The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory secured the No. 3 spot on Fast Company’s 2020 Best Workplaces for Innovators list – marking the second consecutive year that APL appeared among businesses and organizations around the globe honored for demonstrating a deep commitment to encouraging innovation at all levels.
The team behind APL’s Building Leaders, Accelerating Science and Technology (BLAST) development program was also recognized as a finalist for Fast Company’s inaugural Innovative Team of the Year award, which highlights the most innovative teams to take advantage of their workplace’s pro-innovation environment to build something extraordinary.
The BLAST program is the next evolution of a long-standing innovation initiative that originated in one sector at APL but was expanded across the enterprise earlier this year, under the leadership of a cross-Laboratory team of staff members. BLAST was designed to target professionals early in their careers, encouraging collaboration and harnessing APL’s culture of innovation to tackle challenging technical problems.
Developed with Accenture, Fast Company’s 2020 Best Workplaces for Innovators list ranked 100 winners — chosen from nearly 900 applications — from a variety of industries, including computer science, biotech, consumer packaged goods, nonprofit, education, financial services, cybersecurity and engineering. Organizations joining APL on the list include Google at No. 2, Boston Scientific at No. 5, Microsoft at No. 13 and Amazon at No. 18.