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

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

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

Function-driven innovation at scale 

12 months after 12 months, our companions proceed to boost the bar, and this 12 months was no exception. Seventy-six of our 87 complete submissions — a powerful 86% — fell underneath the Partnering for Function class. Moreover, 76 of the whole submissions integrated AI elements, exhibiting how companions are embracing rising expertise to maximize outcomes and affect. 

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 affect.

Amongst so many sturdy submissions, I’m excited to have a good time the 4 companions who exemplify the absolute best of purpose-driven innovation. 

Get to know this 12 months’s Partnering for Function 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 power attributable to energy grid limitations. KIW developed Splid.AI, an AI market that turns extra renewable power into computing energy by connecting surplus power 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 power is offered, serving to to scale back prices and switch wasted power right into a worthwhile useful resource for AI development. 
• Morgan Photo voltaic – This Canada-based accomplice is rethinking how buildings use and create power. Morgan Photo voltaic’s Power Blinds are photovoltaic window remedies that generate clear power whereas protecting constructing occupants comfy. Constructing house owners report seeing actual financial savings, with payback intervals as quick as two years. The blinds join via Cisco Energy over Ethernet (PoE) networks and use sensible algorithms to regulate their place all through the day, serving to to scale back power consumption from heating and cooling the room. Additionally they acquire worthwhile knowledge about warmth move 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 techniques — 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 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 techniques 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 techniques 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 data they should arrive on website shortly and save lives. 

This 12 months’s sturdy engagement within the Partnering for Function class reinforces a strong 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 12 months’s International Associate Innovation Problem: thanks. Your dedication to combining innovation with objective reinforces what we already know — once we leverage expertise for good, there’s no restrict to what we will obtain.