During his first official visit to the U.S., recently elected Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev visited Cisco’s corporate headquarters yesterday and met with John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco. President Plevneliev and Mr. Chambers discussed the role technology and IT adoption can play in driving economic growth and competitiveness.
Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers and Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev at Cisco HQ
Mr. Chambers informed the president about Cisco’s activities in Bulgaria and reconfirmed the company’s commitment to the country. Cisco has been present in Bulgaria since 1999 and has been actively contributing to building a knowledge-based economy by creating an ecosystem of more than 200 local partners.
The company also has a developer team based in the capital Sofia, who are focused on developing Cisco Quad, a highly-innovative enterprise collaboration platform. Cisco Quad helps connect people to information and expertise they need, when they need it. It helps facilitate the sharing of knowledge and ideas across geographic and organizational boundaries. Virgin Media, Nike, GE and Bank of America are some of Cisco’s global customers who already use the Quad platform. Collaboration is one of Cisco’s five strategic priorities.
Cisco’s largest corporate social responsibility initiative, Cisco Networking Academy, has been active in Bulgaria since 1999 and there are currently more than 50 academies operating across the country. Since its launch in Bulgaria, more than 17,000 local students have participated in the diverse IT and networking courses offered by the academy.
President Plevneliev was accompanied by Elena Poptodorova, the Bulgarian ambassador to the U.S., James B. Warlick, U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria, as well as a delegation of Bulgarian business leaders. Cisco Bulgaria general manager Borislav Dimitrov also joined the meeting, whilst Peter Hajdu, Cisco regional manager for South East Europe and a team of Cisco Bulgaria employees participated virtually using Cisco TelePresence technology.
We look forward to continuing the strategic partnership between Cisco and the Bulgarian government and working together to advance the president’s innovation agenda.
What is singularity? The word has several interpretations in mathematics, geometry, natural sciences and technology. Increasingly, it is used to describe an exponential emergence of technological development with the potential of changing the world as we know it.
Singularity University (SU), located at NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, was established in 2008 to create a global network of like-minded entrepreneurs, technologists and young leaders, dedicated to innovation and exploring the ways to singularity.
To make its efforts truly world-wide, SU launched a series of Global Impact Competitions, including one in Central and Eastern Europe, which is nearing its finals at the end of this week. Supported by Cisco, the competition reached thousands of university students, young entrepreneurs and business people in the region. Organizers were looking for innovative project ideas which could improve the lives of one million people in a 3-year period with the help of technology.
54 applications were submitted from eight countries, addressing issues of health, education or security. The minds behind the six most outstanding projects will get together on May 4th in Budapest, Hungary, to present their ideas and compete for the grand prize, an invitation to Singularity University’s summer course this year, worth 30 000 USD. The jury will be chaired by noone less than Professor Erno Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik cube.
So cross fingers for the finalists and their exciting ideas and watch this space to find out who wins later this week:
Agnieszka Gaczkowska, Poland: Drug waste -- web-based service for used medicaments location and drug shortages alerts
Tamas Haidegger, Hungary: Hand Hygiene for a Healthier Planet- innovative education and objective control on personal hygiene
Vaclav Plevka, Czech Republic: Avoiding the Gridlock Incident in order to Keep the Conurbations in Operation
At this week’s opening ceremony of the Cisco Plus Brazil 2012 conference in Rio de Janeiro, we stood with local and national government officials and formally announced our strategic investment initiatives in Brazil. Through the use of information and communications technology, Cisco hopes to foster the level of innovation, transformation and socio-economic development necessary to sustain the country’s growth and competitiveness.
In Brazil, our R$1 billion investment will be distributed over the next four years around the pillars of innovation, venture capital funding, strategic local partnerships and expansion in local manufacturing. In the second half of 2012, Cisco will be inaugurating a center of innovation in Rio de Janeiro to develop customized technology solutions for the country. First round efforts will be focused on sports and entertainment technology, public safety and security, as well as improved access to education and healthcare. The center will also help support Cisco’s global Smart+Connected Communities initiatives through developing efficient urban infrastructures and fostering growth within new and existing cities in Brazil.
