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Letter from Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs
Whether we are speaking of a company, a society, or the planet itself, long-term sustainability requires collaboration on a global scale. As this year’s Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility Report points out, Cisco collaborates with a variety of public, private, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners in a broad range of social responsibility initiatives, all of them enhanced by the power of networking.
Cisco recognizes that prosperity and human well-being flourish only when people’s basic needs have been met and they have the knowledge and practical skills to reach their potential within a social and economic framework that allows them to succeed. Food, shelter, health, and security are essential to human life. But education is a major catalyst that makes sustainable prosperity possible in communities around the world.
Future global economic growth and social progress depend on providing students with a learning environment that adequately prepares them to make a living and to contribute to their communities in an increasingly knowledge-based economy. Unfortunately, however, educational practices have not always kept pace with the needs of today’s students and employers. Cisco is working in partnership with public and academic institutions to help transform education through the Cisco Networking Academy, the 21st Century Schools Initiative, and other global initiatives based on a holistic blueprint for educational reform.
Since the inception of the Networking Academy, more than 2.6 million students have participated in courses in more than 160 countries. We revamped 70 percent of the curricula over the last year and a half to stay current with new developments and learning styles, and now offer courses in all six United Nations languages and five other languages as of the end of FY08. Cisco and our partners in the Least Developed Countries Initiative have helped more than 70,000 students in over 40 countries in the developing world to obtain an IT education. Of the 18,000 students who have passed the Cisco CCNA course, 31 percent are women.
To meet basic human needs, Cisco and our employees are involved in a wealth of programs in partnership with public sector organizations and NGOs to improve life in impoverished and underserved communities. We invest in and support programs that not only deliver immediate benefits, but also have the potential to grow to serve additional populations. We also look for strong programs that can sustain themselves over time. And because we believe in the power of the network to improve people’s lives everywhere, we focus on programs that take advantage of the Internet and web 2.0 technologies.
Our employees are generous with their time and money, as individuals and as members of Cisco affinity groups and community organizations. In addition, our Leadership Fellows program places some of our most gifted employees in local and global nonprofits, where they work to provide guidance and management expertise.
The 2008 Corporate Social Responsibility Report provides an overview of our efforts in FY08, and also offers a look forward as we continue to expand our existing initiatives and undertake exciting new ones in concert with our partners.