SAS named to Fast Company's Best Workplaces for Innovators list

AI and analytics leader also recognized as a finalist on Social Good list for innovative Batting Lab experience

Once again, Fast Company has named SAS as a Best Workplace for Innovators. SAS was also recognized as a finalist on the program’s Social Good list for its interactive Batting Lab, an experience aimed at helping kids improve their baseball and softball swings and their confidence in using data and analytics. The new recognitions are the latest in SAS’ long list of technology innovation, workplace culture and social impact awards.

Developed in collaboration with Accenture, the 2023 Best Workplaces for Innovators list honors organizations and businesses across industries that demonstrate an inspiring commitment to encourage and develop innovation at all levels. Out of nearly 1,000 submissions, SAS stood out as one of the companies that successfully fosters a culture of innovation and encourages employees from top to bottom to discover, explore and invent.

“Continuous innovation is critical to help organizations face today’s challenges and stay ahead of tomorrow’s. At SAS, we’ve built an environment that encourages, values and rewards new approaches to problems that impact our customers, partners, communities and ecosystems,” said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. “Recognition from Fast Company validates our longstanding culture of innovation and affirms the creativity and talent of our employees.”

Since its inception, SAS has been committed to investing in innovation programs for employees. This includes its Big Ideas program, an incubator for ideas that aim to ignite creativity and curiosity, a patenting program, and external SAS Hackathon event. SAS is also committed to ensuring that innovation is executed responsibly both internally and by customers around the world. The company launched a responsible innovation initiative in 2022, guided by the SAS Data Ethics Practice. Responsible innovation includes important topics like responsible AI, algorithms and bias, but also goes beyond them to consider the entire innovation process. A responsible innovation approach injects equity and fairness at every step, from idea to development to deployment.

Using AI and data for good has also been a SAS commitment since day one. Fast Company has recognized The Batting Lab as a finalist on the Social Good list, which honors companies focused on socially beneficial missions. The Batting Lab combines AI, computer vision and IoT analytics to help kids improve their baseball and softball swings while increasing their data literacy. The sensors and cameras in The Batting Lab collect more than 50,000 data points per swing, which is fed into a simple recommendation system to identify straightforward feedback for the player. Students walked away with better swings and a better sense of how data fits into their day-to-day lives and the decisions they make.

SAS has been recognized as a top place to work for millennials, parents, women, diversity and technology, as well as a top scorer on both the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index and Disability:IN’s Disability Equality Index.

Learn more about SAS’ commitment to workplace and AI innovation.