Abilities-based volunteering for the AI period: Inside Cisco’s first Tech for Social Good Hackathon

Many nonprofits know they should embrace AI, and most are already feeling the strain to maneuver sooner than their assets permit.  AI is advancing at a velocity that’s exhausting for them to maintain tempo with, not to mention undertake responsibly. For mission-driven organizations with lean groups and restricted assets, the query isn’t simply the right way to implement AI. It’s the right way to do it ethically and in ways in which help the long-term wellbeing of the communities they serve.

At Cisco, we consider that technological experience, deployed with goal, is without doubt one of the strongest assets we are able to provide our nonprofit companions. Past monetary funding and entry to know-how, what many nonprofits want is direct entry to individuals who perceive this AI second deeply and will help them translate that information into observe.

That conviction formed our first annual Tech for Social Good Hackathon. In early 2026, greater than 160 Cisco specialists volunteered to kind 27 groups and spent one week constructing AI-powered options for seven Cisco Basis nonprofit companions working throughout local weather resilience and financial alternative. Every crew began with an precise downside assertion submitted by the nonprofit group and a mandate to resolve the issue responsibly.

Contained in the construct to develop moral AI options for nonprofit companions

Throughout all 27 groups, the best options shared one thing in widespread: they had been constructed by volunteers who thought as a lot in regards to the individuals implementing the instruments as the issues the instruments had been fixing. As Venkata Naga Rajesh Badveti, a Cisco engineer who designed a workflow resolution for Era’s curriculum growth crew, which creates classes for hundreds of learners worldwide, put it: “AI is a multiplier, not a standalone resolution. It really works greatest when it amplifies human experience moderately than changing it.”

That mindset prolonged to how groups thought in regards to the communities their options would in the end serve. Sathwik Kothapalli labored with Farmers for Forests on an AI instrument to automate the verification of handwritten paperwork in a number of regional languages, a prerequisite for farmers becoming a member of the nonprofit’s reforestation program in India. His crew constructed for velocity with out sacrificing accuracy, embedding human evaluate at each step with a clear-eyed understanding of what was at stake for every particular person within the course of. “Realizing {that a} farmer in rural Maharashtra may get verified sooner and be part of a reforestation program sooner due to code I wrote made this probably the most significant mission of my profession,” Sathwik shared.

“The Tech for Social Good Hackathon jogged my memory that the abilities we hone and develop on daily basis at Cisco may be genuinely life-changing for communities which have by no means had entry to them.”
– Sathwik Kothapalli, Cisco engineer

Abhishek Kumar, who helped construct a donor prospect platform for Alternative Worldwide, introduced each hands-on engineering depth and the systems-level pondering that comes from managing technical groups. “These are the sorts of operational bottlenecks I assist my very own groups remedy on daily basis, and seeing that very same sample at a nonprofit strengthened how transferable our expertise actually are.” Greater than the technical output, although, he noticed the Hackathon as an emblem of what partnership with Cisco seems like: “An occasion just like the Hackathon alerts that we see our companions as organizations with actual operational challenges that deserve the identical caliber of engineering we carry to our prospects.”

“Monetary contributions and company donations matter, however constructing a working AI resolution {that a} nonprofit can really deploy — that’s a basically completely different type of partnership.”
– Abhishek Kumar, Cisco engineer

For Cisco volunteers, the expertise was significant. They deepened their AI experience, collaborated throughout groups, and noticed speedy influence from their work, all of which strengthened each particular person talent and organizational tradition.

Deployable instruments, lasting influence

The suggestions from collaborating organizations was equally constant: the volunteers got here able to pay attention and provide tailor-made options, and left their companions energized about what else was doable. “You not solely discovered nice one-stop-shop options for a number of points we’re attempting to resolve,” says Maja Cimpric, Digital Product Lead at Era. “This complete expertise can also be triggering nice follow-up conversations on our crew about our workflows and different potential for automations, which we’re assured will result in extra thrilling initiatives down the street.”

That sample, an answer that solves the issue and reframes what’s doable, confirmed up throughout organizations. Jennifer Wolford, Operation Hope‘s Chief Innovation Officer, mirrored: “Working with Cisco’s crew made it clear how shortly the proper technical experience can flip concepts into actual, usable options that enhance how we serve our purchasers. That type of collaboration is what permits us to undertake rising know-how in a approach that really scales influence.”

For some nonprofits, the Hackathon represented one thing extra basic: an opportunity to maneuver previous the guide, resource-intensive methods of working which have traditionally restricted their attain. Jessica White, Director of Information Analytics and Techniques Integrations at Alternative Worldwide, described it in concrete phrases: “They took a course of that was beforehand inconsistent and exhausting to scale and turned it into one thing actionable. That shift from guide effort to strategic motion has actual potential to extend fundraising and broaden our influence for the purchasers we serve.”

The case for skills-based volunteering as a social influence technique

Cisco has lengthy invested in its nonprofit companions by offering funding and know-how, however skills-based volunteering, at this stage of rigor and technical depth, represents one thing additive: a possibility for the type of engaged, purposeful experience that helps organizations construct actual AI functionality from the within out.

“As we live and evolving within the AI period, we at Cisco have a novel alternative to make a right away influence with nonprofits by way of our state-of-the-art know-how,” mentioned Tim Barnes, Cisco engineer who labored with NESsT. “Think about if we did this for all of society’s challenges? We may streamline and improve nonprofit operations, releasing funds for them to elongate attain, widen scope, and allow them to raised assist these in want.”

The Tech for Social Good program will continue to grow. We’re bringing extra volunteers and companions into this mannequin — our subsequent cohort will broaden into Disaster Response and Schooling sectors — as a result of the outcomes counsel it’s price scaling. In a second when AI fluency is turning into a prerequisite for nonprofit effectiveness, that is yet another approach Cisco will help shut the hole.