06.03.08
The 350 of Cisco
Today, I stumbled upon the letter, John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of San Jose, CA based networking infrastructure giant Cisco Systems was writing about Cisco’s CSR and Corporate Citizenship report (download report).
Since Gordon and I enjoyed a very interesting meeting with Cisco just a few days back, I want to share some of our learnings.
First of all, we were impressed with the size and scale one of Cisco’s initiatives – in particular the Cisco Networking Academy.
The Cisco Networking Academy is in its tenth year now and what started in one class room of one local school in one country abroad, today involves about 350 Cisco staff, operates in more than 160 countries and has touched more than 2 million students, with an ever-growing percentage of them women in many regions. The academy’s goal is to educate students and have them acquire technical skills that enable them to participate in an economy increasingly driven by technological initiatives, which in turn helps energize local economies and bring underserved communities across the digital divide.
Secondly, in our conversation it became very clear that companies – even with Cisco’s global reach and resources – wouldn’t be as successful without the right partners. As far as I know, one of the valuable cooperation in the case of Cisco’s Networking Academy was the one with USAID.
This reminded me strongly of one of our own goals at Worldsight, which is to become a catalyst and connect all stakeholders of mission driven businesses and initiatives. We may host an event in the future which educates all stakeholders about the “how to…” of mission driven programs and partnerships. If you have input for us we’d appreciate to hear from you.
About Cisco Systems
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) enables people to make powerful connections-whether in business, education, philanthropy, or creativity. Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make networks possible-providing easy access to information anywhere, at any time.
