.

KiwiCo STEM Science Kits make learning tactile: robotics, game design, electronics, and engineering delivered to curious 9-to-12-year-olds in a format that makes confidence feel like a natural byproduct of play. Breakout Learning’s NextBook platform approaches the same goal from the other direction, using AI to transform passive study into active, moderated peer discussion, giving instructors genuine visibility into how students think, not just what they produce. And 11th Hour Racing’s LivingGallery makes its case through art: an immersive installation of traditional and animated works set to nature-inspired soundscapes, inviting visitors to notice the quietly critical relationship between soil health and water health.

Dot Inc.’s Dot Pad X is the world’s first real-time tactile graphics display, converting images, charts, and text into touchable dots. SolarSPELL from Arizona State University addresses one of the largest unresolved problems in global education: 2.2 billion people worldwide remain offline, according to the ITU’s 2025 Facts and Figures report, the majority in low- and middle-income countries. SolarSPELL is the world’s first solar-powered digital library. Rugged, portable, built from recycled plastic, and designed to broadcast an offline Wi-Fi hotspot loaded with tens of thousands of localized educational resources to any device within range with no internet required.

The Backpack Bed Vertical operates at the most urgent edge of the access question. UN-Habitat estimates that 318 million people are currently homeless worldwide, with nearly 2.8 billion lacking adequate housing. This 6.6-pound device unfolds into a four-season tent with a built-in mattress, insect mesh, and a hypothermia blanket — six products in one, study-proven to keep unsheltered people alive. It is cultural innovation stripped to its most essential form: not a better experience, but the baseline for one.

The Standard This Year Sets

A common thread runs through every one of these innovations. They are not solutions in search of a problem. They start from a real gap — in access, in experience, in who gets to fully participate — and work backward to a product that closes it. A stadium that narrates itself for everyone in the seats. A digital library that works where the internet doesn’t. Glasses that show you a world overlaid with intelligence. A box of robotics that makes a kid feel like an engineer. A bed you can carry.

That breadth, from premium entertainment to bare survival, is what makes Cultural Innovation one of the most exciting new areas to look at this year. Culture is not only what we watch and wear. It is the full texture of how people live, learn, and belong. The 2026 Edison Award honorees in this category are building more of it, for more people, than the year before.

Explore the full 2026 Edison Awards winners at edisonawards.com.

2026 Edison Awards | Consumer Solutions — Human-Centric Domestic Solutions, Smart & Adaptive Textiles, and Wearables for Safety & Resilience

The consumer technology of tomorrow is no longer arriving in the form of sleeker screens or faster processors. It is woven into the fabric of your clothing, embedded in the padding of your helmet, and quietly works on your behalf by adapting to your body, your environment, and your risk profile without asking you to do a thing. The most consequential innovations reaching consumers today are not louder. They are smarter, more intimate, and more human-centered than any generation of products that came before them.

The numbers tell a vivid story of where this is heading. The global smart home devices market — already valued at $163 billion in 2025 — is projected to reach $278 billion by 2034. The global wearable technology market, estimated at $92.9 billion in 2025, is on track to reach $230 billion by 2033 at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1%. And the smart textiles sector — perhaps the most transformative frontier of all — is growing even faster, with the market valued at $8.92 billion in 2025 and projected to reach $208 billion by 2035 at a staggering CAGR of 37%. These are not niche technologies finding their footing. They are mainstream markets accelerating through a period of foundational change.

At the 2026 Edison Awards, the Consumer Solutions category captured exactly this moment by honoring innovations across three subcategories that together define the near future of how humans interact with the objects, garments, and protective gear that surround them every day. Among the year’s most recognized organizations was the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), which took home two Gold and three Silver awards (more than any other Hong Kong organization at the 2026 competition) and the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA), whose Gold-winning iAdapt platform represents one of the most ambitious garment intelligence projects in the world today. Their innovations, taken together, sketch a portrait of where consumer technology is going — and why it matters.

The Clothing That Breathes With You

Of all the frontiers in consumer innovation, smart textiles may be the one most likely to surprise mainstream consumers with its scope. The idea of a garment that responds to your body — that knows when you are hot, cold, or physically exerting yourself and adjusts accordingly — sounds like science fiction. It is, in fact, already here.

