Red Hat innovation awards
We don't like to brag—unless it's about our customers
Our customers make inspiring improvements that affect their lines of business, organizations, and even the global community. Red Hat honors select customers each year through the Red Hat® Innovation Awards program.
Innovation Awards 2025
Voting is now closed. The 2025 Red Hat Innovator of the Year will be announced during Red Hat Summit. Nominations are open for the 2026 program, learn more about the nomination process below.
2025 Red Hat Innovation Awards winners
Each year, a panel of judges narrows down a pool of global nominees to 4 Red Hat Innovation Awards winners. Learn more about the 2025 Red Hat Innovation Awards winners' stories.
Aramco
By creating the Aramco GenAI Foundation, Aramco can onboard models quickly, and get AI in the hands of thousands of employees.
CAE
To support training 135,000 pilots a year, CAE modernized its IT, bringing AI tools and multicloud support to drive innovation in the name of safety.
CalHEERS
CalHEERS supports healthcare enrollment for 17 million Californians, supported at massive scale by adaptable cloud infrastructure.
City of Vienna
The City of Vienna’s IT department brings GenAI technology to city employees - while keeping the experience human-centric.
Capgemini
To support the German federal government’s central IT service provider, Capgemini led a project to automate the deployment of technology into air gapped environments to meet strict security requirements, while standardizing development workspaces for thousands of developers.
Past winners
Since 2007, Red Hat customers and partners have been recognized for their outstanding and innovative use of Red Hat solutions.
2024
Red Hat Innovator of the Year
Capgemini
Red Hat Innovation Awards Winners:
2022
Red Hat Innovator of the Year
Telefonica
Red Hat Innovation Awards Winners:
CIBC
UK Department for Work and Pensions
Washington Health Benefit Exchange
2021
Red Hat Innovator of the Year
Medife
Red Hat Innovation Awards Winners:
Ireland Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine
2020
Red Hat Innovator of the Year
Vodafone Idea
Red Hat Innovation Awards Winners:
Ford
PROGRAM DETAILS
2025 Red Hat Innovation Awards
Overview
How does the Red Hat Innovation Awards nomination and selection process work?
From June to October, customers can nominate themselves for Innovation Awards, or they can be nominated by others. To request your nomination form, email the Red Hat Customer Reference Team: customer-reference-helpdesk@redhat.com
Our panel of industry-expert judges will review and score the nominations (an average of 60 per year), narrowing them down to the top 4 winning projects that meet our Innovation Awards criteria for outstanding success with open source technology. The winners will be publicly showcased during Red Hat Summit.
From the 4 winners, the Red Hat Innovator of the Year is selected by the community through online voting. The winner will be announced during Red Hat Summit.
Read the Red Hat Innovation Awards terms and conditions for complete details.
Note: English submissions only.
Criteria
What makes an Innovation Awards winner?
Red Hat Innovation Awards submissions will be judged against 5 criteria, which are listed below. Judges will score each submission, and those that receive the highest scores across all criteria will be the 4 winners.
- Business impact: How is your project directly benefiting your organization? Is it impacting another line of business or return on investment (ROI)? Do data points show increased productivity, cost, or time savings? Share details about the project’s measurable impact.
- Digital transformation: Has your organization gone through a migration, optimized your existing IT, integrated apps or business processes, or quickly built more modern apps? Has it moved to the cloud (public, private, or hybrid), and are you using AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google? Clearly articulate why you needed to transform, share details of your journey, and illustrate where your organization is now by showing us the before and after.
- Openness: Is your project leading innovation by building an open source culture, contributing to community projects, fostering DevOps, or promoting diversity, collaboration, and meritocracy? Is the project using open source technology to support a broad range of applications and business services? Tell us about it.
- Community impact or influence: How is your IT making a difference in the lives of others? Are you improving the daily experiences of your customers, end users, or employees? Are you influencing an organization or agency to impact communities or your society?
- Cool factor: Does your project have a uniqueness and distinct vision showing innovation, creativity, and originality that we haven’t seen or heard of before?
Recognition
What's in it for you?
Red Hat Innovation Awards winners will receive:
- An opportunity to participate in activities during Red Hat Summit.
- Inclusion in the Red Hat Innovation Awards winner announcement.
- Promotion through Red Hat’s website, social media channels, and marketing campaigns.
- Publicity in top industry publications.
- A chance to be included in other Red Hat Innovators in the Open activities throughout the year.
Schedule
Dates to remember
May 15, 2025: Nominations open
October 3, 2025: Nominations close
November 2025: Winners notified
May 2025: Voting for Innovator of the Year begins
May 2025: Red Hat Innovation Awards winners and Red Hat Innovator of the Year will be recognized at Red Hat Summit
Judges
2025 Red Hat Innovation Awards judges
Ashesh Badani, Senior Vice President, Cloud Platforms, Red Hat
Kevin Kenedy, Vice President, North America Ecosystem
Leigh Day, Chief Marketing Officer
Kevin Sherry, Vice President, Red Hat Global Services
Sean Michael Kerner, Journalist
Noah Cheliah, On-Air Host, Mind Drip Media
Paulo Silvestre, Journalist
Michelle Rosen, PHD, Research Manager, Open GenAI, LLMs, and Evolving Open Source Ecosystem, IDC
Global Customer Recognition
APAC Innovation Awards
The APAC Innovation Awards program honors customers across the region for their success with open source technology, in categories like Digital Transformation, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud native development and more. Select APAC Innovation Awards winners are also submitted to our global program.
EMEA Honorable Mentions
The EMEA Honorable Mention award honors customers from the region who developed outstanding submissions for the global Red Hat Innovation Awards program. All members of the EMEA Honorable Mentions program are eligible for our global Innovation Awards program.
EMEA Honorable Mentions launching in 2026
LATAM Honorable Mentions
The LATAM Honorable Mention award honors customers from the region who developed outstanding submissions for the global Red Hat Innovation Awards program. All members of the LATAM Honorable Mentions are eligible for our global Innovation Awards program.
Open source fuels innovation. This fact is exemplified best by Red Hat’s customers, who are using open source technologies to change the game. We’re proud to call them "innovators in the open" and share their stories.
