At Cisco Partner Summit 2024, we announced the winners of Cisco's seventh annual Global Partner Innovation Challenge. This year, we introduced a new AI award category, recognizing the transformative power of AI in our industry. With a total of$900K USD in prizes, this year's event showcased partners' impressive technical ingenuity in developing unique APIs and solutions on our open platform.

AI:A Driving Force for Innovation

As AI continues to transform the technology and business landscape, our annual Partner Innovation Challenge offers partners a platform to showcase their exceptional AI innovations that address real customer challenges. The introduction of the new AI award category recognizes the growing significance of technology and is supported by 41 percent of last year's submissions that incorporated AI.

The AI award, with a$200K USD prize, proved incredibly popular. This year, 73 percent of submissions enrolled in this new category, reflecting a 44 percent increase from last year's submissions with an AI element. This demonstrates the growing interest and potential of AI within our partner ecosystem to transform industries and drive business value. The award showcased partners' innovative ideas and their ability to leverage AI to improve efficiency, enhance customer experiences, and gain a competitive edge.

The growth of AI technology to transform industries and drive business value presents a huge opportunity for partners, proven by the tremendous concentration of AI award submissions. Our recent Global AI Partner study shows that more than a quarter of partners believe that 76 percent of their revenue will come from AI technologies over the next four to five years.

Outstanding 2024 Winners

Global Grand Prize:Presidio($200K USD)

• Presidio SignBridge, delivers real-time American Sign Language(ASL) interpretation in Webex meetings, translating spoken language to sign language via a dedicated video feed. Using Diffusion models, it also creates visual representations of spoken content for enhanced understanding. As remote communication grows, this AI-driven technology fosters inclusivity and accessibility in environments including workplaces, schools, and healthcare. With the potential to revolutionize communication for millions globally, SignBridge offers a forward-thinking solution to break down communication barriers.

Global 2nd Place Award:Highlight($100K USD)

• Highlight's Service Observability Platform combines data from Cisco's Meraki, Catalyst, and ThousandEyes into a simple, shareable dashboard. This cloud-based SaaS solution empowers managed service providers(MSPs) to enhance service delivery and customer relationships. The platform offers real-time and historical service performance insights, automated reporting, and proactive alerting. This enables MSPs to efficiently manage more accounts, quickly identify and address issues, and demonstrate unique value to customers.

Global 3rd Place Award:BroadSource($50K USD)

• SecureCall by BroadSource is a valuable cloud integration for Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center customers, enabling secure card payments over the phone using Webex. By reducing the risks associated with Personally Identifiable Information(PII) misuse, SecureCall helps businesses comply with PCI standards and lower cybersecurity costs. SecureCall offers a cost-effective and PCI-compliant Cisco Confidential solution for taking payments using Webex-based phone services. BroadSource's SecureCall also won theRegional Award-ANZ.

Artificial Intelligence Award: Madison Technologies($200K USD)

• Madison Technologies' Level Crossing solution enhances safety at railway crossings by integrating advanced AI and edge computing technologies. It leverages the Cisco Meraki MV52 camera, Cisco IR1101 Industrial IoT router, and NVIDIA Jetson industrial PC to proactively monitor and analyze pedestrian and vehicle behavior. This system detects and alerts for unsafe conditions in real-time, ensuring timely intervention and maintenance. It also provides valuable data insights for improved safety, operational efficiency, and informed decision-making. By utilizing real-time data and AI insights, railway operators can meet Australia's stringent safety requirements, enhancing protection and preventing incidents.

Partner for Purpose Award Winners

• Environmental Sustainability Award($50K USD): Wipro for Farm to Plate
• Digital Inclusion Award ($20K USD): Presidio for SignBridge
• Crisis Response Award ($15K USD): OutcomeX for Onemesh Emergency Responder
• Economic Empowerment Award ($15K USD): NTT Com DD for Safe & Secure Intelligent Workplace (also wonRegional Award -Japan)

For more information on the Global Partner Innovation Challenge, please visit Cisco's Global Partner Engineering's SalesConnect.

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