HKRITA’s iAdapt: Intelligent Soft Robotic Clothing, a 2026 Edison Awards Gold Winner in the Smart & Adaptive Textiles subcategory, is the result of a collaboration with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and represents one of the most technically sophisticated wearable systems to reach market readiness. The soft robotic clothing automatically tunes and optimizes heat and moisture transport properties based on a programmable inflation-deflation process of embedded soft robotic skeletons. The garment maintains consistently high breathability throughout, regardless of external temperature.

This is not a novelty product. iAdapt can be used by citizens under different thermal climates for enhanced comfort and reduced HVAC energy consumption, as well as by professionals including medical personnel, outdoor workers, firefighters, and winter athletes who routinely wear thick functional uniforms across varying temperatures and activity levels — with practical applications spanning everything from emergency response to everyday commuting.

Meanwhile, ASTRI’s Oscillaware Fiber, a Silver Award winner also in Smart & Adaptive Textiles, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Oscillaware Fiber represents a breakthrough in eco-friendly elastic textiles, offering adaptive muscle support that provides over three times the support of traditional fibres during intense physical activity, significantly reducing injury risks. Produced via sustainable melt spinning processes, the fibre combines exceptional comfort, breathability, and design freedom, revolutionising textile performance across sporting and everyday applications. In a market where athletic and performance apparel is among the fastest-growing consumer segments, a fiber that actively supports muscle function — sustainably produced and indistinguishable in feel from conventional textiles — is a significant commercial and functional leap.

Wearables That Protect What Matters Most

The wearables conversation in 2026 has expanded well beyond fitness tracking and notification management. A new generation of safety-oriented wearables is addressing some of the most costly and consequential physical risks in human life, from concussions in sports to hip fractures among the elderly.

Concussion science has fundamentally reshaped how we think about helmet design over the past decade. The growing body of research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and sub-concussive impact accumulation has made clear that conventional helmets — engineered primarily to prevent skull fractures — are inadequate protection against the rotational forces that cause the most damaging brain injuries. ASTRI’s DXP Helmet Pad, a Gold Award winner in Wearables for Safety & Resilience, was purpose-built to close that gap. The dxp® All-Directional Impact Management System tackles the limitations of conventional helmets, which provide inadequate protection against all-directional rotational impacts — a major cause of concussions. The innovative impact management system can be retrofitted to a wide range of helmets without compromising comfort or breathability. Co-developed with Dacy Pro Limited, DXP’s retrofit-first design is particularly significant: it means the technology can reach existing helmet users without requiring them to replace equipment entirely, dramatically accelerating the potential for widespread adoption across cycling, skiing, construction, and contact sports.

The stakes for elderly fall protection are even more acute. Falls are the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related deaths worldwide, according to the WHO, with 37.3 million severe falls requiring medical attention annually and approximately 684,000 deaths. Among adults 65 and older, roughly one in three falls each year. For those over 80, it is one in two. Hip fractures are the most catastrophic outcome — annual fall-related healthcare expenditures in the United States alone exceed $80 billion, with global hip fracture incidence having risen by 168% between 1990 and 2021. And the trend is only worsening as populations age.

ASTRI’s NuHip, a Silver Award winner in the same subcategory, addresses this directly. NuHip is the world’s first shower-friendly hip protector designed for the highest fall-risk scenario. Its innovative one-size-fits-all design adapts to various body shapes whilst providing Level 2 impact protection (EN1621-1 certified), reducing impact forces from 10,000 Newtons to under 2,500 Newtons to prevent fractures. Being both skin-friendly and soft, NuHip promotes daily wear, enabling safer and more independent living for elderly users. The shower-safe design is not a small detail — it eliminates the most common behavioral barrier to consistent hip protector use, which is the inconvenience of removal during bathing. A protection device only works if it is worn. NuHip is designed to be worn all the time.

What the Home of the Future Actually Looks Like

Taken together, this year’s Consumer Solutions winners illuminate a set of principles that will define the best consumer innovations of the coming decade.

