This yr’s Cisco Companion Summit 2025 was a robust reminder of what’s potential when innovation meets function. Every year, as a part of the summit, we host a International Companion Innovation Problem — an open invitation for our companions to convey their boldest concepts and improvements to leverage expertise for good.
This yr’s submissions within the Partnering for Objective class reignited my ardour for this work. The options our companions are constructing handle 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 yr, our companions proceed to lift the bar, and this yr was no exception. Seventy-six of our 87 whole submissions — a powerful 86% — fell underneath the Partnering for Objective class. Moreover, 76 of the full submissions included AI parts, exhibiting how companions are embracing rising expertise to maximize outcomes and influence.
What stood out this yr wasn’t simply the amount of submissions, however the ambition behind them.
It’s clear that our companions are pondering larger, tackling issues at scale, and constructing options designed for real-world influence.
Amongst so many sturdy submissions, I’m excited to have a good time the 4 companions who exemplify the perfect of purpose-driven innovation.
Get to know this yr’s Partnering for Objective winners
- KIW – This accomplice, primarily based in Spain, is tackling two vital challenges directly 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 out there, serving to to cut 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 therapies that generate clear vitality whereas protecting constructing occupants comfy. Constructing homeowners report seeing actual financial savings, with payback durations as quick as two years. The blinds join via Cisco Energy over Ethernet (PoE) networks and use good algorithms to regulate their place all through the day, serving to to cut back vitality consumption from heating and cooling the room. In addition they acquire beneficial information about warmth circulation and occupancy that can be utilized for constructing administration and AI purposes.
- EchoStor Applied sciences – Addressing the vital 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 current hospital programs — digital well being data, labs, and monitoring gadgets — to ship real-time, context-aware affected person summaries via earpieces, headsets, or cellular apps. By turning current hospital infrastructure into an clever voice assistant for clinicians, Pleasant Whisper saves time, improves communication, and makes well being care safer for each employees and sufferers.
- Iron Bow – When emergency programs don’t work collectively, response occasions 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 making certain compliance with legal guidelines and laws. SignalPoint additionally supplies superior location providers that may pinpoint 911 callers inside 5 meters, giving first responders the correct info they should arrive on website rapidly and save lives.
This yr’s sturdy engagement within the Partnering for Objective class reinforces a robust fact 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 yr’s International Companion Innovation Problem: thanks. Your dedication to combining innovation with function reinforces what we already know — once we leverage expertise for good, there’s no restrict to what we will obtain.
