At Cisco Companion Summit 2024, we introduced the winners of Cisco’s seventh annual World Companion Innovation Problem. This 12 months, we launched a brand new AI award class, recognizing the transformative energy of AI in our trade. With a complete of $900K USD in prizes, this 12 months’s occasion showcased companions’ spectacular technical ingenuity in growing distinctive APIs and options on our open platform.
AI: A Driving Pressure for Innovation
As AI continues to rework the expertise and enterprise panorama, our annual Companion Innovation Problem provides companions a platform to showcase their distinctive AI improvements that tackle actual buyer challenges. The introduction of the brand new AI award class acknowledges the rising significance of expertise and is supported by 41 p.c of final 12 months’s submissions that integrated AI.
The AI award, with a $200K USD prize, proved extremely widespread. This 12 months, 73 p.c of submissions enrolled on this new class, reflecting a 44 p.c improve from final 12 months’s submissions with an AI component. This demonstrates the rising curiosity and potential of AI inside our accomplice ecosystem to rework industries and drive enterprise worth. The award showcased companions’ modern concepts and their capacity to leverage AI to enhance effectivity, improve buyer experiences, and acquire a aggressive edge.
The expansion of AI expertise to rework industries and drive enterprise worth presents an enormous alternative for companions, confirmed by the super focus of AI award submissions. Our latest World AI Companion examine reveals that greater than 1 / 4 of companions imagine that 76 p.c of their income will come from AI applied sciences over the subsequent 4 to 5 years.
Excellent 2024 Winners
World Grand Prize: Presidio ($200K USD)
- Presidio SignBridge, delivers real-time American Signal Language (ASL) interpretation in Webex conferences, translating spoken language to signal language by way of a devoted video feed. Utilizing Diffusion fashions, it additionally creates visible representations of spoken content material for enhanced understanding. As distant communication grows, this AI-driven expertise fosters inclusivity and accessibility in environments together with workplaces, colleges, and healthcare. With the potential to revolutionize communication for hundreds of thousands globally, SignBridge provides a forward-thinking answer to interrupt down communication boundaries.
World 2nd Place Award: Spotlight ($100K USD)
- Spotlight’s Service Observability Platform combines knowledge from Cisco’s Meraki, Catalyst, and ThousandEyes right into a easy, shareable dashboard. This cloud-based SaaS answer empowers managed service suppliers (MSPs) to reinforce service supply and buyer relationships. The platform provides real-time and historic service efficiency insights, automated reporting, and proactive alerting. This permits MSPs to effectively handle extra accounts, rapidly establish and tackle points, and reveal distinctive worth to clients.
World third Place Award: BroadSource ($50K USD)
- SecureCall by BroadSource is a beneficial cloud integration for Webex Calling and Webex Contact Middle clients, enabling safe card funds over the telephone utilizing Webex. By decreasing the dangers related to Personally Identifiable Info (PII) misuse, SecureCall helps companies adjust to PCI requirements and decrease cybersecurity prices. SecureCall provides a cheap and PCI-compliant Cisco Confidential answer for taking funds utilizing Webex-based telephone providers. BroadSource’s SecureCall additionally received the Regional Award – ANZ.
Synthetic Intelligence Award: Madison Applied sciences ($200K USD)
- Madison Applied sciences’ Degree Crossing answer enhances security at railway crossings by integrating superior AI and edge computing applied sciences. It leverages the Cisco Meraki MV52 digital camera, Cisco IR1101 Industrial IoT router, and NVIDIA Jetson industrial PC to proactively monitor and analyze pedestrian and car conduct. This technique detects and alerts for unsafe situations in real-time, making certain well timed intervention and upkeep. It additionally gives beneficial knowledge insights for improved security, operational effectivity, and knowledgeable decision-making. By using real-time knowledge and AI insights, railway operators can meet Australia’s stringent security necessities, enhancing safety and stopping incidents.
Companion for Goal Award Winners
- Environmental Sustainability Award ($50K USD): Wipro for Farm to Plate
- Digital Inclusion Award ($20K USD): Presidio for SignBridge
- Disaster Response Award ($15K USD): OutcomeX for Onemesh Emergency Responder
- Financial Empowerment Award ($15K USD): NTT Com DD for Protected & Safe Clever Office (additionally received Regional Award – Japan)