The future home and the future wardrobe are not more complicated, they are more intelligent. The devices and garments that will earn lasting adoption are those that solve real, consequential problems (falls, concussions, counterfeiting, thermal discomfort) in ways that require nothing from the user beyond simply using the product as designed. 22% of aging adults over 65 already live in homes equipped with health-monitoring smart technology, and 7.5 million households use smart wearables linked to in-home monitoring systems — numbers that will grow rapidly as the population ages and as products like NuHip, iAdapt, and the DXP Helmet Pad become the baseline expectation rather than the premium exception.

The institutions behind this year’s Consumer Solutions winners deserve particular recognition for demonstrating that breakthrough consumer innovation is genuinely global. ASTRI’s achievement positions them as Hong Kong’s most awarded organization at the 2026 Edison Awards, demonstrating exceptional R&D excellence and enhanced capabilities following the strategic integration of information and communications technology with advanced materials science. ASTRI CEO Ir Dr. Ted Suen noted that the recognition “affirms ASTRI’s world-class innovation capabilities and our successes in translating applied research into commercially viable solutions.” As Thomas Edison understood, the translation from laboratory research into products that a real person can buy, wear, and depend on is the hardest part of innovation. It is also the part that matters most.

The Edison Awards exist to recognize exactly this: not ideas, but solutions. Not prototypes, but market-ready innovations with measurable human impact. In the Consumer Solutions category, the 2026 winners have delivered on all three dimensions: conceptual originality, technical delivery, and real-world impact that scales. The clothing thinks. The helmet pad adapts. The hip protector holds. The future of consumer technology isn’t coming. It’s already being worn.

Explore the full 2026 Edison Awards winners at edisonawards.com. Learn more about ASTRI at astri.org and HKRITA at hkrita.com.

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References

1. Edison Awards — 2026 Consumer Solutions Winners
   Full list of 2026 winners including iAdapt, DXP Helmet Pad, NIR Secure, NuHip, and Oscillaware Fiber
   https://edisonawards.com/winners-2026/
2. “ASTRI Tops Hong Kong Organisations with Five Awards at the 2026 Edison Awards”
   PR Newswire / Yahoo Finance, April 17, 2026
   Source for all ASTRI product descriptions and CEO quote
   https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/astri-tops-hong-kong-organisations-063000338.html
3. iAdapt: Intelligent Soft Robotic Clothing — HKRITA Project Overview
   Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel
   https://www.hkrita.com/en/our-innovation-tech/projects/soft-robotic-clothing-for-adaptive-thermal
4. Smart Textiles Market Size, Share & Forecast (2026–2035)
   Global Growth Insights, March 2026
   Market valued at $8.92 billion in 2025; projected to reach $208.39 billion by 2035 at 37.04% CAGR
   https://www.globalgrowthinsights.com/market-reports/smart-textiles-market-123892
5. Wearable Technology Market Size & Growth
   Grand View Research, 2025
   Market valued at $92.9 billion in 2025; projected to reach $229.97 billion by 2033 at 12.1% CAGR
   https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/wearable-technology-market
6. Smart Home Devices Market Size, Share & Forecast (2026–2034)
   Fortune Business Insights, 2025
   Market valued at $163.30 billion in 2025; projected to reach $278.32 billion by 2034 at 5.62% CAGR
   https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/smart-home-devices-market-112792
7. “Global, regional, and national burden of hip fractures attributable to falls in older adults: changes from 1990–2021 and 2036 projections”
   Frontiers in Public Health, March 2026
   Falls are second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths globally; 37.3 million severe falls annually; 684,000 deaths; 1 in 3 adults 65+ falls yearly; U.S. fall-related healthcare costs exceed $80 billion/year; hip fracture incidence rose 168.71% from 1990–2021
   https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1674881/full
8. Smart Home Statistics 2025–2026
   SQ Magazine, 2025
   7.5 million households use smart wearables linked to in-home monitoring; 22% of aging adults (65+) live in homes with health-monitoring smart tech; 13% of homes have fall detection sensors
   https://sqmagazine.co.uk/smart-home-statistics/
9. 2026 Edison Award Winners: Where Global Culture Meets World-Changing Innovation
   PR Newswire, April 17, 2026
   https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2026-edison-award-winners-where-global-culture-meets-world-changing-innovation-302745467.html