In an effort to capture the immense economic and innovation potential in the Brazilian ICT market, we are working with local partners and dedicating up to R$100 million of the investment to create the largest high-tech VC fund in the country. We are also continuing efforts in building local partnerships to properly address some key opportunities in Brazil. A recent intellectual property agreement with Intelbras – a leader in the Brazilian telephony market – is aimed at encouraging local SMBs to migrate towards IP telephony. In the area of R&D, Cisco will continue to support the Planetary Skin Institute (PSI), a global, independent nonprofit R&D organization. PSI has developed multiple agreements with leading R&D institutions in Brazil to co-develop high-priority platforms for the country, such as early warning systems.
Back in 2010, we officially began production of set top boxes in Brazil through a partnership with cable service provider NET Serviços. Since its inception in early 2011, the Manaus plant has already been through two expansion efforts. Local manufacturing initiatives continue to reinforce our commitment to technological development, entrepreneurship and job creation around the globe. Cisco will continue fostering local manufacturing efforts in Brazil to include production of our best-selling core routing and switching products.
We are continuing these efforts in other areas of the globe as well, with notable recent developments in Russia.
Marthin De Beer and Viktor Vekselberg sign R&D roadmap
Coming off last week’s signing of an R&D strategy roadmap with the Skolkovo Foundation, we’re excited to announce the availability of our 2911R/K9 router, the third Cisco product made in Russia. These developments represent further commitment to Brazil and Russia as key global priorities and countries with immense growth potential.
Assembly of our one of our most popular Integrated Services Routers, the ISR 2911 / K9 bundle has been launched in the city of Tver in Russia, following a pilot project in early march. The 2911R/K9 Integrated Services Router will be available to the Russian market through a network of authorized Cisco partners. To date, this marks the third Cisco product made in Russia. In 2011, we announced the availability of both a VPN hardware solution and Cisco set top boxes, made possible through collaborative local partnerships.
The first Cisco ISR 2911 assembled in Russia
Cisco 2911R/K9 Integrated Services Routers (ISR) are designed to power the next phase of branch-office evolution, providing rich media collaboration and virtualization to the branch while reducing operating costs. The Cisco 2911R/K9 reduces initial capital outlays by decoupling the delivery of software from hardware on optional service modules. In addition, customers receive a Universal IOS image capable of enabling all of Cisco’s rich IOS features and allowing quicker deployment of new services. Integrated anti-malware tools as well as voice, data and mobile access security features helps to support a high level of data security. The router also opens great opportunities for remote operations by flexibly supporting VPN, to provide remote employees with secure access to corporate resources via secure channels.
Through the expansion of local manufacturing efforts in Russia, Cisco is delivering on its vision to stimulate local entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation, bolster job creation in the region and introduce the most advanced technologies to the area. Coupled with the activities in Brazil, we are proud and excited of our further involvement in the growth and development of these key economies
Dr. Ishwar Parulkar is the CTO of Provider Access Business Unit of Cisco Systems in Bangalore.
The Indian Information Technology sector is coming of age as it focuses on innovation and product development after a couple of decades of success based on service based engineering models. The Asian software and services engineering giant is also trailblazing for the emerging world by bringing in specific technology needs of this part of the world -- which often leapfrog the needs in the developed world – into global products.
One such success in this direction is ASR 901, Cisco’s next generation mobile backhaul platform that recently won the New Technology Advancement Innovation Award at the NASSCOM 2012 India Leadership Forum. This product is also a unique case of reverse innovation, where even though initially driven by critical emerging countries’ requirements, it is now a competitive product in developed countries as well.
The product definition, its design tradeoffs, execution and development of ecosystem partnerships are a pioneering model for IT MNCs in the emerging world to innovate and drive end-to-end products development from their remote sites in emerging countries.
ASR 901 addresses the needs of Access, Carrier Ethernet, TDM backhaul and Cell Site Gateway. The features and price point of this product makes it very versatile and fit a range of applications from 2G/3G/4G/LTE cell sites, CE/ME/Business Access, NID to Optical Satellites, resulting in new revenue streams for the company. It is also the first Cisco product to be completely developed from the India site – from conception, architecture, hardware/software implementation, testing and qualification to marketing.
Some of the lessons learned in the development of ASR 901 that can be generalized for other similar efforts from emerging countries are:
1) It is important to define the right product – the product needs to be relevant to the business, the remote site needs to have an advantage in that space either because of proximity to the market or domain expertise and the product has to have the right level of complexity to succeed.
2) The right type and level of talent needs to be groomed or seeded from mature technology markets. Senior technologists/architects and product marketing experts, which are typically not easily available in emerging countries are particularly critical.
