At Cisco Partner Summit 2025, we announced the winners of Cisco’s eighth annual Global Partner Innovation Challenge, and this year proved something we’ve long believed: when you give brilliant partners an open platform and real customer challenges to solve, they don’t just meet the moment. They redefine what’s possible.
With $1 million USD in prizes and a record-breaking 40 percent increase in submissions from 26 countries, this year’s challenge demonstrated that our partner ecosystem isn’t just adopting AI. They’re leading with it. The results? Students get mental health support before a crisis hits. Wasted renewable energy powers AI workloads. Returned merchandise stays out of landfills. Clinicians get real-time patient intelligence without lifting a finger.
2025’s Outstanding Winners
Global Grand Prize: Deal My Time ($250K USD)
erlySense transforms student support from reactive to proactive. Built on the Cisco ecosystem, this AI-driven wellness intelligence platform integrates secure networking, AI insights, and real-time collaboration tools to create a continuous safety net for students. By empowering counselors and educators with real-time insights and efficient communication, erlySense enables early intervention, helping students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally before challenges become crises.
In an era where student mental health is a national emergency, erlySense turns technology into a lifeline.
Global 2nd Place Award: KIW ($100K USD)
Splid.AI solves two massive problems at once: the skyrocketing demand for AI compute and the enormous waste of renewable energy due to grid limitations. This sustainable AI marketplace converts unused renewable energy into distributed AI compute power, connecting surplus green energy producers with enterprises needing AI processing. By leveraging Cisco AI PODs and secure, containerized infrastructure, Splid.AI enables high-performance AI workloads to run where and when renewable energy is available, turning wasted energy into fuel for AI innovation.
The result? AI growth that actually accelerates sustainability instead of undermining it.
Global 3rd Place Award: Denali Advanced Integration ($50K USD)
Denali ReLo tackles a challenge most consumers never see: the mountains of returned merchandise that end up in landfills because manual processing is too slow and expensive. This AI machine-vision application leverages a visual language model trained to identify key characteristics of each returned item, automating the subjective decision-making process of how and when to sort and restock. Cisco networking products combined with Splunk, Cybervision, and SEA deliver a solution that scales to support massive retail operations.
Denali ReLo keeps more product in circulation and out of landfills. Good for business, better for the planet.
Artificial Intelligence Award: EVERYANGLE ($200K USD)
Horizons Retail AI transforms Cisco Meraki MV Cameras, Cisco Spaces, Webex, and the Cisco Observability stack (AppDynamics, ThousandEyes, Splunk) into a unified platform for real-time profit optimization. But here’s what sets it apart: Unlike analytics tools that just show you dashboards, Horizons deploys autonomous AI agents that continuously sense conditions, interpret context, and act. They reallocate staff, optimize campaigns, prevent shrinkage, all without requiring additional hardware. For retailers, QSR operators, and consumer brands operating at scale, this isn’t just visibility. It’s intelligent action that improves margins, labor efficiency, and customer experience in real time.
This is agentic AI solving real business problems, right now, at scale.
Partner for Purpose Award Winners
Our Partner for Purpose awards recognize solutions that don’t just drive business value. They make the world measurably better.
Environmental Sustainability Award ($25K USD): Morgan Solar for Energy Blinds
Photovoltaic interior window treatments that transform spaces, improve occupant comfort, and deliver energy savings with payback periods as short as two years. Powered and controlled via Cisco PoE networks.
Environmental Sustainability Award ($25K USD): KIW for Splid.AI
Converting wasted renewable energy into distributed AI compute power, turning a sustainability problem into a resource for AI innovation.
Crisis Response & Human Needs Award ($25K USD): EchoStor Technologies for Friendly Whisper
An AI-powered voice assistant for clinicians that provides real-time, context-aware patient summaries through earpieces or mobile devices. Saves time, reduces errors, and eases burnout in healthcare.
Crisis Response & Human Needs Award ($25K USD): Iron Bow for SignalPoint
Integrating disconnected hospital and campus emergency systems into one seamless workflow with advanced location services that can triangulate 911 callers within five meters. Helping first responders arrive faster and with greater accuracy.
What This Means for You
If you’re a partner wondering where the opportunity is, this is your answer.
Look at erlySense helping students before crisis hits. Look at Splid.AI turning wasted renewable energy into AI compute. Look at Denali ReLo keeping returned inventory out of landfills. Look at Horizons deploying autonomous AI agents that act, not just analyze. Look at Friendly Whisper giving clinicians real-time intelligence without adding to their cognitive load. Look at SignalPoint helping first responders save lives with five-meter accuracy.
The AI era belongs to the partners who can react quickly to market shifts, innovate continuously instead of waiting for annual cycles, and scale efficiently by activating platform capabilities customers didn’t even know were possible.
Congratulations to all our winners. You’re not just building solutions. You’re proving that when we move fast together, innovate continuously, and scale through ecosystem effects, we don’t just compete in the AI era. We lead it.
For more information on the Global Partner Innovation Challenge and how to participate in next year’s competition, visit Cisco’s Global Partner Engineering on SalesConnect.
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