Seeing the Future: How Alcon’s UNITY® VCS System Is Redefining Eye Surgery

2026 Edison Award Winner | Health, Medical & Biotech — Surgical Robotics & Precision Therapy

As of 2026, cataracts are responsible for almost 45% of global blindness.¹ Behind that statistic is a quieter, more hopeful fact: the majority of cases are preventable or treatable with the right technology in the right hands. For the nearly 28 million people who undergo cataract surgery globally each year — roughly 75,000 every single day — and the millions more who require vitreoretinal procedures to preserve sight threatened by diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment, or macular disease, the quality of the surgical platform matters enormously.¹ Alcon, the global leader in eye care, is advancing vitreoretinal and cataract surgery with the UNITY® Vitreoretinal Cataract System (VCS) and UNITY® Cataract System (CS), the 2026 Edison Award Silver winner in Surgical Robotics & Precision Therapy.

A Convergence That Changes Everything

The premise behind UNITY® VCS is elegantly bold: rather than requiring separate surgical systems for vitreoretinal and cataract procedures, Alcon has unified its best-in-class capabilities for both disciplines into a single, modular platform. The UNITY® VCS handles both anterior segment (cataract) and posterior segment (vitreoretinal) procedures. The UNITY® CS focuses on cataract surgery alone. Together, they represent what Alcon describes as “unprecedented innovation” which is not incremental improvement, but a wholesale rethinking of how ophthalmic surgical systems are designed and deployed.^2-6,*

This matters far beyond the operating room. Cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness globally, responsible for an estimated 45% of all blindness cases worldwide and affecting roughly 94 million people.⁷ The retinal surgery market is growing just as urgently: the global diabetic population surpassed 537 million in 2024, and diabetic retinopathy — a leading cause of blindness among working-age adults — affects an estimated 93 million people worldwide.^8,9 Age-related macular degeneration is projected to affect 288 million people by 2040, up from 196 million in 2020.¹⁰ The demand for skilled, efficient surgical intervention has never been greater, and the tools surgeons use have never mattered more.

Engineering Breakthroughs at Every Level

What distinguishes UNITY® VCS isn’t any single feature, it’s the magnitude and integration of first-to-market innovations working together across a unified platform.

The World’s Fastest Vitrectomy Probe. At the heart of the UNITY® VCS vitreoretinal system is HyperVit® 30K, which is the world’s fastest vitrectomy probe^** that has the capacity to operate at 30,000 cuts per minute (cpm).^6,11,** That’s a 50% increase over its predecessor, Alcon’s own CONSTELLATION® HyperVit® 20K.^6,11 Speed matters because faster cutting reduces the tractional forces applied to the fragile retina during surgery, mitigating the risk of iatrogenic retinal tears and enabling surgeons to work with greater confidence on complex cases.

4D Phacoemulsification: A Leap Forward for Cataract Surgery. The UNITY® 4D Phaco modality is the first and only volumetric phacoemulsification technology of its kind on the market.^{3,±,†,††} Bench data shows it delivers up to 2x faster lens removal than Alcon’s previous OZil® Torsional Phaco^±, while simultaneously depositing 41% less energy^† into the eye.³ This is notable as greater energy introduction during phacoemulsification may be associated with risk of inflammation and cell loss in the inner layer of the cornea.^12,13 Accompanying UNITY® 4D Phaco is Thermal Sentry — a first-of-its-kind energy modulation technology that continuously monitors incision site temperature and automatically adjusts ultrasound power to prevent corneal burns.⁶ It’s the kind of real-time intelligence that transforms a skilled surgeon’s judgment into a system-wide safeguard.

Intelligent Fluidics: Stability You Can Measure. One of the most consequential advances in UNITY® VCS|CS is its Intelligent Fluidics system, which provides proprietary, real-time control of intraocular pressure (IOP), infusion flow, and aspiration flow simultaneously.⁶ For both cataract and vitreoretinal surgery, the system maintains IOP within physiologic variations of the surgeon’s desired setpoint. This level of precision helps create less disruptive surgical conditions and can reduce the stress placed on delicate retinal tissue and the eye overall.^14-16 In cataract surgery, the Intelligent Sentry component demonstrated nearly two times lower occlusion break surge volumes compared to Alcon’s previous CENTURION® system with Active Sentry®, based on bench testing.¹⁷ Surge during occlusion breaks is a key risk factor for anterior chamber instability that can lead to complications like a posterior capsule rupture; reducing it meaningfully can improve surgical safety margins.^15,18

27+ DS Dynamic Stiffener. Micro-incision vitreoretinal surgery (MIVS) has pushed instrumentation to ever-smaller gauge sizes, but smaller probes traditionally sacrifice stiffness and control. Alcon’s UNITY® 27+ DS technology solves this with a Dynamic Stiffener that delivers the performance of 25+ gauge instruments in the smaller 27-gauge footprint.^{4,^} The result is optimized surgical control and reach in a less invasive form factor.

