News Release

Cisco Hosts Its First Innovation Showcase in India

'Cisco Innovation World' showcases networking and collaboration technologies across banking, retail, healthcare and other sectors
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May 27, 2009

BANGALORE, India, May 27, 2009 - Cisco ® hosted its first 'Cisco Innovation World', between 25th and 27th May, to celebrate the company's culture of innovation. Held at the Cisco Globalisation Centre East in Bangalore, the event is a major milestone in the company's efforts to showcase the technology innovations from various teams at the Cisco India. Employees, customers and partners were treated to three days of vision and learning around latest Cisco technologies by way of exhibitions and demos of key innovations at Cisco India, tech talks and panel discussions.

Some of the key demonstrations showcased at the event included 'Branch of the Future'- a solution that enables head-office like efficient and cost effective operations at a bank's branch office; Common Service Center - a rural banking and TeleHealth Solution; Cisco Virtual Office Home Networking solutions for remote working; data center and virtualization solutions; solutions for Smart+Connected Communities and other solutions for collaboration, mobility and unified communication.

"Cisco Innovation World represents a coming together of all functions and teams at Cisco India, with the aim of encouraging and showcasing the culture of innovation. We also believe in an open relationship with our ecosystem partners, and such events ensure that all our key stakeholders are able to interact and understand each other's challenges and opportunities - creating a deeper culture of interaction and integration", said Aravind Sitaraman, Vice President and Managing Director, Cisco Development Organisation, India.

Over 150 representatives from 59 companies and 9 government departments attended the event. The exhibition had 17 stalls showcasing over 80 demos.

The speaker sessions featured Cisco leaders including Wim Elfrink, Chief Globalisation Officer, Cisco and EVP, Cisco Services, as well as other industry luminaries like Kiran Karnik, Trustee and former president of NASSCOM, who led a session on 'India as an Emerging Global Leader in Product Innovation'. Other illustrious speakers included Bobby Mitra, Managing Director, Texas Instruments India, Guillermo Wille, Head of Jack Welch Centre, V R Mehta Director, Tata Motors and Prof. V. Raghunathan, IIM-A.

Innovation within Cisco was recognized and rewarded through Innovation Storm, an internal contest for which Cisco employees were asked to submit winning technology concept ideas. An award for highest patents holders among employees was also announced.

Cisco India Women's Action Network (WAN), an employee network organised the third "Connected Women Leadership Forum" to empower Cisco women and their peers in IT on May 27. The forum consisted of keynotes, panel discussions, workshops on gender diversity and innovation by eminent industry leaders like Hemu Ramaiah, Managing Director (Former CEO of Landmark), Shop 4 Solutions Pvt Ltd; Vani Kola, Managing Director, IndoUS Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd; Usha Mohan, Managing Director, Triumph India Software Services Ltd, Lance Perry, Vice President, Information Technology, Cisco and Rama NS, Development Center Head, Infosys, Bangalore and other successful women entrepreneurs and professionals.

Overall, the three day Cisco Innovation World 2009 event was a confluence of ideas and insights on leadership, building an ecosystem for customer driven innovation and the development of applications that leverage the intelligence of the network.