Cisco held its first Tech for Social Good Hackathon in early 2026, mobilizing over 160 engineers across 27 teams to build AI-powered tools for seven nonprofit partners focused on climate resilience and economic opportunity. Teams tackled real operational problems — from automating handwritten document verification for a reforestation program in India to building donor prospect platforms — with an emphasis on ethical, human-centered design. Nonprofits reported that the solutions were deployable and sparked broader conversations about workflow automation. Cisco frames skills-based volunteering as a scalable social impact model, with plans to expand the program into Crisis Response and Education sectors.
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Inside the build to develop ethical AI solutions for nonprofit partners“The Tech for Social Good Hackathon reminded me that the skills we hone and develop every day at Cisco can be genuinely life-changing for communities that have never had access to them.” – Sathwik Kothapalli, Cisco engineer“Financial contributions and corporate donations matter, but building a working AI solution that a nonprofit can actually deploy — that’s a fundamentally different kind of partnership.” – Abhishek Kumar, Cisco engineerDeployable tools, lasting impactThe case for skills-based volunteering as a social impact strategy285 Impressions