TetraSpot Laser. Completing the platform’s vitreoretinal toolkit, UNITY® TetraSpot is the first and only multi-spot, illuminated laser probe — capable of delivering 1, 2, or 4 laser spots simultaneously, reducing laser application time by up to 3.1 times compared to single-spot delivery.^2,Δ

Designed for the Way Surgeons Actually Work

Innovation in the operating room is only meaningful if surgeons can actually use it. UNITY® VCS|CS was engineered with clinical workflow in mind from the ground up. System setup and teardown time is 25% faster than the CONSTELLATION® Vision System, reducing OR turnover time by approximately 1.5 minutes per posterior segment surgery — a meaningful efficiency gain in high-volume surgical centers.^{19,‡,§,§§} The interface features graphical guided setup, integrated RFID instrument identification, and intuitive controls designed to reduce cognitive load during complex procedures. The platform also connects seamlessly with Alcon’s existing and future surgical equipment ecosystem — positioning UNITY® VCS|CS as the connective tissue of a fully integrated surgical suite.⁶

Alcon’s Commitment to Ending Preventable Blindness

UNITY® VCS doesn’t exist in isolation. It is the latest expression of a decades-long commitment by Alcon to pursue technologies that give surgeons the tools they need to treat and prevent vision loss at scale. The scale of unmet need is sobering: despite approximately 28 million cataract surgeries performed annually, surgical coverage in many countries remains at or below 50%, and in some low-income regions the cataract surgical rate is fewer than 500 procedures per million people per year, compared to over 5,000 in high-income countries.¹ The economic burden of vision impairment is estimated by the World Health Organization at $411 billion annually in lost productivity.²⁰ Technology that supports safety and efficiency doesn’t just benefit individual patients — it expands the capacity of healthcare systems to serve more people with the surgeons and facilities they already have.

The 25% reduction in OR setup time,^‡,§,§§ the improved platform uptime through Alcon Intelligent Services and remote serviceability, the streamlined inventory management through Custom Pak® — each of these operational efficiencies compounds across thousands of surgical centers worldwide, multiplying the platform’s real-world impact.^19,21

Recognized for What It Is: A New Benchmark

The Edison Awards, presented annually since 1987, honor innovations that demonstrate the transformational potential of human ingenuity. Named for Thomas Edison — whose own career was defined by relentless iteration in service of making life better — the awards recognize not just technological achievement, but market-ready solutions that reshape industries and improve lives. Selecting UNITY® VCS in the Surgical Robotics & Precision Therapy category reflects what the platform represents: not an incremental refinement of existing tools, but the establishment of a new benchmark for what ophthalmic surgery can be.

For the surgeons who use it, UNITY® VCS|CS offers capabilities that were simply not available before. For their patients — a 70-year-old grandmother recovering her ability to read, a 50-year-old diabetic patient whose retinal detachment is repaired before permanent damage sets in — the platform represents something more fundamental: support for surgeons treating vision-threatening conditions.

That is the kind of innovation that deserves recognition. And it is the kind of innovation that Alcon has spent decades working to make real.

Learn more about the UNITY® VCS and UNITY® CS at myalcon.com, and explore the full 2026 Edison Awards finalist gallery at edisonawards.com.

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© 2026 Alcon Inc. GLB/IMG-UVC-2600018

^* Compared to CENTURION and CONSTELLATION Vision Systems. Based on bench data.
^** Compared to Constellation HYPERVIT 20k vitrectomy probe.
^± Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
^† Based on bench data.
^†† Based on N=10 HPs, Artificial cataract lens IOP 55mmhg vacuum of 450 mmHg.
^{^} Versus Alcon’s Non-Dynamic Stiffener 27+ technology.
^Δ MSLP(4) is 3 times faster than SSLP.
^‡ For posterior segment surgeries/posterior cassette pack.
^§ (P < 0.001).
^§§ ~1.5 minutes faster.

