At Cisco Associate Summit 2025, we introduced the winners of Cisco’s eighth annual International Associate Innovation Problem, and this 12 months proved one thing we’ve lengthy believed: if you give sensible companions an open platform and actual buyer challenges to unravel, they don’t simply meet the second. They redefine what’s potential.
With $1 million USD in prizes and a record-breaking 40 % enhance in submissions from 26 international locations, this 12 months’s problem demonstrated that our accomplice ecosystem isn’t simply adopting AI. They’re main with it. The outcomes? College students get psychological well being assist earlier than a disaster hits. Wasted renewable vitality powers AI workloads. Returned merchandise stays out of landfills. Clinicians get real-time affected person intelligence with out lifting a finger.
2025’s Excellent Winners
International Grand Prize: Deal My Time ($250K USD)
erlySense transforms scholar assist from reactive to proactive. Constructed on the Cisco ecosystem, this AI-driven wellness intelligence platform integrates safe networking, AI insights, and real-time collaboration instruments to create a steady security web for college kids. By empowering counselors and educators with real-time insights and environment friendly communication, erlySense permits early intervention, serving to college students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally earlier than challenges turn into crises.
In an period the place scholar psychological well being is a nationwide emergency, erlySense turns expertise right into a lifeline.
International 2nd Place Award: KIW ($100K USD)
Splid.AI solves two huge issues directly: the skyrocketing demand for AI compute and the big waste of renewable vitality as a result of grid limitations. This sustainable AI market converts unused renewable vitality into distributed AI compute energy, connecting surplus inexperienced vitality producers with enterprises needing AI processing. By leveraging Cisco AI PODs and safe, containerized infrastructure, Splid.AI permits high-performance AI workloads to run the place and when renewable vitality is offered, turning wasted vitality into gasoline for AI innovation.
The consequence? AI progress that really accelerates sustainability as an alternative of undermining it.
International third Place Award: Denali Superior Integration ($50K USD)
Denali ReLo tackles a problem most customers by no means see: the mountains of returned merchandise that find yourself in landfills as a result of handbook processing is simply too gradual and costly. This AI machine-vision utility leverages a visible language mannequin educated to determine key traits of every returned merchandise, automating the subjective decision-making means of how and when to kind and restock. Cisco networking merchandise mixed with Splunk, Cybervision, and SEA ship an answer that scales to assist huge retail operations.
Denali ReLo retains extra product in circulation and out of landfills. Good for enterprise, higher for the planet.
Synthetic Intelligence Award: EVERYANGLE ($200K USD)
Horizons Retail AI transforms Cisco Meraki MV Cameras, Cisco Areas, Webex, and the Cisco Observability stack (AppDynamics, ThousandEyes, Splunk) right into a unified platform for real-time revenue optimization. However right here’s what units it aside: In contrast to analytics instruments that simply present you dashboards, Horizons deploys autonomous AI brokers that constantly sense circumstances, interpret context, and act. They reallocate workers, optimize campaigns, stop shrinkage, all with out requiring further {hardware}. For retailers, QSR operators, and shopper manufacturers working at scale, this isn’t simply visibility. It’s clever motion that improves margins, labor effectivity, and buyer expertise in actual time.
That is agentic AI fixing actual enterprise issues, proper now, at scale.
Associate for Objective Award Winners
Our Associate for Objective awards acknowledge options that don’t simply drive enterprise worth. They make the world measurably higher.
Environmental Sustainability Award ($25K USD): Morgan Photo voltaic for Power Blinds
Photovoltaic inside window therapies that rework areas, enhance occupant consolation, and ship vitality financial savings with payback intervals as quick as two years. Powered and managed through Cisco PoE networks.
Environmental Sustainability Award ($25K USD): KIW for Splid.AI
Changing wasted renewable vitality into distributed AI compute energy, turning a sustainability downside right into a useful resource for AI innovation.
Disaster Response & Human Wants Award ($25K USD): EchoStor Applied sciences for Pleasant Whisper
An AI-powered voice assistant for clinicians that gives real-time, context-aware affected person summaries via earpieces or cellular units. Saves time, reduces errors, and eases burnout in healthcare.
Disaster Response & Human Wants Award ($25K USD): Iron Bow for SignalPoint
Integrating disconnected hospital and campus emergency techniques into one seamless workflow with superior location providers that may triangulate 911 callers inside 5 meters. Serving to first responders arrive sooner and with larger accuracy.
What This Means for You
In the event you’re a accomplice questioning the place the chance is, that is your reply.
Take a look at erlySense serving to college students earlier than disaster hits. Take a look at Splid.AI turning wasted renewable vitality into AI compute. Take a look at Denali ReLo preserving returned stock out of landfills. Take a look at Horizons deploying autonomous AI brokers that act, not simply analyze. Take a look at Pleasant Whisper giving clinicians real-time intelligence with out including to their cognitive load. Take a look at SignalPoint serving to first responders save lives with five-meter accuracy.
The AI period belongs to the companions who can react shortly to market shifts, innovate constantly as an alternative of ready for annual cycles, and scale effectively by activating platform capabilities prospects didn’t even know have been potential.
Congratulations to all our winners. You’re not simply constructing options. You’re proving that once we transfer quick collectively, innovate constantly, and scale via ecosystem results, we don’t simply compete within the AI period. We lead it.
For extra info on the International Associate Innovation Problem and how you can take part in subsequent 12 months’s competitors, go to Cisco’s International Associate Engineering on SalesConnect.
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