Behind the Pitch: Meet the Students Proposing Bold Ways To Use Cisco Technology for Good

By Scott McGregor

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / January 13, 2026 / Cisco's first Empower & Connect Summit at our campus in Raleigh, NC, brought together partners, innovators, and communities to explore how technology can drive meaningful social impact.

Foto: Accesswire

At the center of that energy was the Community Innovation Challenge. In partnership with Net Impact we invited students from around the world to pitch their boldest ideas: how would they use Cisco technology to address critical challenges in their own communities? We received 84 proposals from 12 countries, with the top five teams advancing to present in person at the Summit. There, a panel of experts evaluated their ideas based on their understanding of community needs, innovative use of technology, and potential for real-world results.

What struck me most wasn't just the technical sophistication of their proposals - it was how deeply these students understood the communities they were designing for, and how they positioned technology as a path to opportunity.

Bold solutions, big impact: Meet the 2025 Innovation Challenge Winners

First place: DinéLink - $10,000
Mahima Subramaniyan and Devangna Jadeja, Arizona State University

Spanning 27,000 square miles of rugged terrain across Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, the Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the United States. Yet for nearly two-thirds of the more than 160,000 people who live there, reliable internet remains out of reach. [1]

Mahima and Devangna's proposal tackled this head-on with a vision for digital sovereignty through DinéLink, a community-owned network designed to withstand the terrain and serve the people who live there. They proposed using Cisco Ultra-Reliable Wireless Backhaul to bypass geographic barriers and reach areas where fiber isn't viable, paired with Meraki access points and security appliances to provide both connectivity and network management at scale. Solar-powered hubs would ensure reliability in remote areas, while Catalyst infrastructure would reduce dependency on traditional fiber networks. But what set DinéLink apart was the emphasis on building for the long-term by proposing to embed Cisco Networking Academy training through Diné College and Navajo Technical University, so the community doesn't just get connectivity, but also the workforce to maintain and expand it themselves.

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