On a night that featured one of Hollywood's most powerful moguls, nothing could steal the show from the passion, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit of the organizations honored at the Cisco Growing with Technology Awards 2005. Cisco created the awards program to recognize smaller organizations that are using technology in innovative ways.

The winners represent an intriguing variety of industries, from education to robotics, and have applied technology in creative ways to address their particular business challenges while they streamline operations, create new market opportunities, and better serve customers. "Ahead of the Curve" profiles the five grand prize winners and also introduces the runners-up.

While each winning organization was inspiring in its own way, I found two recipients in the nonprofit category particularly interesting:

• The Georgia Legal Services Program is using its network to facilitate access to legal assistance for citizens who need it most, while also making life easier for the 1,000 or so attorneys who donate their time.
• Network technology has revolutionized how the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children fulfills its mission to locate missing or abducted children. With technology the group has improved its recovery rate from 62% to 94% and helped reunite nearly 2,000 families separated during rescue efforts in the devastating hurricanes on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

And what of the movie mogul? Jerry Bruckheimer is accustomed to accepting entertainment industry awards, but this time the award was for his phones. Cisco honored Jerry Bruckheimer Films for transforming its business communications by converging its voice and data network and implementing IP Communications.

On this night, Bruckheimer shared the spotlight with a new group of leading men and women, a truly amazing array of SMB technology innovators.

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iQ Magazine, Fourth Quarter 2005