The 2026 Innovation Awards

Novo Nordisk's The Interrupt took an upstream approach to health equity — tackling the social and environmental factors that drive chronic disease before they take hold. Through a partnership with UAB's Live HealthSmart Alabama initiative, The Interrupt brought together Uber Health, Alabama Power, and Cadell Construction to dismantle barriers facing rural and underserved communities across Alabama: limited food access, inadequate transportation, scarce healthcare, and gaps in the built environment.

Since 2022, the initiative has delivered mobile food markets, free medical transportation, and 22,000 linear feet of new sidewalks — expanding access to the conditions that make health possible. The results reflect real, sustained change: more than 7,000 wellness visits, a 40%+ increase in mobile market customers, and nearly half of participants connected to a primary care provider for the first time.

What makes The Interrupt innovative is its model: rather than dividing up small wins, partners co-own large-scale change — pooling expertise across food access, transportation, housing, care quality, and economic opportunity to move the needle on chronic disease in ways no individual program can match. Operating in D.C. and Alabama and set to expand to two new cities in 2026, The Interrupt enables businesses to collaborate on cross-brand, place-based programs that unlock sustainable solutions no single organization could achieve alone.

"Through The Interrupt, we achieve our goals quicker through collaboration. Upstream prevention aligns with our commitment to doing what's fundamentally right. By focusing on population health, we engage transparently across sectors without business motivations—preventing diseases we treat commercially while pooling expertise to make a larger impact together than we could alone." — Apurva Patel, Novo Nordisk

Micron Foundation set out to solve a problem hiding in plain sight: AI literacy and readiness were uneven across their grantee partners and internal team members, ecosystems lacked shared direction and tools, and grantmaking processes were manual, fragmented, and inconsistent. The result was a portfolio that couldn't fully shift to evidence-based funding — or ensure that targeted beneficiary needs were actually being met.

The Foundation's response was to narrow focus to the people and partners who shape AI use in communities and STEM, and to support the full path: from AI readiness to AI literacy to AI ecosystem development. Through co-design with educators and nonprofits, STEM pilots pairing Micron volunteers with underserved students, and early testing of AI-enabled scoring for Community Impact Grants, the initiative has reached more than 15,700 learners globally — with a commitment to reach 40,000+ U.S. learners by 2029. Increased team member participation has also put $2.5M in grants into more democratic, community-informed hands.

What makes this approach innovative is its architecture: rather than deploying AI as a top-down efficiency tool, Micron built a responsible adoption model with human oversight that can be replicated across sectors. By ensuring equitable access to AI learning, creating consistent and responsible adoption pathways, and providing transparent processes for all AI-enabled programs, the Foundation has demonstrated how human-guided Agentic-AI can increase quality and consistency in outcomes-based grantmaking — while bringing more voices into the process, not fewer.

"Micron is driving the enablement of AI from our technology to our social impact – using innovation to strengthen communities worldwide. By engaging learners and educators in AI readiness and literacy through our Signature Programs, to involving our team members in outcomes-based participatory grantmaking through our AI-powered Community Impact Grants program, we increase efficiencies, enable team members to inform our community engagement, and deepen AI readiness across the communities where we live and work." — Rosita Najmi, Global Head, Social Impact & Community Engagement, Micron; Executive Director, Micron Foundation

Rhode Island's banking sector anticipates roughly 500 new roles over the next five years — many of them entry-level and increasingly reshaped by AI. Yet employers face a persistent skills mismatch, and adult learners and those new to banking lack short, stackable, job-aligned options that pay family-sustaining wages and can stack toward degrees. Citizens set out to change that by doing something unusual: convening four competitor banks to solve the problem together.

Citizens led a first-of-its-kind, statewide coalition — bringing together Bank of America, Centreville Bank, Washington Trust, and BankNewport alongside the Community College of Rhode Island and Education Design Lab — to co-design and co-fund the Banking Micropathway. The result is a free, 15-week hybrid program covering customer service, workplace communications, financial records, and data management, with coaching, mentoring, industry guest speakers, and direct hiring pathways built in. The program debuted in fall 2025 with a BankForward Career Connect event, and graduated its first cohort of ten students in February 2026 — validating both learner demand and the "competitors convened for the greater good" model.

What makes this initiative transformative is its architecture: by ensuring curriculum mapped to real requisitions and shared hiring needs across competing institutions, Citizens created friction-free access for learners and day-one value for employers. Early results set the stage for replication across a broader footprint with EDL, demonstrating how cross-sector, skills-first collaboration can build equitable pathways into careers that will continue to evolve.

"This pathway is a powerful example of what's possible when banks, educators, and workforce leaders come together with a shared purpose. By collaborating across institutions, we're helping Rhode Islanders build the skills and confidence to succeed in meaningful careers that will continue to evolve." — Keith Kelly, President, Citizens Rhode Island

Nearly half of Con Edison's service area includes historically underserved neighborhoods — communities that bear a disproportionate share of climate risk while having the fewest resources to adapt. Recognizing that the clean energy transition must be inclusive to be meaningful, Con Edison created a signature grant initiative to address the impacts of extreme heat and flooding in state-designated disadvantaged communities across New York.

Con Edison committed to a multi-year investment in six leading climate justice organizations — a model designed to stabilize nonprofits, enable stakeholder sharing to drive scale, and support the kind of coordinated, community-led action that moves beyond traditional grantmaking. The results reflect that depth of investment: 2,200 community members mobilized in climate resilience, 400+ energy and climate audits through NYC's first faith-based audit program, expanded cooling centers, solar Wi-Fi infrastructure, and youth climate training for 120+ participants.

What makes this initiative innovative is its departure from traditional grantmaking toward an integrated, partnership-driven model that embeds environmental justice, reduces fragmentation among grantees, and positions Con Edison as a convenor rather than just a funder. By advancing equity-centered, locally led solutions with measurable impact, the program demonstrates how utilities can build the bidirectional trust needed to make the clean energy transition work for everyone.

"We knew these programs would directly impact communities facing the dual burden of climate extremes and economic inequality. So, the Strategic Partnerships team built a review process that reflected those stakes. It wasn't just about scoring proposals—it was about listening across our company and community to ensure we selected partners who are deeply trusted and equipped to deliver in this moment." — Christine A. Osuji, Lead of Con Edison's Environmental Justice Group