References

1. Dreyer, J. (2026, January 9). Cataract stats. Contact Lenses Plus. https://www.contactlensesplus.com/education/cataract-stats.
2. Alcon data on file, 2024. [REF-24615].
3. Alcon data on file, 2024. [REF-24379].
4. Alcon data on file, 2024. [REF-24576].
5. Alcon data on file, 2024. [REF-24498].
6. UNITY® VCS and CS User Manual, 2024.
7. O’Brart D. The future of cataract surgery. Eye (Lond). 2025 Jun;39(8):1451-1456. doi: 10.1038/s41433-025-03745-x
8. Magliano DJ, Boyko EJ; IDF Diabetes Atlas 10th edition scientific committee . IDF DIABETES ATLAS [Internet]. 10th edition. Brussels: International Diabetes Federation; 2021. Chapter 3, Global picture. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK581940/.
9. Global Growth Insights. (2026, March 9). Retinal surgery devices market size, share, growth, and industry analysis. https://www.globalgrowthinsights.com/market-reports/retinal-surgery-devices-market-110241.
10. Renub Research. (n.d.). Retinal surgery device market: Global forecast by product, application, end user, countries and company analysis 2026–2034. https://www.renub.com/retinal-surgery-device-market-global-forecast-p.php.
11. Alcon data on file, 2024. [REF-24644].
12. Jiang L et al. BMC Ophthalmol. 2020.
13. Malik PK et al. Eye Vis (Lond). 2017.
14. Alcon data on file, 2025. [REF-24899].
15. Vasavada V et al. J Refract Surg. 2014.
16. Vasavada AR et al. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2010.
17. Alcon data on file, 2025. [REF-25562].
18. Zhao Z et al. Int Ophthalmol. 2020.
19. Alcon data on file, 2024. [REF-25374].
20. World Health Organization. (2026, February 10). Blindness and vision impairment. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/blindness-and-visual-impairment.
21. Ayres BD et al. Clinicoecon Outcomes Res. 2022.

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UNITY® VCS and CS Important Product Information

Caution: Federal (USA) law restricts this device to sale by, or on the order of, a physician.

INDICATIONS / INTENDED USE:

UNITY® VCS:
The UNITY® VCS console, when used with compatible devices, is indicated for use during anterior segment (i.e. phacoemulsification and removal of cataracts) and posterior segment (i.e., vitreoretinal) ophthalmic surgery.

In addition, with the optional laser this system is indicated for photocoagulation (i.e., vitreoretinal and macular pathologies), iridotomy and trabeculoplasty procedures.

UNITY® CS:
The UNITY® CS console, when used with compatible devices, is indicated for use during anterior segment (i.e., phacoemulsification and removal of cataracts) ophthalmic surgery.

Warnings:
Appropriate use of UNITY® VCS and CS parameters and accessories is important for successful procedures. The console supports various accessories to perform various surgical procedures.

Accessories include handpieces and probes, as well as tips and sleeves when necessary. Different accessories are required for different procedures and operating modes.

Test for adequate irrigation and aspiration flow, reflux, and operation of each accessory prior to entering the eye.

The consumables used in conjunction with ALCON® instrument products constitute a complete surgical system. To avoid the risk of a patient hazard, do not mismatch consumable components or use settings not specifically adjusted for particular consumable component combinations.

AEs/Complications:
Inadvertent activation of functions that are intended for priming or tuning accessories while the accessory is in the eye can create a hazardous situation that could result in patient injury.

During any ultrasonic procedure, metal particles may result from inadvertent touching of the ultrasonic tip with a second instrument. Another potential source of metal particles resulting from any ultrasonic handpiece may be the result of ultrasonic energy causing micro abrasion of the ultrasonic tip.

ATTENTION: Refer to the Directions for Use for the accessories/consumables and User Manual for a complete listing of indications, warnings, cautions and notes.

© 2026 Alcon Inc. GLB/IMG-UVC-2600018