RECAP | Your guide to Purpose and impact at Cisco Live San Diego

Cisco’s Purpose to Power an Inclusive Future for All isn’t a standalone initiative – it’s embedded and operationalized throughout our company and drives growth for our business, people, and communities.

Purpose was front and center at Cisco Live San Diego from June 9-12, 2025 – our biggest global customer event that brought together top experts, partners, and customers to experience our innovations firsthand. 

We celebrated 40 years of impact in our Purpose Pavilion and showed how we put our Purpose into practice. From theater sessions to demos, here’s what happened:

Purpose Pavilion Theater 

The Purpose Pavilion was located in the World of Solutions, where onsite attendees discovered cutting-edge technology, got a glimpse into future innovations, and networked with experts and peers.  

Our Purpose Pavilion Theater featured leaders in sustainability, digital impact, social impact, public policy, and AI, sharing business solutions and industry insights. Here’s a sampling of the sessions, and great news: you can watch them all on-demand: 

• AI Policy: Global Implications and Regulatory Shifts
  Speaker: Jeff Campbell, SVP and Chief Government Strategy Officer, Cisco
  As AI continues to transform industries and societies, governments are weighing how to balance innovation with oversight, and the U.S. stance could set the tone for regulatory approaches in other regions. In this session, you’ll gain insight into how U.S. decisions may shape global AI regulation and Cisco’s role in guiding the future of AI policy.
• Offices that Everyone Loves: Smart Tech for Inclusive Spaces
  Speakers: Brian Tippens, SVP, Social Impact & Inclusion, Cisco; Christian Bigsby, SVP, Workplace Resources, Cisco; Stephen Brown, SVP Global Market Development, International Well Building Institute
  Wondering how to make your office a place where everyone feels welcome and productive? Join Cisco’s experts in real estate and social impact & inclusion to see how Cisco blends cutting-edge tech with design to meet the needs of today’s workforce. We’ll share real-life examples of Cisco offices, demonstrating how to create spaces that spark innovation and collaboration while being mindful of accessibility, personal preferences, and wellbeing.  
• Digital Resiliency Unlocked: Power Sustainable, Secure, and Inclusive Communities
  Speakers: Guy Diedrich, SVP and Global Innovation Officer, Cisco; John Paul Morgan, CTO of Morgan Solar;  Dr. Xiang Liu, Ph.D. Director of Rutgers Rail & Transit Program at Rutgers University
  Celebrate a decade of digital transformation with the Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program, which powers sustainable, secure, and inclusive communities. Discover how Cisco’s AI-driven technologies can enhance your operational efficiency and security, revolutionize public transportation systems globally, and bridge the digital skills gap.
• Circular Design Can Increase Efficiency and Cut Costs
  Speakers: Mary de Wysocki, SVP and Chief Sustainability Officer, Cisco; David Stallings, VP of Hardware Engineering, Cisco
  Many IT leaders are tasked with reducing their network’s impact on the environment, all while keeping costs down, maintaining performance, and supporting increased workloads. Cisco is helping you address this challenge through its Circular Design Principles – which can help you keep your hardware in service longer, lower your energy use, reduce e-waste, and even cut costs. Hear from a product engineering leader who is incorporating circular design into the products you use, and see examples of products that can help you address both business- and sustainability benefits to your company. 

Sustainability

We strive to reduce Cisco’s environmental footprint and to use our technology and expertise to help our customers and suppliers reduce theirs. The sustainability demo in the Purpose Pavilion showed how we extend product life through circular programs like product takeback, remanufacture, and reuse.  

And, behind the scenes: here are just some of the ways we reduced our carbon footprint across the event, increasing our landfill diversion rate, and decreasing total waste per person onsite:  

• We don’t serve plastic water bottles at the event – instead, we encouraged attendees to bring their own reusable water bottles and use our onsite water stations. This strategy helped eliminate the use of an estimated 71,000 PET plastic water bottles at Cisco Live ’24*.  
• We leveraged rental inventory. An estimated 500,000 pounds of furniture, furnishings, and kiosks were saved for reuse from Cisco Live ‘24*.  
• We work closely with our venues to donate unserved food. At our Celebration at Cisco Live ’24, we donated almost 7,000 meals to those in need in the community*.  

* This data is based on calculations by MeetGreen and is provided for informational purposes only. 

Demos 

We’ve built the digital highways that have become the backbone for modern communication. Now, we’re harnessing the power of connection to build a better future for people, communities, and the planet, and Cisco Live attendees got hands-on with our latest technology at onsite demos at the Purpose Pavilion. 

We also brought the impressive Cisco Crisis Response Network Emergency Responsible Vehicle (NERV) to show how we support on-the-ground connectivity during humanitarian crises and natural disasters – an essential need when people need access to digital cash, relief benefits, social services, communication with loved ones, and more.  

Powering Purpose Beyond Cisco Live 

Our Purpose goes hand-in-hand with our business strategy. Check out the progress we’ve made to combine our technology, people, and broader networks in our latest FY24 Purpose Report.