eighth International Associate Innovation Problem: Celebrating this 12 months’s Partnering for Objective winners

This 12 months’s Cisco Associate Summit 2025 was a robust reminder of what’s doable when innovation meets function. Annually, as a part of the summit, we host a International Associate Innovation Problem — an open invitation for our companions to deliver their boldest concepts and improvements to leverage expertise for good. 

This 12 months’s submissions within the Partnering for Objective class reignited my ardour for this work. The options our companions are constructing tackle a few of right this moment’s most urgent challenges throughout vitality, healthcare, emergency response, and past. Collectively, we’re working towards our shared Objective of Powering an Inclusive Future for All, one innovation at a time. 

Objective-driven innovation at scale 

Yr after 12 months, our companions proceed to lift the bar, and this 12 months was no exception. Seventy-six of our 87 whole submissions — a formidable 86% — fell below the Partnering for Objective class. Moreover, 76 of the overall submissions included AI elements, displaying how companions are embracing rising expertise to maximize outcomes and influence. 

What stood out this 12 months wasn’t simply the amount of submissions, however the ambition behind them. 

It’s clear that our companions are considering larger, tackling issues at scale, and constructing options designed for real-world influence.

Amongst so many robust submissions, I’m excited to have fun the 4 companions who exemplify the highest of purpose-driven innovation. 

Get to know this 12 months’s Partnering for Objective winners 

• KIW – This accomplice, primarily based in Spain, is tackling two crucial challenges without delay with their Splid.AI platform: the rising demand for extra computing energy to run AI purposes and the waste of renewable vitality as a result of energy grid limitations. KIW developed Splid.AI, an AI market that turns extra renewable vitality into computing energy by connecting surplus vitality producers with enterprises that want AI processing. Leveraging Cisco AI PODs, Splid.AI allows high-performance AI workloads to run precisely the place and when renewable vitality is accessible, serving to to scale back prices and switch wasted vitality right into a beneficial useful resource for AI development. 
• Morgan Photo voltaic – This Canada-based accomplice is rethinking how buildings use and create vitality. Morgan Photo voltaic’s Vitality Blinds are photovoltaic window remedies that generate clear vitality whereas maintaining constructing occupants comfy. Constructing house owners report seeing actual financial savings, with payback durations as quick as two years. The blinds join by way of Cisco Energy over Ethernet (PoE) networks and use good algorithms to regulate their place all through the day, serving to to scale back vitality consumption from heating and cooling the room. Additionally they acquire beneficial knowledge about warmth circulate and occupancy that can be utilized for constructing administration and AI purposes. 
• EchoStor Applied sciences – Addressing the crucial problem of clinician burnout and well being care workflow inefficiency, this US-based accomplice developed Pleasant Whisper, an AI-powered voice assistant platform constructed on Cisco expertise. The answer integrates with present hospital programs — digital well being data, labs, and monitoring units — to ship real-time, context-aware affected person summaries by way of earpieces, headsets, or cell apps. By turning present hospital infrastructure into an clever voice assistant for clinicians, Pleasant Whisper saves time, improves communication, and makes well being care safer for each workers and sufferers. 
• Iron Bow – When emergency programs don’t work collectively, response instances endure and lives are in danger. Iron Bow, additionally primarily based within the U.S., constructed SignalPoint to repair this drawback for organizations managing advanced emergency response operations. The platform brings collectively Cisco expertise and accomplice emergency platforms into one unified resolution that retains a number of programs in sync whereas guaranteeing compliance with legal guidelines and laws. SignalPoint additionally offers superior location companies that may pinpoint 911 callers inside 5 meters, giving first responders the correct data they should arrive on website shortly and save lives. 

This 12 months’s robust engagement within the Partnering for Objective class reinforces a robust reality that doing good and doing enterprise aren’t competing priorities; they’re complementary forces that drive long-term enterprise success.   

To all our companions who participated on this 12 months’s International Associate Innovation Problem: thanks. Your dedication to combining innovation with function reinforces what we already know — after we leverage expertise for good, there’s no restrict to what we are able to obtain.