3) A work culture of innovation and product development, which is different than a service engineering culture needs to be consciously created through mentoring and work practices.
4) Product development requires a mature ecosystem of partners locally. The local ecosystem in emerging countries needs to be developed via co-development, transfer of knowledge as well building long term relationships.
ASR 901 is one key milestone in the evolution of Cisco’s focus on developing its engineering capability in its second headquarters, referred to as Globalisation Centre East- starting with sustaining work, taking on increasingly complex engineering tasks over time and culminating in an original product being developed from the site. A full-fledged mainstream business unit, the Provider Access Business Unit is now located in India.
Some of Cisco’s key innovative technologies, applicable across company’s product lines, are originating out of this site. The Cisco journey of evolution of engineering capability in emerging countries is well into the next phase of innovation and thought leadership.
24 disabled students started their networking studies this week, following the inauguration of a new Cisco Networking Academy at Addetur Foundation’s secondary school in Budapest.
“Addetur Foundation was established 18 years ago with the mission to support the integration of young people with disabilities and improve their employment prospects. The cooperation with Cisco Networking Academy is another important milestone for us, as it opens up a fast-developing area for our students,” said Gabriella Kekesne Czinderi, director of Addetur. “The fact that the networking academy curriculum can be accessed online is also a great help for our community”, she added.
Cisco Hungary contributed HUF 1,000,000 to the launch of the new academy, as part of the company’s vocational training contribution.
Which Central European city has more than twenty universities, with the oldest one founded as early as 1364? As a little help, it is also the second largest city of the country which currently holds the European Union Presidency.
Views of Krakow. Source: wikipedia
Cisco continuously evaluates potential sites for support operations around the world and the availability of educated talent and an excellent communications infrastructure were key to the decision to choose Poland, and in particular Krakow, as the site of our next support center, to be opened in early summer 2012. This will be a shared services center supporting customers across the Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia (EMEAR) region. It will complement existing locations and will provide services across multiple functional groups including Cisco Services, Finance, Operations and others.
The Krakow support center is an important part of our strategy to enhance the way we serve our customers, partners and internal stakeholders across EMEAR. By establishing a shared services center in Central Europe, our aim is to get closer to our customers, in terms of geography and timezones while offering the convenience of multi-language support.
Nusajaya is a nascent city located on the South-western tip of Peninsula Malaysia and just a short drive away from Singapore. Nusajaya is also one of the crown jewels of Iskandar Malaysia, the special economic zone in the state of Johor and one of the flagships of the Malaysian Government’s national development plan.
Soon, Nusajaya could also become the catalyst for Smart City development in Malaysia and beyond. Yesterday, two of the area’s largest property developers, UEM Land Holdings Berhad and Iskandar Investment Berhad, signed agreements with Cisco to develop a master plan for a Smart+Connected Nusajaya.
“We’re seeing smart cities being built around the world and we think that Nusajaya has the potential to become a benchmark for smart cities. This is just the beginning, we want Cisco to help us plot the path for us towards a Smart+Connected Nusajaya,” said Dato’ Wan Abdullah Wan Ibrahim, managing director and chief executive officer of UEM Land Holdings.
Anil Menon, President for Globalisation and Smart+Connected Communities, shared with the Malaysian media the forces that are driving smart city developments around the world:
Residents in Songdo International Business District will soon be able to learn a new dish or take a yoga class in the comfort of their homes. A managed services company called U.Life Solutions has been set up by Cisco, Gale Internatonal, POSCO E&C and LG CNS to deliver Smart+Connected Community Services in the newly established city.
At the launch event for the new entity on July 4, 2011, celebrity Korean chef and restaurateur, Soojin Choi (picture below), taught the audience how to make a chicken salad over Cisco TelePresence.
True to its tradition, each year Magyar Telekom recognises suppliers that play an outstanding role in the field of sustainability. The DELFIN -- Award (the title of which is the acronym of the Hungarian equivalents of Award for a Committed, Sustainable, and Innovative Generation) has been awarded for the fourth time in four categories.
Cisco Hungary won the award in the “Innovation for Sustainability” category, recognizing Cisco’s collaboration in creating Magyar Telekom’s VideoGate service, which is based on Cisco TelePresence technology.
