Cisco announces winners of inaugural Young Women’s IoT Innovation Challenge
August 4, 2015
By
Alyssa Dalton
Aug. 4, 2015 – Today Cisco announced the winners of the first ever Internet of Things (IoT) World Forum Young Women’s Innovation Grand Challenge.
The Young Women’s Innovation Grand Challenge is a global competition open to young women between the ages of 13-18. Participants were tasked with suggesting new IoT solutions and technologies to connect more devices and everyday objects to the internet or other networks to address challenges in education, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, retail, transportation, smart cities, or other industries.
Top winners received cash prizes for investing in their education or respective innovative ideas. Through the competition, Cisco captured the attention of more than 1500 girls, and witnessed the diverse set of global submissions from 171 countries.
Congratulations to the following Canadian winners:
2nd place – $10,000
• Cynthia Z. – Interactive shower (environmental cateorgory)
• Kathy H. and Ananya N. – The Book of Everything (education category)
3rd place – $5,000
• Amy Q. – Arthritis Prevention Through Motion Detection (healthcare category)
“Cisco’s Young Women’s Innovation Grand Challenge showcases an exceptionally high level of quality ideas that advance the Internet of Things, a wave of innovation that is expected to be more profound than the previous Internet revolution,” said Whitney Rockley, a judge for the challenge, and co-founder and managing partner of McRock Capital, an industrial Internet venture capital fund. “McRock is passionate about inspiring more girls and women to pursue careers in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] so this challenge gives us great insight and comfort to know that these young women will transform the world we live in.”
The Women’s Innovation Grand Challenge officially kicked off at the 2014 IoT World Forum in Chicago, Ill., and the panel of judges comprised Cisco and industry leaders who focus on women in IoT, venture capital, universities, and learning centres with an emphasis in STEM.
