Cisco's largest social investment began in 1997, when we developed a curriculum to train instructors, staff, and students to design, install, and maintain networks in their schools. Since then, the Cisco Networking Academy program has been established in all 50 U.S. states and in more than 165 countries. The skills developed through the program can help students in underserved communities build secure economic futures for themselves and their families, while actively contributing to the growth of the IT industry and the integration of their countries into the world economy.

Currently more than 33,000 instructors are teaching networking curricula in nine languages to more than 430,000 students. Since the program began, it has served more than two million students, who have taken more than 51 million exams. By training local staff and teachers, these academies provide self-sustaining models for continuing education in these communities.

Today, Cisco is reinvesting in this successful program, in recognition of its upcoming ten-year anniversary, and the fact that IT is a growing field that affords the opportunity for life-long learning. In particular, we are developing course work that addresses students' individual educational levels, as well as providing professional development for teachers related to using technology in education. Cisco also is improving the IT infrastructure that supports the entire Networking Academy program.

Cisco Networking Academy News Around the World

Africa

• In collaboration with the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Volunteers, and the United States Agency for International Development, Cisco developed what it calls Plan-IT toolkits, which list guidelines to help academies become financially independent and thus sustainable.

Asia

• Vietnam: A first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region, this program is being offered at a rehabilitation center for commercial sex workers, drug users, and HIV-positive women to provide basic IT training and skills.
• Thailand and Sri Lanka: IT Essentials training helps youth rebuild networks in the areas hit by the 2004 tsunami.
• Indonesia: Cisco partnered with the Ministry of Education, which agreed to extend the Networking Academy program to 400 vocational schools across the country.

Europe

• United Kingdom: Leicester Chamber of Commerce, telecommunications company BT Skynet, and recruitment agency SME-Centric partnered with the Networking Academy program to place students in jobs with small local businesses.
• France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, and United Kingdom: Prison classes include the Networking Academy program as part of its curriculum to help inmates attain skills for further study or jobs.
• European Union: Cisco is leading the Skills for Employability initiative through its chairmanship of a European industry association for information and communications technology training called e-Skills Certifications Consortium. The project aims to bring technology skills to the unemployed, aged, and disadvantaged across Europe, with pilot programs launched in Belgium, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

United States

• In an effort to raise awareness of careers in information technology, 230 Cisco employees donated their time to serve as hosts at more than 70 Job Shadow Day events across the United States, during which 3,100 Networking Academy students interacted with IT professionals to learn more about the industry and potential careers.
• After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Cisco sponsored four students and two instructors from West Virginia University in Parkersburg to travel to Louisiana and help the National Guard build a Network Operations Center. The students applied their skills learned through the Networking Academy program and had the center operational within 24 hours.