VideoGate enables businesses to carry out intercompany video conferences over the Internet. Thus, it helps save time and costs of travel, whilst at the same time it provides a competitive advantage for users. Cisco also provided free-of-charge web applications to help calculate a company’s CO2 footprint.
DELFIN Award winners (5th from the right is Otto Dalos from Cisco Hungary) with Magyar Telekom representatives Eva Somorjai (chief human resources officer), Nora Olah (procurement director), Katalin Szomolanyi (head of Corporate Sustainability Department) and the members of the jury.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon visited the Cisco main campus in San Jose, California on June 11, 2011. He was on a technology trends tour and wanted to get first hand information about how technology can be applied to help solve some Mexico’s challenges. We honored to host President Calderon. During his visit, we demonstrated the power of collaboration technologies to transform education, healthcare, and government administration.
Mexico is a world leader in the use of Cisco TelePresence technology, both in the executive office and in healthcare applications. Mexico’s next step may well be in building cloud services. Patient records, hospital administration, pharmacy information, and more can be stored in the cloud and delivered to care givers or administrators as needed.
HealthPresence was of particular interest. Providing high-quality care to all citizens at a reasonable cost is a priority worldwide. Technology has long played a role in healthcare, but collaboration and cloud-based services are changing both patient care and healthcare investment priorities.
During President Calderon’s visit, we demonstrated Cisco HealthPresence, a telepresence-based technology that integrates a range of medical devices through the network. Care delivered at a distance, or with vehicles delivering mobile care to rural areas, can become intimate and sophisticated when specialists provided services through the network. The demonstration also included the Health Services Exchange (HSX), a cloud-based solution for the management of healthcare information.
In addition to the healthcare presentation, President Calderon was given a demonstration showing how technology and the network can improve and extend the education experience. The key to a great classroom is always a great teacher. Nurturing great teachers requires constant training, but the travel expense and time away from the classroom make training challenging. Solutions such as the Digital Media System (DMS) can be used to remotely train teachers and deliver more information to the education community.
President Calderon was given a demonstration on how collaboration technologies are transforming the way government institutions organize themselves, administer their activities and communicate with their citizens. From tax authorities to hospitals to complex public or private enterprises, these technologies are improving productivity and job satisfaction while delivering better services for citizens and consumers. Finally, President Calderon was able to experience the Cisco Cius with its rich media capabilities supporting video calls.
I will leave you know with a few videos and pictures from the visit:
Mexican President Felipe Calderon at Cisco Campus on June 11. Jaime Valles, vice president Cisco Latin America; Chuck Robbins, senior vice president for the Americas region; Kerry Lynn Lambert, senior vice president Services Cisco Americas; Francisco Uribe director business development Cisco Mexico and Rogelio Velasco, general director of Cisco Mexico.
President Felipe Calderon interacting with a Cisco Health Presense solution during his visit to CIsco campus in San Jose, California
President Felipe Calderon using Cisco CIUS during his visit to San Jose, California
Jaime Valles, vice president of Cisco Latin America; Kerry Lynn Lambert, senior vicepresident Services Cisco Americas; President Felipe Calderon, Chuck Robbins, senior vice president for the Americas region and Rogelio Velasco, general director of Cisco Mexico.
“Which school should I choose, to do what you do?” This was one of the most frequent questions asked by Serbian schoolgirls visiting Cisco in Belgrade for “Girls in ICT” Day. Aged 14, the girls are nearing an important decision in their lives when it comes to choosing their future education and professional path. The “Girls in ICT” initiative was created to help this difficult decision and convey the message that information technology is interesting and it is something for girls as well.
"Girls in ICT" Day visitors at Cisco Serbia
The visitors, who were accompanied by their teachers, toured the office, visited the networking lab and chatted with female Cisco employees both in Serbia as well as other countries, the latter via Cisco TelePresence. I also had a chance to talk to our young guests and explain what an interesting combination ICT & marketing are, what is it like to have a regional role and work with people form different timezones and cultures.
Serbian schoolgirls at Cisco TelePresence room
We then connected the girls with their peers in Sofia, Bulgaria and there were lots of smiles and laughter, and even some singing. See the video.
Interested to know more about „Girls in ICT” Day? The initiative was the brainchild of Serbia’s Minister of Telecommunications and Information Society, Ms Jasna Matic, who launched the Global Network of Women in ICT at a special event in New York in February this year, with the support of Dr Touré, the Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, and a number of high-ranking female dignitaries. The initiative is also embraced by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
For the first time in the station’s 86 years history, reporters of MR1 Kossuth radio used video for creating the broadcaster’s special Europe Day program. Celebrating the day when the idea of European integration was born, the editors brought together citizens of the continent around a virtual roundtable.
