This yr’s Cisco Accomplice Summit 2025 was a strong reminder of what’s doable when innovation meets function. Annually, as a part of the summit, we host a International Accomplice Innovation Problem — an open invitation for our companions to convey their boldest concepts and improvements to leverage know-how for good.
This yr’s submissions within the Partnering for Goal class reignited my ardour for this work. The options our companions are constructing deal with a few of right this moment’s most urgent challenges throughout vitality, healthcare, emergency response, and past. Collectively, we’re working towards our shared Goal of Powering an Inclusive Future for All, one innovation at a time.
Goal-driven innovation at scale
12 months 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 beneath the Partnering for Goal class. Moreover, 76 of the whole submissions included AI elements, displaying how companions are embracing rising know-how to maximize outcomes and affect.
What stood out this yr wasn’t simply the amount of submissions, however the ambition behind them.
It’s clear that our companions are considering greater, tackling issues at scale, and constructing options designed for real-world affect.
Amongst so many sturdy submissions, I’m excited to have fun the 4 companions who exemplify the easiest of purpose-driven innovation.
Get to know this yr’s Partnering for Goal winners
- KIW – This accomplice, based mostly in Spain, is tackling two vital challenges without delay with their Splid.AI platform: the rising demand for extra computing energy to run AI functions 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 permits high-performance AI workloads to run precisely the place and when renewable vitality is on the market, serving to to scale back prices and switch wasted vitality right into a worthwhile 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 holding constructing occupants comfy. Constructing homeowners report seeing actual financial savings, with payback durations as brief 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 gather worthwhile information about warmth circulation and occupancy that can be utilized for constructing administration and AI functions.
- 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 know-how. The answer integrates with present hospital methods — digital well being data, labs, and monitoring units — to ship real-time, context-aware affected person summaries by way of earpieces, headsets, or cellular 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 employees and sufferers.
- Iron Bow – When emergency methods don’t work collectively, response occasions undergo and lives are in danger. Iron Bow, additionally based mostly within the U.S., constructed SignalPoint to repair this downside for organizations managing advanced emergency response operations. The platform brings collectively Cisco know-how and accomplice emergency platforms into one unified resolution that retains a number of methods in sync whereas making certain compliance with legal guidelines and laws. SignalPoint additionally gives superior location companies that may pinpoint 911 callers inside 5 meters, giving first responders the correct info they should arrive on web site shortly and save lives.
This yr’s sturdy engagement within the Partnering for Goal class reinforces a strong 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 yr’s International Accomplice Innovation Problem: thanks. Your dedication to combining innovation with function reinforces what we already know — once we leverage know-how for good, there’s no restrict to what we are able to obtain.
