This 12 months’s Cisco Associate 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 World Associate Innovation Problem — an open invitation for our companions to carry their boldest concepts and improvements to leverage know-how 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 handle a few of at present’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 below the Partnering for Function class. Moreover, 76 of the overall submissions integrated AI elements, displaying how companions are embracing rising know-how 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 greater, tackling issues at scale, and constructing options designed for real-world influence.
Amongst so many robust submissions, I’m excited to rejoice the 4 companions who exemplify the easiest of purpose-driven innovation.
Get to know this 12 months’s Partnering for Function winners
- KIW – This companion, primarily based in Spain, is tackling two crucial challenges directly 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 accessible, serving to to scale back prices and switch wasted power right into a priceless useful resource for AI development.
- Morgan Photo voltaic – This Canada-based companion is rethinking how buildings use and create power. Morgan Photo voltaic’s Vitality Blinds are photovoltaic window remedies that generate clear power whereas holding constructing occupants comfy. Constructing homeowners report seeing actual financial savings, with payback intervals 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 power consumption from heating and cooling the room. In addition they acquire priceless information about warmth movement 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 companion developed Pleasant Whisper, an AI-powered voice assistant platform constructed on Cisco know-how. The answer integrates with present hospital programs — digital well being information, 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 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 know-how and companion emergency platforms into one unified answer that retains a number of programs in sync whereas making certain compliance with legal guidelines and rules. SignalPoint additionally gives superior location providers that may pinpoint 911 callers inside 5 meters, giving first responders the correct info they should arrive on web site rapidly and save lives.
This 12 months’s robust engagement within the Partnering for Function 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 12 months’s World Associate Innovation Problem: thanks. Your dedication to combining innovation with function reinforces what we already know — after we leverage know-how for good, there’s no restrict to what we will obtain.