Cisco Announces Winners of 2011 Innovation Awards

Cisco Awards Honour Achievements in the Deployment and Implementation of Innovative Technologies

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 13 April 2011: Cisco today announced the winners of its 2011 Innovation Awards, which recognise organisations that embrace new and advanced technology whilst leading the field in delivering tangible benefits for business and society.

The winners, which represent a diverse range of industry sectors encompassing technology, communications and service delivery, were chosen for their achievements in the deployment and implementation of innovative technologies. All shortlisted finalists and winners participated in an awards ceremony hosted via Cisco TelePresence® , the ‘real-life’ meeting experience delivered through high-definition video, on Monday 11 April 2011.

Highlights / Key Facts

• The winners were selected from three to four shortlisted finalists in six categories: Most Innovative Data Center Project, Most Innovative Mobility/Virtual Enterprise Project, Most Innovative Hosted/Cloud Service, Most Innovative Collaboration Project, Most Society Impacting Network and Most Innovative Business Impacting Network.
• The judging panel comprised nine leading experts in the ICT industry:
• Jawad Abbassi, founder and general manager, Arab Advisors Group
• Axel Clauberg, systems engineering director, Solutions and Architectures, Emerging Markets Theatre, Cisco
• John Gole, program director, Telecommunications Group in Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa, IDC
• Faiz Khan, senior director, Advanced Services Emerging Markets, Cisco
• Angus MacCormick, senior director for Strategic Customers and Advanced Technologies, Emerging Markets, Cisco
• Willie Oosthuysen, systems engineering director, Cisco
• Kavitha Rajasekhar, associate publisher and managing editor of IT at CPI
• Jeevan Thankappan, editor of Network World Middle East
• Ad Verboven, director, Technical Operations, Emerging East, Cisco
• The 2011 Cisco Innovation Awards are as follows:
• Most Innovative Data Center Project – awarded to Saudi Telecom Company, Saudi Arabia, for STC VBlock Managed Data Center. Judging was based on the demonstration of a new or significantly rebuilt data center facility that showed innovation in the areas of data center design, building and operation, and the adoption of a new business model such as pay as you go, pay per use, risk sharing or revenue sharing.
• Most Innovative Mobility/Virtual Enterprise Project – awarded to Polish Border Guard, Poland, for the Polish Border Guard Wireless Communications Network. Recognition was given for  the adoption of a new architectural platform that enabled borderless organization collaboration to develop and grow. Judges were also looking for a creative and innovative solution that increased productivity whilst reducing the impact on the environment.
• Most Innovative Hosted/Cloud Service – awarded to Euronet Worldwide,  EFT Europe, Hungary, for New Cloud Model: Virtualized Hosted Finance Application Services for the EMEA Region. The solution’s cloud architecture helped enable the winner to provide hybrid cloud services, serving both the internal information technology department as well as customers in a flexible pay-per-usage model, scaling the capacity on demand. The service embeds a complete orchestration layer that includes Cisco and Cisco Partners and that uses the virtualization of IT, network resources, services and appliances whilst providing resource, traffic and application optimization.
• Most Innovative Collaboration Project – awarded to Magyar Telekom, Hungary, for VideoGate Videoconferencing Solution. The winner demonstrated the broadest possible use of the entire Cisco Collaboration solutions portfolio, which led to financial savings, productivity gains, employee education and a reduced environmental impact. Magyar Telekom was also commended for innovatively applying Cisco Unified Communications in a specific vertical sector as well as for the pervasive use of video and the adoption of a new business model.
• Most Society Impacting Network – awarded to Qatar Foundation, Qatar, for Qatar Foundation Research and Education Network. The winner offered an Internet Protocol-based solution based on Cisco’s IP Next-Generation Network architecture, which benefits society and provides the ability to collaborate in community building. The network needed to have independent, easily accessed locations for all citizens as well as an architecture, built on top of a Cisco Borderless Networks platform, that improved GDP productivity through next-generation services.
• Most Innovative Business Impacting Network – awarded to Emirates Aluminum, United Arab Emirates, for Cisco Ethernet-to-the-Factory. The key winning criterion in this category was the provision of innovative network-centric services such as flexible and highly secure network access, collaboration technologies, and solutions aimed at improving life and health . Through utilising the network, the winner improved its customers’ experience, optimised its financial, human and environmental resources, and enabled new business models.

Executive Quotes

• Duncan Mitchell, senior vice president, Cisco Emerging Markets:

“I was extremely pleased to host our Innovation Awards ceremony via Cisco’s TelePresence technology. From Dubai, United Arab Emirates, we connected 16 nations, spanning a total of 50,000 air miles, with Doha, Qatar, as our nearest location and Santiago, Chile, as our furthermost location. Together, we celebrated the very best talent and technology in action, whilst uniting and recognising a collaborative and sustainable community that will continue to harness the power of ICT to accelerate change throughout organisations and nations.”

Links / URLs:

• Emerging Markets RSS Feed:
  http://newsroom.cisco.com/data/syndication/rss2/EmergingMarkets.xml
• Middle East News:
  http://newsroom.cisco.com/me

About Cisco Systems

Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com . For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com .

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