Cisco, together with local partner KFKI was providing a Cisco TelePresence 1300 unit as well as connectivity with 15 cities across Europe. Reporters, who usually need to rely on voice only, enjoyed the experience of meeting their interviewees and engaging in a conversation “just across the table”.
“TelePresence opened us a whole new dimension for preparing interviews. We are proud to be the first station in Hungary to use such an innovative technology for a radio program,” – said Ferenc Markovits, editor of Hungarian Radio.
Highlights included a re-encounter of members of a Greek family that was separated during world war two, a roundtable with heads of Hungarian cultural institutions talking about events celebrated across Europe during the current Hungarian EU Presidency, and a song performed jointly by Roma singers in Paris and Budapest.
Click here for more videos and photos, or copy/paste the URL below in your browser:
Guest Post By Hani Nofal, regional manager in Cisco UAE
Hani Nofal
On Monday 25th April 2011, I attended the second annual Network World CPI Middle East Awards, which was held at the Address Hotel in Dubai Marina.
The evening brought together vendors, system integrators and end users who were all eagerly anticipating the winners announcement throughout the ceremony. Altogether, the awards comprised of 22 categories, which looked to celebrate innovative networking projects, end-users for their contribution to business, and vendors for their market leadership. Cisco has been shortlisted for the prestigious Networking Vendor of the year award – an award determined by votes, not a judging panel or committee.
To our absolute delight, Cisco won the most-coveted Networking Vendor of the year category. The win crowns our focus on defining true innovation and operational excellence to our customers in the region and a real testimony by our customers and partners.
Once we were nominated and shortlisted, the category was then opened to the public for voting to take place. Cisco received 1800 votes, which equated to 33% of the overall voting total -- polling ahead of other shortlisted finalists. With a mixed feeling of excitement and confidence, it was indeed an honorable moment to get on stage and receive the award on behalf of Cisco.
Our achievement was also complemented by the success of our customers’ innovation and business impact who were also recognized at the event for the end-user awards categories.
This is a another milestone for Cisco achievements in the Middle East as it demonstrates our commitment to deliver on Cisco’s vision to lead emerging country innovation, prosperity, job creation, and social inclusion through life-changing networks.
Our work with nations through out the region to help utilize ICT to drive sustainable socioeconomic progress, secure affordable broadband networking, facilitate instant information access for businesses and enable world-class citizen services with better access to healthcare, education, and social services.
The winners in the vendor category were recognized for their outstanding performance and significant impact on the market. The criteria for winning included a variety of indicators, including product innovation, quality of services, major customer wins and commitment to the region.
To achieve these awards has been an extremely proud moment for Cisco, our partners and customers – a true, networking glory for all involved.
The recent Global Information Technology Report (GITR) from the World Economic Forum highlights the role that ICT plays as an enabler of economic, environmental and social development today. The Networked Readiness Index in the report also showed that developing countries led by China and Brazil are catching up in terms of technology adoption.
There’s another aspect to the report that bears mentioning, and that is the rising importance and shifting composition of the Internet Economy, in chapter 1.2, and authored by Cisco’s Enrique Rueda-Sabater and John Garrity. Cisco has supported and made contributions to the GITR for most of its 10 years of existence and has used the Networked Readiness Index in many discussions around the world on the potential for networks to contribute to economic and social progress.
Several months ago Cisco published The Evolving Internet – Driving Forces, Uncertainties and Four Scenarios to 2025—a report done jointly with GBN which was intended as a contribution to ongoing discussions and efforts to harness the huge potential of Internet and IP networks to drive economic and human development around the world.
The report has generated a lot of attention and has been the subject of blogs (from Russia, Singapore, Turkey …) press articles and comments from businesses, government official and individuals across the world.
Regardless of how the future unfolds, the Internet will evolve in ways we can only begin to imagine. By allowing ourselves to explore and rehearse divergent and plausible futures for the Internet, not only do we find ourselves more prepared for any future—we can also help shape it for the better.
I thought I’d sharing one of the video discussions on the findings of the report with the Monitor team.
Net Neutrality
You can watch the rest of the videos here, and download the complete white paper (PDF) here.
