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Welcome to the 8th Annual Global Cisco Partner Innovation Challenge!
The Cisco Partner Innovation Challenge aims to enhance customer experiences through innovation, collaboration, and skilled personnel by engaging partners in developing groundbreaking solutions using Cisco APIs. This annual global competition, now in its 8th year, has awarded over $4.2 million to winners worldwide, and for 2025 we're increasing our grand prize from $200,000 to $250,000. We are also pleased to announce the return of the $200,000 prize for the best AI innovation, and our continued collaboration with Partnering for Purpose (P4P). The challenge emphasizes ecosystem amplification, skills transformation, and value creation by encouraging partners to expand Cisco's technology impact, transition from hardware to software expertise, and create new revenue streams. Cisco's strategic vision includes fostering innovation among partners to leverage emerging technologies like AI, which significantly contribute to solving customer problems and extending the value of the Cisco platform.
Keep reading for full details!
Who can participate?
Any registered Cisco re-seller partner company, globally, that is in good standing with Cisco (Note: Distis are excluded).
Each partner company can submit only one innovation for the Cisco Partner Innovation Challenge. If multiple submissions are made from the same location, the Challenge Team will contact the partners to decide which innovation to submit. Click here to locate your company's BEGEOID.
Each team is allowed up to five people maximum.
What can the partner company win?
Summary: Prizes are available at the global level, as well as prizes for the top AI innovation and Partnering For Purpose (P4P) innovations.
P4P categories are: Environmental Sustainability, Crisis Response, Digital Inclusion, and Employee & Economic Empowerment.
Breakdown:
Global Awards: Grand prize - $250K, 2nd place - $100K, 3rd place $50K.
APJC partners must first win the regional challenge ($50K per region: Japan, Korea, India, China Australia / New Zealand, & ASEAN) to be eligible for global awards.
All entries globally, REGARDLESS OF GEO, will qualify for the AI award and Partnering For Purpose (P4P), assuming the innovation has an AI or P4P component, as indicated on the submission form.
In total, EMEA / AMER partners could win up to $475K. In total, APJC partners could win up to $525K.
What is the challenge timeline and when will winners be announced?
The challenge submission period runs from May 2025 through September 5, 2025
Judging will occur from September 8, 2025, through October 1, 2025
Preparation for Partner Summit will occur in October 2025 (Finalists will be notified during this period)
Winners will be announced at Cisco Partner Summit, November 3 - 5, 2025
Aside from the monetary prizes, what else will the partner company gain?
During Partner Summit, winners will be announced main stage during one of Rodney Clark's keynotes and winners will be interviewed by various Public Relations individuals.
Visibility to Cisco Sales and Engineering teams.
Select winners may be invited to Cisco's internal Global Sales Experience (GSX) to discuss the innovation and the challenge during one of Alex Pujol's sessions (VP Global Partner Engineering).
How to Get Started
Create Your Team:
Determine who your team leader will be. The team leader will need to:
Register and create an account on this site,
Create a team by selecting "My Team" on the left menu
Invite other individuals to join the team (up to 5 members per team, maximum). Invited team members will receive in invitation via email.
Start Your Submission:
Click the “Submit” button in the left menu
Save your progress via the “Save” button at the bottom of the page
Edit your submission via the “Submit” button in the left menu, then “View Submission”
Complete your submission by the deadline of September 5, 2025
Need help? Please email the team at PartnerInnovationChallenge@cisco.com, and visit our SalesConnect page for full challenge details. A copy of the submission questions can be found here.
Note: All submissions will be reviewed and judged by a team of business and technical panelists made up of Cisco employees and representatives, who are experts in their field.
EXCLUDING THE AI AWARD, judging criteria is weighted as follows:
Innovation and Creativity: 30 points
Technical Achievement: 30 points
Customer Benefit: 20 points
Market Potential: 10 points
Quality and Presentation: 10 points
The AI Award judging criteria is weighted as 20 points for each category: Innovation, Impact, Cisco Alignment, Technical Feasibility, & Scalability
"Winning the Cisco Innovation Award has provided credibility and boosted interest from partners, and allowed for investment in AI functionality."
Martin Saunders, COO, Highlight
"The innovation award has been a game changer for us. The award is more than just the monetary value. It goes to the partnership level, and the support that we've had from Cisco and all the teams included. We have doors open to us now, which we didn't have before. We're constantly innovating the solution that we have in place. And it's great when we're talking to our clients that we can say that we have been awarded the innovation award."
Tim Ormrod, COO, SplashAccess
"The award provided both validation and the resources to advance early engagement. It enabled us to allocate time and technical resources toward refining the architecture and identifying integration points between AI video analytics and railway operational systems."
Daniel Stuckey, Program Manager, Madison Technologies
"We would not have had the sponsorships & endorsements without the innovation award in APAC & Globally. The monetary award allowed us to invest in R&D for AI functionality."
Haydn Faltyn, CEO & Co-Founder, BroadSource