Two out of three deaths among children under age five could be prevented with effective primary healthcare globally. It is a generally recognized fact that regular medical care is essential for early diagnosis and treatment of illness and chronic diseases. And poor health causes developmental delays, affecting learning ability and a child’s ability to reach full intellectual potential. Sick children exact a toll on families, resulting in lost income and an overall compromised quality of life.
The future of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector is exciting. Every day, people are using the Internet, computers and mobile devices in new and innovative ways. ICT is changing the way we work, live, play and learn. And it’s opened up new employment opportunities that should appeal to men and women alike.
This week, Corporate Responsibility Magazine unveiled its 100 Best Corporate Citizens List during a ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange. We in Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) were proud to see that Cisco is #43.
The rankings are based on performance in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy.
Cisco was ranked #1 in the corporate governance category, meaning that no other company among the 975 reviewed did a better job of following responsible and ethical business practices.
Last week I had the privilege of attending the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in San Francisco. Hosted annually by the Nonprofit Technology Network, the conference is a gold mine of professional development and relationship-building opportunities for nonprofit staff who use technology for marketing, fundraising, operations, program delivery, and more.
Cisco sponsored the Ignite Reception at NTC, where attendees had 5 minutes and 20 slides to talk about how their nonprofits are using technology.
Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts operate at this intersection of human and technology networks, too. We know that by working with nonprofits, government agencies, or other businesses, we can accomplish much more than we could alone. And, by adding technology to the equation, we can multiply our impact even further.
Many nonprofits have similar experiences. They are collaborating--and using innovative, network-enabled technologies--to reach more people with better services.
If you work for a nonprofit that has used human and technology networks to multiply your impact, we want to hear your story.
Tomorrow I’m heading to the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in San Francisco with several colleagues from Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team.
You may be wondering, “What does a global corporation have to do with nonprofits?” I worked in the nonprofit field for ten years before I joined Cisco, so I can answer: Everything.
We are still in a down economy. Individual donors are able to give less, and governments have been forced to cut social programs. Businesses, especially technology ones, are often innovative, entrepreneurial, and run by people who think giving back to society is important.
For organizations struggling to solve the world’s biggest problems today, corporate involvement is essential.
UPDATE: Molly’s story was on CNN today (3/8/12). Take a look!
Today Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team had the unique privilege of bringing together two seemingly different groups of people: children who live in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya and their “video pen pals” in Rome. Cisco hosted the event using its TelePresence technology to support the World Food Programme’s video series “Molly’s World: A Girl Films Her Life in a Nairobi Slum.” (Learn more about the Molly’s World video series in my previous blog post.)
We multiplied the impact of this event by broadcasting it live to a worldwide audience via CiscoTV’s Ustream channel on the World Food Programme’s Facebook page. Children in classrooms from London to Brazil to Australia submitted questions through Facebook and Twitter, and Molly and her friends answered them live via Ustream. Read More »
I met Daniel last month in Mexico City. He is an outpatient at a drug rehabilitation center where we sponsor a Cisco Networking Academy. Daniel and I met at the center, and then went together to his home in one of the poorest parts of Mexico City. As we stood on the porch overlooking his neighborhood, Daniel told me that his family doesn’t believe he can make his way out of this life, can ever do something more. The odds are certainly low; making a different life for himself, a life he’s never seen modeled, would be a dream come true but also a miracle. Read More »
Recently, I participated in a conversation with our LinkedIn community on GETideas.org. The crux of the discussion was labels--should there be a universal taxonomy for terms such as Global Education, and would trying to foster global adoption of such terms speed up the transformation of the societal challenges we face today? It got me thinking about all sorts of terms that pop into our language stream. One day you’re talking about the “inequalities of the distribution of wealth and the effects of taxation on global markets;” the next day you’re texting an associate and summing up your thought stream with the word “Occupy”.
In my preparation for a panel discussion called Why enterprise Social Media Loves Social Good?, I poked around online to see if there was any consistency in the meaning for the term “social good”. Almost all the discussions and posts I found connected “social good” directly to its use within the business community. While businesses vary in their approaches to social good, this definition seems to be a common one: “A good or service that benefits the largest number of people in the largest possible way. Some classic examples of social goods are clean air, clean water and literacy; in addition, many economic proponents include access to services such as healthcare in their definition of the social or “common good”. (Source: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social_good.asp) Read More »
This post was authored by my colleague Jessica Kelly (@JessGoddesse)
If you’re wondering why social media should be an key part of your communications strategy, just note these current statistics demonstrating the ubiquity of the medium:
Facebook now boasts more than 800 million active users worldwide, and more than half of these log on to the network on any given day.
Twitter too is no slouch (and growing), with 200 million registered users, one quarter of whom tweet daily.
Want more justifying numbers? A recent infographic on MediaBistro lists more compelling stats―like, say, the fact that 56% of consumers are likely to recommend a brand to a friend after becoming a fan on Facebook, and 20% of marketers have closed sales using Twitter.
Given that social media networks are timely (if not immediate) communications platforms that are interactive, and therefore― if used correctly (that is, authentically)―engaging, their success in marketing should come as no surprise. Read More »
Did you know that by the end if 2012, videos will account for 50 percent of all Internet traffic?
Online videos are powerful storytelling tools. Many nonprofits are using them to attract donors and volunteers, and to multiply the impact they can have on the people and communities they serve.
As a sponsor of the 2012 DoGooder Nonprofit Awards, Cisco will get a chance to recognize four nonprofits that have successfully used video to create meaningful, positive change. Read More »
As I listened to the State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, my ears perked up when I heard these words “Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job”. While I agree that this is” inexcusable”, I couldn’t help but feel gratified that President Obama called attention to our deficiency in 21st century skills-based education.
Although unemployment continues to be a challenge in this country, the demand for technology specialists is on the rise. Projected to grow by 10, 20 and in some cases 50 percent in coming years, jobs like Computer Support Specialist, Analysts and Systems Administrators are in high demand. Read More »
Molly’s World is a series of short videos chronicling the life of Molly, a girl living in the Mathare slum of Nairobi, Kenya. Two episodes have been released on the YouTube channel MollyKenya.
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Forbes Magazine is famous for its lists — think “The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities” or “America’s Best Small Companies.”
Recently, the magazine issued a new list that is particularly relevant to Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts: “The Impact 30,” a list of the world’s top social entrepreneurs.
Forbes defines a social entrepreneur as “a person who uses business to solve social issues.” Here in Cisco CSR, we encounter social entrepreneurs every day. In fact, a few people on the Impact 30 list work for educational organizations we’ve partnered with over the years. Read More »
“Roughly one-sixth of the world’s population, or 1.1 billion people, don’t have access to safe drinking water.”
